African farmers should participate in the gene revolution

by Dean Kleckner*

The day after President Bush presented Norman Borlaug with the Congressional Gold Medal, the recipient described the great challenges that await agriculture in the 21st century as "persistent poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries, changing global climate patterns, and the use of food crops to produce biofuels."

He might have added another category : meddlesome former United Nations officials who issue confusing statements. That's because Kofi Annan, who stepped down as the UN's secretary general at the start of this year, is busy telling African farmers that they don't need biotechnology. Or so it would seem.

Annan is now Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and he recently appeared to take a stand against the Gene Revolution when he said "We in (AGRA) will not incorporate GMOs in our programs."

But did Annan really mean what he was quoted as saying? Some have suggested that he didn't, that he was merely responding to the reality that African farmers can't afford genetically enhanced seeds and that some African governments lack the regulatory mechanisms to take proper advantage of the latest agricultural technology.

If Annan was misquoted or misinterpreted, then he has my sympathy : As we all know, the media sometimes gets the facts wrong. Yet there's one man who can clear up this mix-up, assuming it really is a mix-up, and that's Kofi Annan. So far, I haven't heard him issue the full-throated endorsement of GM crops that a leader truly committed to the future of African farming would deliver.

AGRA has many good ideas. They recommend an improved infrastructure for Africa, better market opportunities for its farmers, the nurturing of native-born scientists, and smarter government policies, all good common sense suggestions. These strategies are what prompted the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to invest $150 million in its program last year.

What African farmers need more than anything else, however, are better seeds. AGRA's own website says that "at the most fundamental level, agricultural progress on the continent starts with improved crop varieties for larger, more diverse, and more reliable harvests." In the 21st century, that means unfettered access to GM seeds while continuing to work with old technologies.

Biotech crops are not a cure-all for the world's agricultural dilemmas, to say nothing of the especially thorny problems that farmers face on the world's most desperate continent. But it would certainly help Africa if scientists could apply their intelligence to improving beans, peanuts, tropical roots, bananas, and tubers with biotechnology. The biotech option, without question, has helped farmers all over the world-so much so, in fact, that they've planted and harvested well over one and a half billion acres of GM crops.

Why anybody would want to deny African farmers the choice of achieving similar benefits is beyond me. There's no special reason why farmers in Africa should not participate as equal partners in the Gene Revolution, except for figures like Annan telling them not to bother.

*Dean Kleckner, an Iowa farmer, chairs Truth About Trade & Technology