Kenyan Ban On GM Crops To Be Lifted

Genetically modified organism (GMO) crops and products soon will be allowed in Kenya, where a ban on the technology has been in place since 2012.

While Kenya has made significant progress on GMOs in terms of enacting watertight regulations and controlled research on crops such as Bt maize, Bt cotton, cassava, sorghum, and sweet potato, the ban has meant the country cannot progress to the commercialization stage.

For the East African nation the move toward lifting the ban is timely and well informed. It comes hot on the heels of widespread studies that have validated the safety of GM crops and repudiated the Seralini paper, the controversial study by Gilles-Eric Seralini that alleges GMOs cause cancer and which Kenya used in justifying the ban.

For Kenya, lifting the ban would mean the country is only the fourth nation in Africa to allow commercialization of GM crop, following South Africa, Sudan, and Nigeria.

South Africa allows for food crops in the form of biotech maize, soybeans, and cotton, while Sudan allows biotech cotton. Nigeria has become the latest country to allow GM crops, with open cultivation of cotton and cowpea.

Full article...

South Africa Says Monsant's 'Drought Tolerant' GM Maize Seed No Better Than Conventional Seed

South Africa's Agriculture Minister, Thoko Didiza, has upheld a decision to reject agriculture chemical company Monsanto's application for the commercial cultivation of its triple stacked ‘drought-tolerant’ maize seed.

The maize is genetically modified (GM) to be tolerant to drought as well as resistant to certain insects.

Didiza made a final decision on an appeal lodged by Monsanto SA against the decision taken by the executive council regarding the general release application of a GM maize event, MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603.

Its refusal was based on the fact "that kernel count per row and kernel count per ear showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event and conventional maize in water limited conditions.

"The yield benefits associated with the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event were inconsistent and in some trials the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event had lower yields than the conventional maize.

"The insect resistance data presented was insufficient since it was only collected from one trial site for two planting seasons," her department said in a statement issued October 04 m2019 .

Monsanto lodged an appeal in November against the refusal of its general release application by the executive council.

The appeal board upheld the decision to refuse the application and recommended more sites and seasons were needed to demonstrate efficacy of the drought tolerance gene.

On August 28, Didiza made the final decision, upholding the appeal board's decision "and as such the refusal of a general release application for the MON87460 x MON89034 x NK603 maize event is sustained".

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) welcomed the "landmark decision", after more than a decade of "battling Monsanto’s bogus drought tolerant maize project".

The decision, it said, was a "triumphant win" for the ACB and other civil society organisations on the continent that had "tirelessly resisted the introduction of these GM varieties in SA, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

"The Minister's decision was made following the abject failure of the GM varieties to increase yield under drought conditions during repeated field trials in SA.

Full article...

Ethiopia Is Embracing GMOs Slowly, Quietly

Global conglomerates of farm inputs, seeds, fertilizer, GMO crops providers, are coming to Ethiopia. Are they bringing a miraculous solution to the country’s food security problem, as they claim or delayed toxicity, as detractors argue?

Twenty-five large French companies and entities in the agricultural field will be making an exploratory visit to Ethiopia from 15 September to 19 September 2019, according to the Ethiopian Embassy in France.

Most of them are from an international agricultural co-operative called Limagrain Group, a group of radical rural campaigners claiming to be in favour of open-field [GM] experiments. Established as a cooperative, the French group is active in the field of vegetable seeds and field crops (corn, wheat, etc.) via the Vilmorin listed company, of which it controls 72.5% of the capital.

The company has been providing the corn and soybean seeds that it develops in similar climates in Latin America and Asia to West African countries such as Cameroon, Mali and Senegal. More than 330,000 tons of grain are processed each year in seven production plants across Europe, according to Limagrain.

In 2014, Limagrain invested up to US$60 million for a 28% stake in SeedCo, one of Africa’s largest home-grown seed companies, despite opposition from certain corners. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a Pan African platform comprising networks and farmer organizations described Limagrain’s move as an attempt to devour the continent’s seed company through acquisition and neo-colonial occupation by the French to benefit from SeedCo’s involvement in input subsidy schemes in Africa.

The Ethiopian officials consider the arrival of multinational companies in the agricultural and other sectors as a welcome move in a bid to help the country become self-sufficient and potentially exporters of food.

However, critics say some fundamental issues, such as the effects of the imported seeds, fertilizers and genetically modified crops, and the ecological, economic impacts of introducing new plants into the environment are being glossed over for the sake of presenting it all in a positive light.

“Whoever controls the seed market controls the food supply and the people. Technology can be good if properly utilized, but the issue of power concentration in few hands is worrying”, says Teshome Hunduma, who is currently doing research on seed system development from Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Farmers cannot save and reuse hybrid seeds as the yield decreases when recycled. They have to buy every year and this creates dependency.

Limagrain describes its products, not as GMO but rather seed selection and varietal cross-breeding to offer more productive varieties. Explaining the nature and virtue of those grain and seeds, Frédéric Savin, Limagrin’s Africa director says “It is a hybrid variety. It offers substantial progress. Compared with the local variety, the result is nearly double.” Teshome agrees with Mr. Savin on the high yield that farmers get from hybrid seeds. The problem is that “farmers cannot save and reuse hybrid seeds as the yield decreases when recycled. They have to buy every year and this creates dependency. Which means it is risky when the company fails to supply seeds due to various reasons and decide on the price of these seeds. Farmers prefer open-pollinated varieties for the purpose of saving and reuse,” explains Teshome.

Even in its own turf, the company has been facing resistance and opposition from a broad range of farm, consumer, environmental and health organizations. In January 2018, Limagrain’s two plots of wheat had been destroyed in Seine-et-Marne, France by mowers who accused of the company running “hidden GMOs.” The company lamented that its one year of field trials was lost, costing it around one million euros.

Limagrain is not completely new to Ethiopia. It has already been collaborating with an intermediary, an Israeli-based NGO (some say a lobbyist), Fair Planet to provide seeds to Ethiopian farmers for the past three years.

On its website, Fair Planet says it works to “increase food security and provide new economic opportunities for smallholder farmers in developing countries, through access to high-quality seed varieties.” To secure those seeds, Fair Planet partners with the global agribusiness conglomerates. Other than Limagrain, these include Switzerland’s Syngenta, Netherland’s Enza Zaden and East-West Seed, Germany’s Bayer-Monsanto. Whether big multinational companies selling seeds to small farmers are the solution remain a question among certain professionals.

Stating that the subsistence farming method in Ethiopia is inefficient and marked by significantly lower yields, Fair Planet claims that farmers working with it can increase productivity more than five times and increase income up to eight times. However, AFSA objects to this characterization. “The vast bulk of food produced on the continent comes from homegrown farmers’ seeds (some studies put the figure at 80%). If these seeds are so “backward,” what moves farmers to keep preserving and planting them?” it asks in one of its newsletters.

BASF, another German chemical group and the world’s third-largest crop chemicals supplier, has also been active in the Ethiopian vegetable seed business since August 2018. Abnet Belachew, country manager to Ethiopia with BASF trade office said that the group works to complete the agricultural solutions concentrated around biological and chemical deliverables, soil fertility enhancement and pest and diseases protections. In addition to products that help deter infestations of fall armyworm in maize, BASF has been supplying diverse pesticides for crop protection, he said.

Yet BASF’s genetically modified products have not been always welcomed in Europe. Three of the first genetically modified potatoes were forbidden from being sold in Europe in January 2013, forcing the company to withdraw its applications for marketing authorization in the European Union.

Ethiopia has long been resisting genetically modified organisms and food options that are often adulterated by pesticides, despite intensive lobbying, often by the purveyors of GMO seeds, multi-national giants. However, all indications are it is now succumbing to the promises of GMOs, gradually and discretely.

Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture division of the American brand DowDuPont, opened its office in Addis Ababa in mid-April, 2019. The company says it is focused on bringing farmers “best-in-class seeds and crop protection solutions”, to maximize the farmer’s yields and improve their profitability in these markets, as it was stated at the launching ceremony.

However, what was not mentioned was how lawmakers in several states of the USA were trying to ban one of its products, a pesticide called chlorpyrifos that said to kill insects on contact by attacking their nervous systems. “Several studies have linked prenatal exposure of chlorpyrifos to lower birth weights, lower IQs, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other developmental issues in children,” Ana B. Ibarra wrote on Governing website.

The entrance of those companies in the Ethiopian agriculture sector would have major ramifications, specialists say. Teshome Hunduma told Ethiopia Observer the discussions related to GMOs have always been a sustainability question i.e. whether they are environmentally safe, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable or not.

He says there is also an issue of power balance between multinational companies that have control over the technology through intellectual property rights such as patents and weak governments in the Global South like Ethiopia and their subsistence farmers.

In Ethiopia, one person particularly was key in trying to keep genetically modified crops at bay through adamant and active opposition: Dr. Tewolde B. Gebre Egziabher. The man who served as Ethiopia’s General Manager for Environmental Protection Authority for more than two decades actively took part in international negotiations for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to safeguard biodiversity and defend traditional rights of farmers and communities to their crop diversity. The CBD was finalized in 1992.

Tewolde led the African and Like-Minded Group in negotiations for what was called Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety finally agreed in Montreal, Canada in 2000. In Ethiopia, he initiated and worked to enact a biosafety proclamation in 2009 based on precautionary principles as a foundation for GMO regulation system to avoid potential social, economic and environmental risks.

However, in 2014, Ethiopia approved the commercial cultivation of genetically modified insect-resistant BT cotton and field research on GM maize. “The amendment of the law was not because Ethiopia was keen on biotechnology research or because it had the capacity to ensure the use of GMOs that may have adverse effects on biological diversity and subsistence farmers,” Teshome says. Rather the government has made the amendment to allow GM pest-resistant plant cotton variety, which produces an insecticide to kill bollworm namely BT cotton to meet the growing textile industry in Ethiopia, Teshome said.

However, Teshome explained, the Ethiopian government has not used an independent study that examines the experience of other countries on the benefits and risks of BT cotton when it amended its biosafety law. “We know that BT cotton failed in Burkina Faso due to loss of its insect-resistant traits and yield potential over time,” he added.

In recent years, government officials began working to develop a legislative mechanism, while practising GMO variety testing. Whether the genetically modified plants should be treated like their conventional equivalents or should a precautionary approach should be taken has to be decided.

For Teshome, even the regulatory system is not up to the standard in Ethiopia and the institutional arrangement is inconvenient as mandates are shared between the Ministry of Agriculture, and Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (currently under the Prime Minister’s office). Ethiopia needs to get its institutional arrangement right and address the public concern around the technology, he concluded.

Ethiopian Observer

Nigeria: Gene Modified Crops Debate Rages

... many African countries are reluctant to approve the use of GMOs.



Nigeria officially signed the Biosafety Bill into law in 2015, making it eligible to join the league of nations that are already using genetic engineering (GE), also called genetic modification (GM), to boost food production. Since then, there has been a protracted debate over the application of genetically modified crops into the food system in Nigeria. These protracted debates over their use and possible dangers have birthed two groups- Pro-GMO and Anti-GMO.

Despite the clear link between agricultural productivity and technology, there are, however, uncertainties and confusion in government responses to a wide range of agricultural, health, social, economic and environmental issues associated with the application and regulation of modern biotechnology in agricultural practice.


[..there is..] growing opposition by a coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) against the introduction of GMOs in the country.

Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Mr. Nnimo Bassey, argued that use of gene drive organisms has the potential of wiping off whole species of organisms. He argued that doors will be open for all sorts of synthetic organisms to be released or experimented on in Nigeria.

President of the Nigeria Institute of Food, Science and Technology (NIFST), Dahiru Adamu, said,

“genetically modified seeds would make it impossible for our local seedlings to be productive for farmers and the nation. Once we allow genetically modified seeds to come into Nigeria to be planted by our farmers, which may mark the end of Nigeria. This is because by the time these seedlings are planted, one, two to five years, it will compare with our local seedlings and will not allow them to germinate. This will lead us to buying seeds from them and therefore, hold us to ransom, and become the determinant factor whether the country gets food or not and in turn become a big problem for the country.” .

...the Managing Director of Global Prolife Alliance (GPA), a leading health, legal and environmental organisation, Prof. Philip C. Njemanze, said, “In an environment like Nigeria where corruption prevails, the biotechnology companies could bribe officials to look the other way on crucial information on the health hazards of GMO crops.”

Njemanze said, “The rising rate of cancers, infertility, mental diseases, and autistic spectrum disorders in children in Nigeria is related to the increasing use of Monsanto Roundup pesticide – Glysophate. The pesticide when used kills weeds but spares GMO crops.”

However, pro-GMO civil society groups led by the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Consortium (NBBC) has said the development of the Pod-Borer Resistant Cowpea (PBR-Cowpea), a GMO product is a confirmation of our expertise in Nigeria to be able to provide a home grown solution to our pest and diseases problems in agriculture.

President of NBBC Celestine Aguoru argued that the modification of beans, just one crop, has brought so many benefits to the country. He said: “The benefits include reduction in the use of dangerous chemicals, protection of Nigeria’s position as the largest producer of beans.

“Reduction in the spending of Nigeria’s foreign exchange in the purchase of over 500,000 tons of beans annually from other countries. Farmers can now heave a sigh of relief from chemicals which they have to spray about 10 times for each beans season and that Nigeria is going to save a lot of foreign exchange used in the importation of chemicals,” said Aguoru.

He further said: “We are also using this platform to call on the federal government to ignore the call by the non-scientific activists to ban the GM beans because it is safe and poses no proven harm to human or animals. We urge the Federal Government to increase budgetary allocations to universities and research institutes to enable them undertake research that meets national aspirations as we have seen in this case of PBR Cowpea.

Full article...










https://www.blueprint.ng/much-ado-about-genetically-modified-food/

Round one million of pro- GMO vs. anti-GMO battle: Colin Todhunter vs. Tony Trewavas

Pro-GMO versus anti-GMO is an epic fight that is featured in many articles on this website. One group says gene-modified crops are the salvation for Africa (and the world's) agricultural and food security issues, the other group says GMOs are causing the sky to fall. Naturally, both sides have what they consider to be absolutely iron-clad 'evidence' to back up their view. Each side heatedly accuses the other of either being too dumb and/or naive to see things properly (i.e. 'my way') or believes the other side to be evil tools of the devil.

There are no new pro or anti-GM arguments in GMOs: Where Does Science Begin and Lobbying End?, nor in the article to which it is a response, Genetic Engineering. Where does Science End and Lobbying begin? A Response to a Prominent pro-GMO scientist, which in turn is a response to,  “So You Want to Help Africa Mr Paterson? Then Stop Promoting Ideology and Falsehoods to Push GMOs.”

The antagonists are feverishly passionate in making their pro or anti arguments, but all those arguments are the standard ones that followers of the battle have been presented with over the years.

African Agriculture

The campaign against GMOs, biotechnology is based on misinformation and fear

Everybody seems to come to the debate with their minds already made up one way or the other, but the discussion for or against GMOs is as heated and passionate as it ever was.

Alex Berezow gives his reasons and examples of why he feels "the world must embrace GMOs."

Among his points:

* gene modification of rice to produce more beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor) will save the eyesight of many people around the world each year

* banana bacterial wilt has defied solution, threatening many livelihoods. Incorporating pepper genes has shown such promise at making bananas resistant to wilt that the Ugandan government has waived its opposition to GMOs for field trials to take place

* genetic modification saved Hawaii's papaya industry from the papaya ringspot virus


* Anti-biotechnology groups mislead the public about GMOs by downplaying the known benefits while overhyping small, theoretical risks

The arguments are as old and standard as those of the opponents of GMOs, but this is obviously a discussion that is not going away.


African Agriculture

'Frankenfoods' argument is weak, ineffective basis for questioning gene modification's suitability for Africa

Chido Makunike

Amongst the repertoire of arguments that anti-GM food opponents use is that there is ‘proof,’ or at least the risk that people who eat them will/may become two-headed monsters.

No matter how genuinely held this worry is, this is an argument that simply sidetracks the discussion from the many more solid, more provable bases for asking tough questions about whether it is wise for Africa to take the no-return path of adopting GM farming.

For every argument that opponents provide to prove/suggest the harmful effects of GM crops on human health, proponents can provide a just-as-hard-to-disprove counter argument. There are ‘conclusive scientific arguments’ that can be used to ‘prove’ diametrically opposed conclusions. People generally choose which ones to believe and cite based on their pre-conceived ideas about GM technology, not any sort of basis that can be agreed on by all sides as being anywhere near to being considered objective.

The reference to GM foods as being ‘Frankenfoods’ is catchy but not particularly helpful to a rational discussion (if that is even still possible) of the pros and cons of GM technology. Besides, for example, South African maize is now almost all GM now, with possibly significant amounts of it quietly ‘leaking’ into many of the neighboring countries that are officially opposed to GM crops. Whatever problems South Africa has, there are not yet reports of two-headed monsters there that can be attributed to consuming ‘Frankenmaize.’

So no matter how passionate GM opponents are about this issue, they may be actually weakening their position by basing it on a point on which the empirical evidence available to the average person suggests is just not true.

Of course, there could be subtle, more long-term harmful effects building up, but anti-GM activists are not in a strong position to use this level of ‘caution’ to make their point. This may be a point better suited to opposition to GM in richer countries, rather than countries where the main issue is the immediate, provable health danger of food insecurity!

Real, today, more clearly Africa-appropriate questions about GM crops in Africa include:

* What protection do farmers have in the real-world, increasingly frequent scenario where producers do everything right, but have a disastrous farming season because of failed, vastly reduced or ‘mistimed’ rain? Farmers lose their much higher expenditure on GM seed and required accompanying inputs, and yet don’t have the currently available fallback option to save seed to try again the following season. Amongst farmers in any country this would be a big setback, but for poor farmers in a developing countries, this can spell long-term disaster.

* If the promised higher yields with GM seeds prove to be a reality rather than a mirage, will those higher yields really cover the higher costs? 20% higher yields are not much good if they are at the cost of 25% higher inputs and other production costs. In the currently experimental, subsidized early state of luring African countries to accept GM crops, this is a question that is usually dodged, and that would anyway be hard to get definitive answers to yet. In any case, production costs will vary from place to place,and from season to season. But one thing that will no longer be changeable is that many of the current coping strategies for lean times will no longer be applicable when GM seeds are the basis of production.

If when the answer comes and it is negative (about cost-recovery.profit-making with GM seeds vs conventional hybrid or own-saved seed), the affected farmers will not have the option to simply go back to their own-saved seed. The hard (impossible?) reversibility is one reason why GM cropping is far more potentially disastrous in an African setting of poor, mostly small holder farmers than in countries with industrial, often directly or indirectly government-supported industrial farmers.

* Promoters of GM make a big deal about how seeds will be ‘gifted’ to African farmers by subsidized prices and less onerous license protection efforts than applied in richer countries. This shows they recognize that the pricing of their product will be a problem for African farmers, who already struggle to afford non-GM hybrid seed and other inputs.

The history of agricultural subsidies in Africa is that they are almost never ‘permanent.’ What happens when the ‘subsidies’ that are being promised now to win over opponents are lifted and farmers must bear the full costs of the GM seeds and related inputs on their own?

The answers to this from India and elsewhere are mixed, but there is enough clear evidence that this is a real, potentially big problem that cannot be simply swept aside. Bt cotton may have increased India’s cotton yields, but it is just as true that it has left farmer/human/environmental devastation in its wake. That is not an opinion, it is simply the mixed reality of GM technology in poor countries.

A cotton farmer in Burkina Faso may not care whether his GM cotton will mutate into a Franken tee-shirt that eats its wearer. But whether he will be able to continue to afford the seed, fertilizer and other chemicals to sustain his cultivation of GM cotton will hold his interest and is more likely to influence his pro or anti-stance.

Likewise, a mother struggling to feed her children in a country whose government opposes GM farming will not care whether the maize that is availed to her is of the Frankenfood or the normal variety.

Transposing pro or anti-GM arguments from Western countries onto the situation in Africa simply shows how far removed the arguers are from practical local realities, whether because of distance or because they are passionate activists, but whose livelihoods don’t actually depend on farming.

There are genuine reasons to be fairly questioning of the advisability for Africa of taking up GM crops, of whether the promised benefits will more than make up for the very real potential pitfalls. But unfortunately, those genuine, most relevant reasons for skepticism are not the ones that are put forward. This works to the disadvantage of almost everybody with a stake in how the pro versus anti-GM turns out, which is really everybody.

African Agriculture

Gates Foundation and Monsanto: when a non-profit gets in bed with the enemy

For opponents of GM crops in particular and of Monsanto’s business methods in general, whatever good work the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is doing in the areas of health and agriculture around the world is neutralized by its shareholding in the famous/infamous/notorious giant seed company.

 The Gates Foundation weakly argues that its philanthropic and business arms are quite separate and do not influence each other. The many anti-GM crops people who are unconvinced by this find it much more logical to see the foundation, through its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), as part of the early work for Monsanto, a company with a generally poor image, to get a foothold in and eventually dominate the seed market in Africa, with consequences the opponents believe will be dire for African farmers.

The Monsanto-Gates Foundation link is not yet a big talking point even in the African countries where AGRA has a prominent presence. In pitifully, willfully, irresponsibly donor-dependent Africa, AGRA is just another exciting ‘donor project.’ Donor projects bring in some much-needed, hard-to-come-by money and jobs, so are therefore not to be scrutinized too closely or questioned.

'Shhhh, don't publicly express doubt about their projects; the donors might get upset and leave in a huff with their money.'

But in the home country of the Gates Foundation and Monsanto, bands of activists loudly interrogate what they consider to be an unholy alliance, as implied by the provocative heading of an article by Paul Haeder, ‘When a non-profit gets in bed with the enemy.’

He writes, ‘More than 40 people, as part of a global day of action against Monsanto, recently marched to and around the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “campus” to deliver a letter asking the Foundation to divest from Monsanto (the Foundation has more than $23 million in Monsanto stock as part of a very odd mix of companies in their portfolio).’

Taking no prisoners, Haeder continues, ‘Trying to eradicate developing countries’ diseases, forcing genetically modified farming into Africa…are just a few of the Gates Foundation’s larger goals…’

Haeder doesn’t hide his feelings about AGRA’s godfather!

He asks, ‘What’s all the protesting about?’

And he answers, ‘According to Dena Hoff, a diversified family farmer… “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s purchase of Monsanto shares indicates that the Gates Foundation’s interest in promoting the company’s seed is less about philanthropy than about profit-making. The Foundation is helping to open new markets for Monsanto, which is already the largest seed company in the world.”

To those few who may not be aware of it, Haeder helpfully points out that ‘Monsanto, who created the dioxin-leeching defoliant Agents Orange and Blue, is one of the main drivers of genetically modified foods.’

He then goes into greater detail about several now well-known criticisms of GM crops, focusing attention on what Haeder and many others see as the basic incongruity of the Gates Foundation being between the bed sheets with Monsanto.

After these two entities have finished consummating their tryst, what kind of agricultural offspring is their romp going to produce in Africa?

Even as an increasing number of Africa’s weak governments fall in line with the GM crops gospel (sugar coated with donor aid, a drug African governments are now helplessly hooked on), many more people in Africa are pondering just the sort of questions that Haeder poses.

Paul Haeder's article is long and detailed, and provides plenty of food for thought about just what the Gates Foundation, its AGRA and their friends, partners and collaborators are bringing to Africa.

African Agriculture

Antipathy to GM crops still strong in Zambia, but is resistance ultimately futile?

Zambia has one of the strongest records of official opposition to GM crops in Africa. An official of the recently elected-into-power ruling party has re-iterated the country's opposition to GM technology and foods, but will Zambia be able to resist the seemingly increasing momentum of the GM tide?

Happily, Zambia has for several years enjoyed surpluses of its staple crop, maize. But during a period of a severe maize deficit several years ago, the country highlighted the strong feelings against GM crops in many African countries by refusing GM maize food aid donations from the US.

On March 30 2012, Wynter Kabimba, Secretary General of the ruling Patriotic Front said Zambia  'would not allow the iintroduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) because they pose a danger to food security and the environment.' He was quoted as asking rhetorically, 'Why would anyone want to introduce a technology that puts a whole population’s health at risk?'

Obviously his contentions are the subject of fierce and passionate international debate, but Kabimba's comments reflect the belief of many, perhaps most, in Zambia and many other countries.

But opinions are shifting rapidly, as shown by Kenya's recent decision to allow the importation of GM maize, and its trials and approvals of the commercial cultivation of other GM crops,a trend that is likely to grow in Africa. Who knows, while the ruling party.government says one thing, that doesn't mean that GM trials aren't quietly going on in the country!

African countries that are dependent on aid, or otherwise subject to the strong influence of a 'donor' nation like the US that also sees the aggressive promotion of GM technology as part of its strategic global interests are particularly susceptible to flip-flopping on this controversial issue. Wikileaks revealed that diplomacy, aid, arm-twisting and other 'inducements' are all part of the arsenal of promoting GM crops and reducing resistance to them in target countries.

Despite both countries' previously strong opposition to GM technology, the debate and politics of accepting/rejecting it is inevitably different between them. Zambia is a nearly universally fertile country with a mostly agriculture-friendly climate, plenty of water and large land mass with a low density for its population of 15 million. Kenya's much bigger population of 40 million is on a land mass not substantially bigger than Zambia's, but much of it is increasingly subject to erratic rain and drought. Zambia probably has far greater prospects of being maize sufficient fairly consistently than Kenya does, even if farming of most of the staple maize,as of most of everything else, is rain-fed in both countries.

From this angle one can argue that Kenya's controversial acceptance of GM technology to try to help meet its food needs is understandable, as is Zambia's continuing confident dismissal of the technology.

Still, as seen elsewhere, there are powerful forces working tirelessly to wear down the resistance to GM crops and technology! What a ruling party official says today does not necessarily tell us anything about what might be official policy five or ten years down the line.

African Agriculture

New criticisms of AGRA and of Bill Gates' support for GM crops in Africa

by Chido Makunike

The deep pockets of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have in a few years made the organization a powerful, impossible-to-ignore voice in thinking about agricultural development in Africa.

Knowing the strong feelings against GM crops in many parts of Africa and the suspicions that the organization was in collusion with GM seed companies like Monsanto to dominate Africa's seed supply, the Gates Foundation has been careful to downplay its support for the technology. They have instead so far focused and mainly publicized less controversial aspects of their agricultural interventions in various African countries.

However, the Gates Foundation's support for various GM research programs quietly continues, and it would not be surprising if its tactical de-emphasis of GM crops in its advocacy changes. Despite continuing opposition in many countries, it is also a fact that GM technology is gaining increasing acceptability by many African governments who were implacably opposed before.

Writing an opinion piece in the Seattle Times, the hometown paper of the Gates Foundation, Glenn Ashton faults Bill Gates' support of GM crops for Africa on two grounds. The first is the commonly made argument by GM opponents that focus on various "agro-ecological" methods is better-suited to Africa than the 'silver bullet' of biotechnology.

Ashton says GM crops have not delivered their promoters' promise of higher and yet more cost-effective yields for poor countries. Citing the Gates Foundation-supported work on drought-tolerant GM maize, he says there are local non-GM maize varieties that deliver similar or better results at less cost for poor farmers.

Ashton's second argument for opposing the Gates Foundation's support of GM crops is that, "Gates sponsors compliant African organizations whose work with multinational agricultural corporations like Monsanto undermines existing grass-roots efforts to improve local production methods."

The point about efforts like the Gates Foundation-funded Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) being 'sponsored compliant African organizations' is an interesting one. It is a charge that carries a heavy punch in an Africa that sometimes uncomfortably balances welcoming foreign assistance in various sectors, but is also historically deeply wary of control and manipulation by outsiders posing as benefactors.

Sensitive to this dichotomy and to charges of being African tools of foreign forces with intentions that may not be as noble as they claim, AGRA is careful to brand itself as 'African-led.' But its being fronted by Ghanaian former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and having many distinguished Africans on its staff cannot take away the reality that its existence depends on the largesse of foreigners with a particular ideological view of the world in general, and of how agriculture and 'development' should be structured in particular.

In such a scenario, an uncomfortable but inevitable question is who has the upper hand if and when there is a clash of views or visions between AGRA's 'African leaders' and its American financiers? It is partly a rhetorical question, but that it constantly lurks in the background illustrates how regardless of whatever successes it will claim, AGRA can never quite successfully claim to be an African initiative. That may not matter for the purposes of achieving an improvement in the agriculture of the countries in which AGRA operates, but it is centrally relevant to the issue of by who and where decisions such as whether to focus on GM seeds or not are made: in Africa by AGRA's African 'leaders;' or in Seattle, Washington, USA, by its American bank rollers?

Its opponents sometimes use its dependence on foreign funding unfairly; as a club with which to browbeat AGRA. Yet ironically, many of the African organizations that stand in bitter opposition to AGRA and the Gates Foundations' whole pro-technology agricultural thrust are themselves dependent on foreign donors. It could just as legitimately be asked how independent they are of their benefactors in what they support or oppose, and whether that foreign dependency does not also undermine grass roots, locally-driven 'development.'

AGRA's donor dependency may be a relevant issue, but it is far from unique to it. It is a wider problem that plagues activist/advocacy African organizations across the full ideological spectrum.

However, there is also no doubting the reality that through AGRA, powerful and wealthy foreigners have placed themselves at the center of a debate about agricultural development which should be led and dominated by Africans, regardless of how well-meaning the foreigners regard themselves to be. This would be less of an issue if it was clear that the foreign supporters were merely providing financial, technical backup for an agricultural agenda that the Africans were largely agreed on, in full charge of and spearheading.

In this case, there is suspicion, which AGRA has not been able to fully counter, that the Africans are not just being so 'assisted' by the Gates Foundation, but are being fundamentally directed by it as well in terms of the basic thrust. For AGRA, this is one unavoidable downside of the upside of having a generous foreign donor with deep pockets.

Unless AGRA is able to overcome its critics by showing incontrovertible evidence of the success of its various interventions, this is a suspicion that will continue to plague how it is perceived. Even then, there is unlikely to be easy agreement on how to define 'success.'

If X group of farmers in country Y increase their yields by Z percent because of an AGRA program, that is one definition of a successful outcome. But to others, if that definition of success also means those farmers must now always be sure to buy a pack of a certain hybrid or GM seed, pesticides or fertilizers, that could be regarded as at best a very flawed success, given how many previous trials in many countries have shown how difficult it is for poor farmers to sustain this kind of heavily inputs-dependent cultivation consistently, year after year.

In a letter to the Seattle Times, Stephen Bartlett criticizes "not just the methodology of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, but the top-down mode of operation at play."

Bartlett writes that that, "The social, economic and political factors surrounding rural communities are as important to address as the specific technical issues, if not more. What Gates' AGRA, with its emphasis on so-called 'improved' seeds and access to chemical fertilizer, fails to address is the context that holds farmers back and constrains their productivity."

He continues, "Worse, the reliance on top-down 'experts' and supplies of inputs, reinforces in the minds of African farmers that what they lack is more important than what they have. It dis-empowers them and makes them dependent on suppliers. GM seeds and AGRA's close economic linking with Monsanto just reinforce to objective observers how much of this 'development' agenda is corporate driven, a closed loop between the boardrooms and the billionaire philanthropists."

These are thoughtful points. An irony that becomes apparent is that this is a debate about agricultural development in Africa, being conducted far from the African field of action in an American newspaper, and by people who are not typically thought of as Africans! It seems to emphasize the point about AGRA being very far from being 'African-led' at conceptual, ideological and policy level; even if it is largely African-staffed.

One rarely or almost never sees or hears a similar robust public debate taking place in the African countries in which AGRA has a presence, with the predominant pro and anti-voices being African, as should be the case. This may partly reflect both the inadequacy of African efforts at self-help, and partly perhaps also an unwillingness of Africa's Western 'development partners'/donors to really pay attention when the Africans do speak.

It may also be a reflection of the silencing power of a very wealthy and suddenly very influential donor, The Gates Foundation . Even where there are misgivings about AGRA, how many African governments/countries are going to risk upsetting a philanthropic organization that is prepared and willing to inject millions of dollars into their economies?

Therefore, the 'debate' between pro-AGRA/Gates Foundation thinking and their opponents is at a fundamental level very far from being that between equals. Long before they come to the debating room, one side has already significantly influenced the whole debating environment in its favor, by the sheer power of the effect of its money. This is even considering the many internal weaknesses (other than lack of money) of the groups that claim that 'agro-ecological' methods are 'the answer' for what ails African agriculture, and that Africa should be the sole continent that rejects most biotechnology solutions for its agriculture.

It is interesting and revealing that even the people giving anti-AGRA arguments are mostly non-Africans speaking on behalf of Africans, rather than Africans speaking for themselves! In this regard the pro and anti-reactions to the Gates Foundation/AGRA relationship resemble all the other innumerable Western donor/African recipient 'development partnership' relationships that have existed for decades, but with very little to show for themselves in terms of positive results for the Africans. One almost gets the impression that the Africans are considered by their foreign 'partners' as merely props in the drama of their own 'development.'

Even if there were Africans within AGRA structures who were troubled by this, does the inherent inequality of the donor/recipient relationship realistically allow them to have any voice? Could an African scientist employed by 'African-led' AGRA feel free to express an anti-GM opinion and keep his/her job, knowing the financier's support of GM technology? Or is the choice merely between zipping one's mouth or hitting the road in search of another job?

There are signs that the Gates Foundation is less cocky and more inclusive than before in its ideas about what will work best to spur agricultural development in Africa. They seem a little bit less the know-it-all they once seemed to think themselves to be on this complex, vexing subject. That attitude may have been part of the reason many groups in Africa working on agricultural and general development issues reacted so negatively to AGRA from the start.

On the other side, the opponents of the Gates Foundation and AGRA seem so implacably, emotionally opposed to them that they are unwilling to give them credit for even non-GM projects where it would seem the methods and possible benefits are non-controversial. That is part of the price AGRA has to pay for inviting itself to the African agricultural development party, in the process displacing previously entrenched and largely un-challenged activists and 'experts.'

In theory the shaking up of the debate by the rich new player should be beneficial to African agriculture, at the very least by spurring new questions and thinking. In practice, the Gates Foundation has made itself so powerful and influential in the debate about African agricultural development that alternative voices and ideas now increasingly struggle to make themselves heard.

Almost regardless of what happens on the farming fields that can be attributed to their contribution, the relatively large footprint that the Gates Foundation and its AGRA have bought themselves in Africa with their ready access to money will inevitably remain controversial and continue to spur many questions and raise many passions.

African Agriculture

Are biotech crops winning over farmers?

by Marc Gunther

The debate over biotech crops has become predictable.

In his 2012 annual letter from the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, who has a near-religious faith in technology and innovation, argues that an “extremely important revolution” in plant science, i.e., genetically-engineered crops, can help farmers in poor countries by giving them access to new varieties of crops that will better resist disease and adapt to climate change.

Days later, the Center for Food Safety, a Washington watchdog group and persistent critic of Big Ag, pushed back, saying that biotech crops had failed to deliver on their promise to alleviate hunger, and that Gates would do better to support low-cost “agroecological techniques” that don’t depend on patented, genetically-engineered seeds.

The conflicting claims and supporting data are hard to sift through.

Will disease-resistant biotech cassava answer the prayers of a farmer in Tanzania, whose crops are threatened by diseases, as Gates writes? Or will patented genetically engineered crops prove disastrous for the 1.4 billion farmers in the global south who now save seeds from one season to the next, as Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the Center for Food Safety, argues?

The voices of farmers are rarely heard in these debates. But data released last week indicates farmers, through their actions, are voting for biotech crops.

Last year, farmers planted an additional 12 million hectares of biotech crops, an increase of 8 percent over 2010, according to the annual biotech crop report of the ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications).

Most of that growth — 8.2 million hectares — came from the developing world, lead by Brazil and India, the report says. The growth rate for biotech crops in developing countries was 11 percent, twice as fast and twice as large as industrial countries at 5 percent or 3.8 million hectares.

Why do more farmers every year plant biotech crops?

Critics of genetically-modified crops will say they are tricked into it by marketing or lack of knowledge or short-termism, and it’s certainly true that the popularity of a product is not a reliable indicator of its value. (ABBA sold more records than the Rolling Stones. People smoke cigarettes.)

But if biotech crops didn’t make farmers more productive, or save them time or money, would they spread around the world as consistently as they have?

complete article…Sustainable Business Forum 

Tea research key to a growing industry

by Julie Frederikse

Pelly Malebe's research on helping plants withstand drought is personal as well as scientific. She grew up in South Africa's drought-prone northern province of Limpopo, where crop failures are frequent.

If the affected crop is food for family consumption, the result can be hunger. If it is a crop for trade or export, the loss of earnings can also mean too little food on the family table, as well as threatening commercial farmers, both large and small.

As a doctoral student at the University of Pretoria, Malebe is studying the drought-survival mechanisms of tea plants under stress – and has identified a DNA marker for those plants more able to withstand drought. "This can be used to identify suitable drought-tolerant cultivars to benefit the commercial tea industry," she says.

In effect, Malebe has found a shortcut that suggests that a particular tea plant will tolerate drought conditions, without having to wait to see if and how the plant grows. Happily, the drought-tolerant plants can adapt to excess moisture, which means they can survive rainy weather as well.

Malebe's research is supported by RISE, the Regional Initiative in Science and Education, aimed at building capacity for science research and teaching in African universities. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a charitable foundation, RISE works through a series of thematic networks, including Sabina, which stands for the Southern African Biochemistry and Informatics for Natural Products Network.

Sabina members include the Tea Research Foundation of Central Africa and the universities of Malawi, Namibia and Dar es Salaam [Tanzania], as well as South Africa's universities of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria. South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research also participates.

Biochemistry Professor Zeno Apostolides, founder of the University of Pretoria's Tea Research Laboratory, is a Sabina faculty advisor supervising three PhD students, including Malebe and fellow researcher Nicholas Mphangwe.

Before he was accepted into the Sabina programme, Mphangwe had been working as a plant breeder for the Tea Research Foundation in his home country of Malawi, where tea provides about 30 percent of the country's foreign exchange and about five percent of the world's tea crop.

Since one of Rise's goals is to enhance scientific skills among scientists in mid-career, Mphangwe was able to take leave from his job to become part of the Sabina programme. In the lab, he is probing genetic markers to identify cultivars more adaptable to African growing conditions and more resistant to drought, insects, diseases and low temperatures.

"In Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, the main work on tea is being carried out at research stations, so we tea breeders are still continuing to go into the field and visually assess promising cultivars," Mphangwe said. "I hope eventually to develop cultivars with good off-season growth, so as to extend the growing season."

Once he earns his PhD, Mphangwe plans to return to Malawi to work with the Tea Research Foundation of Central Africa. This non-profit organisation is funded by Malawi and Zimbabwe tea growers to improve technologies. Some of the tea cultivars it has developed are also grown in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, as well as outside Africa.

Camellia sinensis, the biological name for the plant that produces black and green tea, is grown in some 50 countries and is the world's most widely drunk beverage after water. Apostolides says tea production in southern African is growing at about 20 percent per year, so the region could challenge India for first place in tea production by about 2020. "India produces 900,000 tons of tea per year," he says, "while Sri Lanka and Kenya, which are always competing for second place, produce 300,000 tons each, and all the African countries combined produce about 400,000 tons, so as a region we are in second place."

The Tea Board of Kenya reported that Kenya's tea exports last year overtook horticulture – flower production – to become the country's largest foreign exchange earner. Uganda, Malawi and South Africa are Africa's other leaders in tea production.

Pelly Malebe's work has included finding a feasible way to send cultivars to research labs. "Developing countries lack skills for the isolation of genetic material," she says. "What is needed is a simple leaf-drying method so that the tea leaves can be transported to laboratories where genetic material can be extracted and usable genomic DNA can be isolated and stored."

After testing various methods of drying tea plants – blanching, pressing, freeze drying and placing it in bags with silica gel – she determined that using silica gel in sealable plastic bags gave the best results. That encouraging finding could point the way to a simple methodology for obtaining and storing genetic material, applicable to other products and places.

Before publishing her research on DNA markers for drought resistance, Malebe conferred with Apostolides. The scientists had to choose whether or not to patent the cultivars. She and her advisor decided that she would write up the research results without claiming them as intellectual property. So this breakthrough from Africa will soon become free knowledge to the international scientific community.

allafrica.com

South Sudan: Africa’s next farming frontier

by Catherine Riungu

In yet another development that brings South Sudan closer to the East African Community, the country has become the newest state to join the regional agricultural research network.

The world’s newest country was recently unanimously accepted to become the 11th member of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (Asareca) during its first general assembly that was held in Entebbe, Uganda.

According to Harvard professor, Calistous Juma, who gave the keynote address, South Sudan will play a key role in developing agriculture in the region by providing opportunities to apply the latest technologies on untested ground.

“South Sudan is lucky because it will get started with the latest and best agricultural technologies as it embarks on developing its economic base,” he said adding that since agriculture is the most viable industry the country can tap into and reap substantially because of being endowed with unfarmed soils and plenty of irrigation water from the Nile, it has potential to feed the region and generate more for selling into a food deficit world.

By an interesting coincidence, a young Sudanese researcher who is studying in Kenya at the Kenyatta University’s department of biotechnology Rashar Omer has made history by developing the first drought-resistant maize gene that was unveiled at the conference and named Asareca gene.

Slated for commercialisation in 2018, the gene is being touted by scientists who are excited by the breakthrough as having the potential to finally lead Africa to an agrarian revolution that has evaded the continent for decades.

The gene and the entry of South Sudan were not the only good news coming out of the Asareca assembly. The continent, known for shameful scenes of hunger, malnutrition and starvation is slowly emerging out of the jinx and headed towards becoming the world’s bread basket.

Experts say African scientists are coming up with continent specific research products while the political leadership that has for long shunned agriculture is beginning to lead from the front.

According to Asareca director general Seyfu Katema, 60 per cent of the world’s arable land is in Africa but the continent has failed to mine this potential due to low uptake of technology and poor leadership condemning it to perpetual food shortages.

In the middle of this darkness is emerging a flicker of light. Professor Juma, who is booking a place for himself among world leaders by crusading for a hunger-free Africa says four of the continent’s Heads of State are showing that with the right approach and a growing passion, it can be done.

“I am following and working very closely with presidents who are leading the way with incredible results, and it is their passion that is going to change Africa’s agriculture,” he says citing Guinea’s Lansana Conte, Malawi’s Mbingu wa Mutharika, Ghana’s John Atta Mills and closer home, Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete. “Never in the history of Africa have presidents taken agriculture so seriously as it is in these four countries with amazing results,” he added.

In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame directly supervises the Ministry of Agriculture.

The East African

Give biotech scientists the benefit of the doubt

by Otieno Otieno

A day out with scientists isn’t quite anyone’s idea of fun. But I found it surprisingly enjoyable visiting with Dr James Gethi of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) and Dr Stephen Mugo of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on their research field in Kiboko in Ukambani.

With 52 years of crop breeding experience between them, Dr Gethi and Dr Mugo have a way of explaining complex scientific terminology like one would do to a five-year-old. More importantly, the two gentlemen see themselves as part of the solution to one of Kenya’s long-standing problems: hunger.

For the past four years, they have been hard at work developing a maize variety that can withstand drought with a helping hand from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness firm Monsanto.

Similar research under the ambitious project known as Water Efficient Maize for Africa (Wema) is being undertaken in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa. The Kenyan project is only in the second phase of field trials and is not expected to yield the super maize seed until 2017.

But Dr Gethi and Dr Mugo are extremely patient and disciplined souls. They believe they have already learnt enough from the first two harvests from their experimental farm to be positive about a breakthrough.

Like all scientists, they can’t wait for the Eureka moment and the sense of personal fulfilment that normally comes with it. But it is the opportunity of being part of efforts to transform agriculture in the country’s mean dry lands and solve the chronic food security problems that most satisfies them.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation has negotiated a royalty fees waiver with Monsanto, which means that the super maize seed will be available in the local market at an affordable price for small-scale farmers.

However, the scientists’ optimism is tempered with a sense of frustration — at being somewhat unloved and unappreciated. They fear that their work might run into the same headwinds of myth, scare mongering, political rhetoric and corporate wars that have in the past characterised public debates on biotechnology in the country.

“It is like you come to me for a solution that can transform lives but when I provide it you turn on me with a whip,” said Dr Gethi.

That got me thinking. Granted, legitimate health, environmental and ethical concerns remain about biotechnology. But isn’t it about time we at least gave these scientists the benefit of the doubt?

The Nation

Why deny biotech crops to Africa?

by Matt Ridley

Genetic modification has had a huge impact on agriculture worldwide. More than 15 million farmers now plant GM crops on almost 370 million acres, boosting yields by 10% to 25%. Despite opponents' fears that the technology would poison people, spread superweeds and entrench corporate monopolies, it's now clear that the new crops have reduced not only hunger but pesticide use, carbon emissions, collateral damage to biodiversity and rain-forest destruction.

Yet, while much of North and South America, Australia and Asia are expanding the use of GM crops, only three African countries have adopted them (a further four are conducting trials). Mr. Juma argues that Africa is the place that most needs a boost from biotech: Many of the continent's farmers cannot afford to buy pesticides, so corn and cotton that are genetically insect-resistant could make a big difference there. Over the past five decades, while Asian yields have quadrupled, African yields have barely budged.

Yet political squeamishness abounds. In an article this week for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), John Kufuor, the former president of Ghana, argued that "Africa's agriculture has been cut off from the scientific advances which have transformed yields in many other parts of the globe"—but he did not mention GM crops. AGRA, whose chairman is former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, says that the group "does not fund the development of GM crops."

Africa grows a diverse range of crops as staple foods: not just corn, rice and wheat but cassava, yams, black-eyed peas and bananas. Genetic modification has so far focused mainly on the big commercial crops. Ironically, this is because of immensely complex biosafety regulations demanded by environmental pressure groups in the West, which don't apply to crop varieties produced by other means, including mutation by irradiation.

Only big firms can afford this ordeal by red tape, and only for big crops. The pioneering Swiss biologist Ingo Potrykus, who has watched his not-for-profit invention of vitamin-enhanced "golden rice" tied up for 13 years by regulatory procrastination, is no longer in the mood to mince words. He recently wrote that he holds "the regulation of genetic engineering responsible for the death and blindness of thousands of children and young mothers."

Biotechnology's potential in Africa is illustrated by the case of the black-eyed pea, a crop that is attacked by an insect called the Maruca pod borer, which causes $300 million in annual losses to small-scale farmers there and can be controlled only with expensive pesticides that many cannot afford. A university in Nigeria has developed an insect-resistant GM black-eyed pea, but Nigeria does not allow the commercial use of GM crops.

In Uganda, where people often eat three times their body weight in bananas a year, a GM banana that is resistant to a bacterial wilt disease, which causes $500 million in annual losses and cannot be treated with pesticides, is being tested behind high security fences. The fences are there not to keep out anti-GM protesters, as in the West, but to keep out local farmers keen to grow the new crop.

"By creating institutions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity that seek to smother biotechnology at birth," Calestous Juma tells me, "sections of the U.N. are no more than the Pontius Pilate of innovation."

Wall Street Journal

Uganda receives grant to boost banana production

 by Andrea M. Besley

Pests and diseases that attack the Matoke banana, one of Uganda's primary food staples, is the focus of a $7.07 million grant awarded to Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The grant, which is managed by the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Project (ABSPII) in Cornell's Office of International Programs, will run through October 2016.

"The project will allow us to focus on developing the resistance of the East African Highland banana, locally known as matoke, to pests like nematodes and major diseases like Black Sigatoka, fusarium and bacterial wilt," said Frank Shotkoski, Cornell ABSPII director.

The Cornell-led ABSPII program has been working with Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) to improve Uganda's ability to conduct agricultural biotechnology research and develop disease-resistant varieties of matoke since 2005, when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni launched an initiative to research, develop and add value to the local banana industry.

"Together, we have strengthened molecular, transformation and tissue culture laboratories at the Kawanda Agricultural Biotechnology Center, built a Level II biosafety greenhouse, several screenhouses and confined field trial facilities," said Shotkoski.

"This project increases national capacity in plant breeding and builds on NARO's successful collaboration with USAID and Cornell," said Wilberforce Tushemereirwe, team leader, National Banana Research Programme. "Matoke is a primary staple crop for Uganda and a top priority for NARO. Along with improving varieties of rice and cassava, improving banana is central to food security and income generation in Uganda."

East African Highland bananas feed more than 65 percent of the population in Uganda and are a major source of cash for most farmers. High in potassium and dietary fiber and lower in sugar than desert bananas, they are usually eaten cooked.

Cornell and Ugandan scientists are working to reverse the drastic drop in production of matoke in the traditional banana growing areas of central and southwestern Uganda as a result of diseases and pests.

Most matoke varieties are sterile and produce no seeds. Hence, genetic improvement using traditional cross-pollination techniques is a prolonged and difficult process. Using the tools of agricultural biotechnology, banana varieties can be improved without changing other important traits.

"As a result of USAID/Uganda's sustained and comprehensive support of Uganda's agricultural biotechnology development, Uganda is now the region's most advanced in terms of agricultural biotechnology research, technology transfer and product testing," said Tilahun Zeweldu, ABSPII's East Africa country coordinator. He added that the transgenic crops currently being field tested in Uganda include banana, cassava, corn and cotton.

Cornell University

Ghana to seek biotechnology benefits in farming

Ghana’ Agriculture Minister Mr. Kwesi Ahwoi has said the country would pay attention to all areas where biotechnology would be useful to improve productivity.

Ghana would therefore liaise with the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute (BNARI) and other biotechnology based research institutions within and outside the country, to help reap the benefit of biotechnology in our quest for accelerated modernization and commercialization of Ghanaian agriculture without sacrificing bio-safety issues.

In a speech read on his behalf at the First Pan–African Biotechnology Stewardship Conference in a Accra, he said modern biotechnology tools held considerable promise to develop crop varieties and livestock breeds to withstand the stresses.

It was on the theme: "Africa Managing Safe and High-Quality Biotech Crops."

Biotechnology is the use of biological materials to produce or modify products or processes in agriculture or industrial production. Early examples of biotechnology include the making of cheese, wine, and beer, while later development include vaccines, insulin tissues culture and transgenic products (Genetically Modified Organism or GMOs).

Using biotech tools, scientists can identify genes that carry resistance to plants diseases or that which have tolerance for drought, or can resist insect pest. Plant breeder can incorporate these genes into seeds of important food crops, thus proving poor farmers with healthier, more bountiful crops. Mr Ahwoi said in Ghana, where crop production was mainly under rain fed condition within increasing land degradation and low levels of irrigation, climate change could significantly reverse the little progress that had been made towards poverty eradication and food security unless Ghana increased the application of science and technology including biotechnology to improve agriculture productivity.

“Our aim at the ministry of food and Agriculture is to significantly increase crop yields and general agric production through science and technology”

The Agriculture Minister said, “the challenge for Ghana is how to increase yields by increasing fertilizer application, move from rain fed to irrigated agriculture, from one tractor per 1,500 farmers to 500 farmers in medium term and move from head loading of farm produce to the use of mechanized transportation in addition susceptibility of crop varieties to pest and diseases and limited availability of drought tolerant planting material”

Professor Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development at the Imperial College of London said, agriculture was high on the political agenda, as more leaders were recognizing the key role that it could play in addressing many of the world's most pressing problems.

The problem in Africa, he said, was to meet the demand for food and live stock, improving the soil, producing good seed, variety of crops that matured quickly and make them torrent and good market for farmers to sell their product. Dr. Ramadjita Tabo, Executive Director of the Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa (FARA), said their goal was for Africa to use the tools of modern biotechnology on a need basis to address the problem of hunger and malnutrition whilst ensuring environmental sustainability.

“In this regard, we support the mainstreaming of stewardship, the responsibility management of technologies in agric into the conduct of research and deployment of the technology” he said.

He said in spite of the 15 years of successful commercialization of GM crops, progress in the adoption of the technology, had been slow in Africa despite the political will, which now existed in many African countries. “What has been missing so far is the training in the conduct of the business of biotechnology and where the Strengthening Capacity for Safe Biotechnology Management Sub-Saharan Africa (SABIMA) project with emphasis of stewardship comes in”

Prof. Walter Alhassan Coordinator, Project of SABIMA, said the conference would review the three-year SABIMA project, which ended this year and allow the six countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Malawi and Kenya) to tell the rest of the world their successes and challenges and how they had applied the principles of stewardship in Agriculture biotechnology.

He said a special meeting with project countries would be held after the conference to present milestones that were achieved and gaps to be filled, adding that the outcome of the conference would determine the next phase of the project.

Ghanaweb

Preserving the genetic riches of the sweet potato - forever

Sweet potato, one of the world's most important and versatile food crops, is consumed widely in many African countries. Farmers produce about 12 million tons of sweet potatoes annually in Africa alone, where the vegetable is a staple food in much of Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania.


To make sure that highly productive and nutritious varieties are available for posterity, the Global Crop Diversity Trust is providing an ongoing grant to the International Potato Center (CIP). CIP's extensive collection contains 80 percent of the world's sweet potato cultivars – more than 7,777 accessions from all over the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. The grant, U.S.$1 million over five years, will automatically renew every five years to ensure that this critical genetic resource is maintained, conserved and accessible for all future generations.

With this grant, the Trust is now providing in-perpetuity funding to 17 major food crops: rice, cassava, wheat, barley, faba bean, pearl millet, maize, forages, banana edible aroids, grass pea, sorghum, yam, chick pea and lentil. Annual in-perpetuity grants giving for the maintenance and conservation of food crops by the Trust has totaled more than U.S.$2.3 million in 2011.


Sweet potatoes grow in marginal conditions, requiring little labor and chemical fertilizers. They produce more edible energy per hectare per day than wheat, rice or cassava. They also provide inexpensive, high-protein fodder for animals. It is a cheap solution for developing countries needing to grow more food on less area for expanding populations.

In addition to being productive, sweet potatoes are one of the world's most nutritious staple crops. They are rich in carbohydrates, fiber and micronutrients. The leaves and shoots, which are also edible, are good sources of vitamin A (beta-carotene), C and B (riboflavin).

Recent research has shown that dissemination of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OSP) is an effective way to prevent vitamin A deficiency. This is particularly important in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia where vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of blindness, disease and premature death among children under five and pregnant women.

To help tackle the problem of vitamin A deficiency, CIP and partner organizations have introduced OSP in Uganda and Mozambique, adapting the crop to local tastes and growing conditions. By replacing white sweet potato with OSP varieties, the nutritional status of women and children can be improved significantly. Just 125g from most orange-fleshed varieties contain enough beta-carotene to provide the daily vitamin A needs of a preschooler.

More information on sweet potato can be found on the Crop Trust's website.

Crop Trust

Scientists crack genetic code of drought-resistant pigeonpea

by Kirk Klocke

Pigeonpea - a minor agricultural crop more common in rural backyards than plowed fields, reached a milestone on November 6 when Indian and Chinese researchers announced the decoding of the plant's genome.

Pigeonpea grows in semi-arid regions, but suffers from relatively low yields, experts say, which impedes its development as a potential nutrition source in developing nations.

Researchers said they hoped the pigeonpea genomic map, the first for any non-industrial crop, would lead to improved breeding programs for a plant that has seen a 56 percent increase in global crop production since 1976.

Researchers from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), headquartered in Andhra Pradesh, India, decoded the pigeonpea genome five years after the Indian Council of Agricultural Research funded the initiative.


The ICRISAT researchers published the pigeonpea genome code on Sunday in the journal Nature Biotechnology. ICRISAT Director General William Dar said mapping the pigeonpea genome is a breakthrough because the plant has unique qualities that make it a powerful tool in the fight against hunger, especially in places like the horn of Africa.

"The mapping of the pigeonpea genome could not have come at a better time," Dar said in a statement. "Modern crop improvement technologies for smallholder farmer crops such as pigeonpea will be crucial to speed up the development of improved varieties that can provide high yields and improved livelihoods, and at the same time meet the challenges of marginal environments and the threat of climate change and scare natural resources."

The pigeonpea project was a partnership between ICRISAT and BGI Shenzen. Scientists say having this wealth of information about the pigeonpea can help them make new varieties of the grain much faster, keeping pace with the rapidly changing climate. The researchers notably found genes that could transfer to more agriculturally significant crops such as soybeans.

"At the moment, in general, it can take six to 10 years to breed a new variety. With the use of this genome sequence data, in the future, we could be breeding a new variety in just about three years," said Rajeev Varshney, the lead ICRISAT scientist on the project.

IB Times

As GM technology gains in Africa, battle for and against it shifts

by Chido Makunike

Kenya has become Africa's latest acceptor of gene-modified maize for food after general continent-wide antipathy to GM technology. It joins a handful of other African countries, like South Africa, in giving the green light to technology which many argue is ill-suited to Africa's agriculture and food problems.

The immediate impetus for the controversial Kenyan GM maize importation decision is the severe drought in East Africa that has caused a particularly crippling shortage of maize, the region's main staple food. But the adoption of GM technology has been making steady gains in Kenya for at least a couple of years.  

Since the passing of biosafety law in 2009 (and perhaps since before) field trials of a number of GM crops has been taking place in Kenya despite the arguments of opponents. It will therefore not be long before Kenya no longer simply imports GM food from countries like South Africa and the US, but begins growing its own, including maize and cotton.  

The legalization of GM technology in Kenya has not quieted the voices of opponents, but there does not seem any serious prospect of a slowing of the adoption of this deeply contested science. Its safety, its efficacy, its costs, its morality are just some of the issues around which there is bitter debate which show no signs of abating.   

Kenya joins Burkina Faso, Egypt and South Africa in embracing GM technology. Because of the size of Kenya's economy and agriculture relative to all others in East Africa, its decision will inevitably have a huge impact on the region and beyond. Most countries in the region, as in Africa in general, remain opposed to or wary of GM technology. However, for surrounding countries feeding into and with strong links to Kenya, it will in the medium to long term not be realistic or even possible at all to avoid accepting GM food and/or crops cultivation.

With so much of the region's food originating in or passing through Kenya to get to its final country destination, that country's pro-GM food policy will have a big impact even on countries that may be yet unsure or opposed. As a result, Kenya's adoption of GM technology will have a much bigger African impact than may be immediately obvious.

Countries around GM-friendly South Africa find themselves in a similar situation. Zambia and Zimbabwe are among those that have been vociferously opposed to GM food imports and officially hostile to adoption of the technology (although there are rumors of quiet trials of GM maize and cotton in one or both countries.) This has meant that South Africa has failed to find markets for its GM maize in these two countries even when they have experienced maize deficits. They have preferred to procure the maize from non-GM sources further afield.

Yet it has been pointed out that Zambia and Zimbabwe, along with most other countries in southern Africa and beyond, import a lot of South African manufactured foods that are made with GM maize. While these countries for the time being are able to mostly stave off the importation of GM grain, a lot of GM product enters the food chain in other ways. Among examples are corn flakes and the many other food products using maize flour as an important ingredient, as well as livestock and poultry feeding concentrates.

Public acceptance GM foods and technology may be in its early stages in most of Africa. But lobbying/funding/diplomatic arm twisting of governments to make them more amenable to adopting GM has been quietly going on for many years, with the results only becoming recently obvious. For better or for worse, all the signs are that GM technology is on a slow roll in Africa, and that the momentous Kenyan decision will now quicken the pace.

With Kenya having absorbed so much of the negative heat for accepting GM food, other countries will likely be emboldened to follow suit, no matter how tentatively.  

These inroads may give some new life to anti-GM activist groups, but the fact of the matter is that they have long been outgunned, and not necessarily just in terms of access to money and resources. To have said to them as recently as two or so years ago that decisions like that of Kenya this year were now inevitable and just a matter of time in Africa was to risk getting your head chopped of, but the trend towards official acceptance of GM in many countries has been quite obvious for some time.

Of all the arguments against GM, in Africa the most compelling has been the threat 'teminator genes' pose to farmers long accustomed to own-saved, open-pollinated (OPV) seed varieties . With access to even non-GM hybrid seeds being costly beyond the means of many farmers, the prospect of forcing them to exclusively rely on  patented, non-reproducible GM seeds has been the most effective single issue in rallying African opposition to the technology.

However, recognizing the emotive power of the argument that 'GM technology is a plot by seed multinationals to control global seed supply and food,' the GM sector strategically retreated on this point, by saying terminator technology would not be used. GM technology would effectively be a 'gift' to poor African countries, and farmers would have the choice to buy the seeds while also retaining the option of OPV or hybrid, non-GM seeds.

African countries were assured that there would not be cases like the infamous one of the Canadian farmer sued by Monsanto for unintentionally, unknowingly propagating GM canola from seeds that had come onto his non-GM farm from a neighboring GM canola field. This story was one of the most effective in the efforts of GM opponents in Africa to sell the negatives of accepting the technology, in addition to the experiences of Indian farmers with GM cotton.    

The promise to drop terminator technology and the charging of royalties for GM seeds diffused the most furious and immediate opposition to GM technology in Africa. But GM seeds that are also reproducible also means much greater chances of cross-pollination with non-GM seeds, and this in countries with weak regulations and low capacity to effect attempts to keep GM and non-GM cultivation separate.   

With the huge potential African market for 'standardized' seed for grain such as maize, if much of the continent ever took up GM seed, as several countries have mainstreamed hybrid seed, it is questionable whether the industry would not seek to protect its interests as elsewhere, including by the later introduction of terminator technology and proprietary charges. While the immediate concerns about poor farmers' continued, age-old access to their own seed have been allayed, it is to merely postpone the concerns about what widespread reliance on GM seeds would mean to the main seed gene pool's biodiversity, and to the 'seed sovereignty' of Africa's mostly poor farmers. 

With the creeping acceptance of GM technology in Africa, the battle between promoters and opponents is significantly shifting. No longer is it about arguing for or preventing its introduction, but how to deal with it now that it has arrived.

In the US, where GM crops have been long established and whose government is part of aggressive efforts to promote uptake of the technology in Africa, IPS reports that opponents are not in retreat just because the crops are deeply embedded in the food chain.

It will be interesting to see what similarities and differences the pro/anti GM fight will have in the very different battle grounds of the US and Africa.

African Agriculture