African country’s agricultural policies are focused on increasing land under cultivation and crop yields. But the continent is facing the existential threat of climate change in ways far more severe than more temperate zones of the planet. African farmers are dealing with crop failures, drought, floods, locusts, armyworm invasions and other deprivations of a physical nature. What they don’t need is EU anti-GMO neo-colonial policies making things worse.
In the EU today, nineteen of its 27 member countries either partially or fully ban GMOs. The European Commission since 2010 has treated GMOs as new or novel foods that are subject to evaluation by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This deliberative body not only looks at GMO crops grown in Europe but also those grown elsewhere that get imported into EU member states.
The organic farming movement within the EU sees anything GMO as a danger. And the organic movement’s lobbyists have been effective. Government aid programs and non-government organizations (NGOs) offering grants to African farmers are also anti-GMO. What this means for African farmers who want to increase yields to not only meet local food demand but also to create bumper crops for export, face not just environmental challenges but also regulatory ones. That’s because many African countries, in order to conform to EU regulations around food, also put anti-GMO roadblocks in the way.
The GLP describes these phenomena as neo-colonial anti-technology practices hyped up by “utopian visions of peasant African farmers working in the fields.” And because the EU and Africa are in close proximity, the two continents are natural markets for what each produces. Hence, African food exports are more likely to find their way into European supply chains and onto European dining tables than crops from other parts of the planet. For African farmers to meet both domestic and export opportunities, therefore, requires them to embrace advanced scientific agricultural practices in which GMOs increasingly play a part.
Agroecology conferences in Africa, largely sponsored by big European companies and NGOs, however, are often dominated by anti-GMO rhetoric. At such events, European presenters blame GMO enhancements of food staples as potentially dangerous leading to increases in cancer, birth defects, HIV/AIDs and more.
For example, a Germany-funded NGO, the Route to Food Initiative (RTFI), sponsored by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, states that its aim is to promote innovative solutions to the problem of chronic food insecurity in Africa. In Kenya where it operates, RTFI literature and practices demonstrate both anti-pesticide and anti-GMO bias. RTFI has been instrumental in getting Kenya’s government to ban the use of 160 globally approved, safe agricultural pesticides. The results of RTFI’s influence can best be seen in the devastation caused by recent locust and armyworm infestations. And the same is occurring where African farmers have sought GMO drought-resistant and salt-tolerant crops. These too are being targeted by anti-GMO propagandists to the detriment of farmers trying to deal with deteriorating environmental conditions.
Europe isn’t alone in contributing to the neo-colonial mindset when it comes to Africa. American-based NGOs and charities also are putting money into agricultural initiatives on the continent with anti-GMO strings attached. These “investors” in Africa’s agricultural viability include the Christensen Fund, Swift Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Schmidt Family Foundation, and others. All have little understanding of the challenges African farmers face without using advances in science and technology to help meet local food demand, let alone yield bumper crops for export. The GLP describes the investors as “crusading white-knights riding to save Africans they believe are incapable of judging the science and technologies of modern agriculture on their own.”
A 2020 McKinsey report states, “Agriculture is critical to Africa’s growth and development, but climate change could destabilize local markets, curb economic growth, and heighten risk.” The last point about heightened risk refers to investor risk. But that’s not the risk about which I am concerned. The real risk for African farming is the decline in the physical environment because of climate change. With as much as 20 to 30% of African countries’ GDP coming from agricultural production today, this is where Africa’s risk lies. Higher day and nighttime temperatures disrupt plant growth, changes in patterns of precipitation swing from droughts to floods, and pest infestations like armyworms and locusts are linked to climate change.
Meanwhile, a lack of access to affordable capital sources for small entrepreneurs (I invest in microloans to African entrepreneurs including small farms through Kiva.org) which pretty much categorizes the plight of many African farmers, creates a greater dependency on charitable foundations and their handouts like the ones mentioned above, with many of the latter coming with strings attached that feel very much like neo-colonialism.
]]>So why is opposition in Europe (19 countries) so harmful to Developing World nations? Because policies coming from European Union countries exert a disproportionate influence on countries that trade with the continent. The disparity is quite notable comparing the experience of the Americas and that of Eurasia. In 2014-15 DNA-improved crops were grown by 16.5 million small farm holdings in 20 developing countries, almost all situated in the Americas. Farmers earned significantly more and spent far less on pesticides, in fact 50% less. The net benefit amounted to $32.9 billion. But in Africa only 3 of 54 countries authorized the growth of DNA-modified crops.
Why did most African countries follow Europe’s lead? Because European activists disproportionately influenced African government leaders to apply similar GMO bans. This was further reinforced when European countries banned imports of produce from countries growing GMO crops. To add insult to injury, European development assistance to Africa under the Cartagena Protocol specified anti-GMO policies. The impact in sub-Saharan Africa in particular has been described as acute. Africa, which relies on a disproportionately large export market in Europe, 6 times greater than exports made to North America, found itself unable to sell produce in Europe without kowtowing to European restrictions. At the same time because of the lack of GMO plantings, African agricultural productivity lagged other parts of the world in terms of surplus yields.
The Genetic Literacy Project, a not-for-profit advocacy group aimed at increasing general knowledge in the use of DNA-based technologies to improve crops and livestock estimates the following:
The foregone income of nearly $1 billion in 2013 is considered a conservative number. For the average African farm it would mean income increases of 25% (from $3,000 to $4,000 per farm household). It also has punished Africa in another way. Without the improved yields, many sub-Saharan African countries find themselves having to import food staples to feed their citizens, a further drain on national income. Projected into the future that foregone $1 billion is estimated to balloon to a total of $1.5 trillion by 2050.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a not-for-profit, non-partisan research and educational institute, in an independent report describes the benefits of GMO seeds to agriculture globally calculating that this biotechnology has added $133 billion in farm income over the past two decades and delivered an average increase in farm income of 62%. At the same time the adoption of GMO sees has led to a reduction in pesticide use of over 500 million kilograms (1.1 billion pounds), a decrease of 37%. Crop yields have grown by 22%.
In its conclusions ITIF describes GMO-crops as having a “strongly positive track record” and further states, “In view of the unprecedented demands to increase agricultural production and productivity over the next 30 years, it is critical that such restrictive regimes be rolled back everywhere as rapidly as possible.” It is time that the science of GMO overcome the nonsense that continues to perpetuate the “frankenfood” myth.
With no ties to the biochemical giants Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF and Bayer, the academics and scientists of the GLP debunk the GMO misinformation found on public media. Correcting the “bad science” takes a lot of people with some pretty awesome credentials. The team at GLP consists of some top names in genetics, epidemiology, molecular biology, botany, biotechnology, agriculture and leading science writers who put their research and writing talents on line to ensure that the hard science of GMO is well understood by the public. They have no axe to grind and no hidden agenda.
GLP looks at the challenge of the next half-century, the need to double food production as world population grows, and as people in the Developing World become more affluent and, therefore, seek the lifestyle and calories that are part of the Developed World’s diet. The regulation of GMO crops is extensive in most countries and companies developing these new crop variants do extensive safety testing despite what consumer critics state. There are currently 144 GMO crops proposed for commercial release with an average cost to develop each representing an investment of $136 million USD. Regulation and approval processes can take years. In fact since 2002, new GMO technology takes almost two years longer to get approval prior to that year. And the approval process and regulation has forced companies and institutions developing GMOs to focus on a much narrower range of crops despite the pressures to increase the amount of food we produce. Governments and regulatory bodies have succumbed to uninformed consumer pressure to the point that approval of GMO crops is almost at a standstill.
Which brings us to the problem faced by Florida oranges, tomatoes and papayas.
Bs2 Tomatoes
Today Florida is the largest producer of tomatoes in the United States. They are available year round and at low cost. But a bacterial disorder is wreaking havoc in Florida tomato fields causing lesions on both the leaves and fruit. Current infection rates stand at 97% of total producing acreage. The current treatment method involves applying antibiotic streptomycin or copper-fungicide mixes. These are only partially effective because the high temperatures and humidity inhibit treatment.
The answer could be a GMO tomato that incorporates a protein found in bell peppers. The two plants are closely related. The gene that encodes the protein is known as Bs2. In field trials it has demonstrated resistance to the infection.
The advantages derived from growing Bs2 tomatoes are:
Citrus Greening Resistance
The Florida citrus industry is currently under siege by citrus greening disease, also known as Huanglongbing. Approximately 80% of all citrus bearing trees are infected. Spread by the citrus psyllid, an insect that harbors a bacterium that invades the trees, it is almost impossible to detect. Infected trees can be symptom free and transmit the disease to neighboring trees. The trees die within a few years. The fruit produced before death is unsaleable and cannot be used for juice production.
Current control is done through spraying pesticides or by beefing up nutritional feeds also using chemicals. The alternative is to replace infected trees. And since citrus trees tend to live about 50 years, this means turnover every 5 to 10 years and with younger trees, smaller yields and a lack of economic sustainability.
A GMO solution has been discovered using a protein derived from spinach that counteracts the symptoms . The protein when introduced into an orange tree’s DNA has created resistance to citrus greening. The transgenic trees have been tested for five years and remain symptom free.
The advantages derived from adoption of this GMO orange tree are:
RNAi Papaya
Today papaya growing in Florida is extremely limited because of potential infection from papaya ringspot virus. Papaya has traditionally been grown in Hawaii where it is of major commercial benefit to the state. Back in 1992 an outbreak of ringspot virus decimated Hawaii’s production. Researchers at Cornell University and University of Hawaii reversed the DNA of the invading virus using RNA interference (RNAi). By switching on a component within papaya’s DNA that previously was suppressed RNAi acts like a vaccine to inhibit the virus from reproduction. The end result a transgenic papaya that today constitutes almost 80% of the crop grown in Hawaii.
In Florida, the papaya suffering from ringspot virus is a variant on that discovered in Hawaii. A biotech solution using RNAi has been under development at University of Florida since 2003. It is now 2014 and the University is still waiting for regulatory approval.
One would think that what has been accepted by Hawaii since 1997 as a way to combat ringspot virus would be evidence enough for Florida regulators. But apparently it is not.
Even stranger is the mounting resistance in Hawaii to any future GMO crops. An ongoing battle on Maui and Molokai has put a moratorium on any GMO crops and this is spreading to the rest of the island chain. In the public battle there appears to be very little science but lots of fear and doubt. And all this is happening in a state where the efficacy of GMO technology has saved one of its major cash crops, the papaya.
GMO and Its Future
The GLP’s as a non-partisan resource focused on the use of science as well as the abuse of science and statistics, has lots of work to do to overcome public perception and misinformation. In light of the overwhelming need to address world population growth in the 21st century, it may serve to educate all of us about GMO as a means of addressing our growing food production requirements.
Many who read this will not be convinced. The “Monsantos” of the world have, through their patent filing, litigious and bullying of farmers behavior, colored the perception of GMO. But this is a technology that holds significant promise for all humanity in the 21st century, and to not benefit from what we have learned would be a mistake.
