Fwd: GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa

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Thu, 18 Sep 2003 14:13:40 +0100

GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa

press-release

 

GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa

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Damning report concludes GM crops do not address the real causes of poverty and

hunger in Africa. Jonathan Matthews writes.

 

Careful analysis of the evidence from the biotech industry’s flagship projects

in Africa shows that GM crops are irrelevant for Africa. The analysis comes in a

damning report from Aaron deGrassi, a researcher in the Institute of Development

Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. The flagship projects analyzed include

Monsanto’s GM cotton in the Makhitini Flats in South Africa, Syngenta

Foundation’s GM maize project in Kenya, and another Kenyan project with GM sweet

potatoes involving Monsanto, the World Bank and USAID. All have been showcased

by the industry as huge successes for small-scale African farmers.

 

Significantly, deGrassi shows that the benefits from GM crops are much lower

than can be obtained " with either conventional breeding or agroecology-based

techniques " from just a tiny fraction of the investment in research.

 

The excitement over GM crops, the author shows, stems in reality from a PR

strategy by the biotech industry trying to give itself the public legitimacy to

help reduce " trade restrictions, biosaftey controls, and monopoly regulations. "

 

DeGrassi’s analysis receives corroboration from a surprising quarter. An

Associated Press article in June profiling Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief

technology officer and Robert Horsch, its vice president of product and

technology cooperation, notes that Horsch manages a Monsanto program designed to

help farmers in developing nations improve their farming methods. Horsch is

reported to have said his mission is twofold: " create goodwill and help open

future markets. "

 

DeGrassi’s carefully referenced report details the GM lobby’s extensive PR use

of South African GM cotton farmers such as ‘Bt Buthelezi’

 

" Buthelezi was by Zoellick’s side when the Trade Secretary formally announced a

US WTO case against EU restrictions on GM imports. A month later, the

Administrator of USAID, Andrew Natsios, described Buthelezi before a

Congressional panel on plant biotechnology in Africa....The Council for

Biotechnology Information calls him a " small farmer " , and others describe his

life as " hand-to-mouth existence " . Administrator

Natsios described him as a " small farmer struggling just at the subsistence

level " .

 

" However, independent reporters have revealed that, with two wives and more than

66 acres, he is one of the largest farmers in Makhathini and chairs the area’s

farmers’ federation encompassing 48 farmers’ associations. "

 

DeGrassi reports that for Monsanto, Buthelezi and his stories are part of the

firm's declared strategy of " gaining global acceptance of biotechnology " . Just

before President Bush’s May 2003 speech claiming that Europe’s import

restrictions exacerbate African hunger, Monsanto flew four black South African

GM crop farmers to London, where they spoke at a private conference hosted by

the Commonwealth Business Council, before heading on to Denmark and Germany.

Like Buthelezi, these " representative farmers " read statements carefully

scripted by Monsanto and own dozens of acres of land. Several actually spend

most of their time working at their day jobs as school administrators.

 

Other pro-biotech campaigners have caught on: CropGen, an industry-funded group

of academic scientists in the UK, for instance, celebrates another South African

farmer, Mbongeni Nxumalo.

 

De Grassi states,

 

" These South African farmers - whom representatives of Monsanto and other

businesses call " basically representative farmers " and " representatives of the

African smallholding community " - are plucked from South Africa, wined and

dined, and given scripted statements about the benefits of GM. In an area where

most farmers cultivate just a few hectares, and only half the population can

read, Monsanto's " representative " farmers are school administrators and

agricultural college graduates, owning dozens of hectares of land. Monsanto has

been criticized for using these farmers as a part of a deliberate attempt to

distort public debate on biotechnology. Critics have coined the nickname " Bt

Buthelezi " , to illustrate this farmer's unconditional support to Bt cotton:

during a trip to Monsanto’s headquarters in St. Louis, Buthelezi was quoted as

saying, " I wouldn't care if it were from the devil himself. " "

 

Meanwhile, conventional crop breeding methods, which cost much less and produce

better results, have failed to attract attention from both African governments

and biotech companies.

 

More alarming is the amount of money earmarked for these crop innovations, when

cotton and sweet potato are not even major crops in Africa and thus will not in

any way solve Africa’s poverty/hunger problems.

 

The report shows how the industry’s PR spin is often farcically inexact. Here’s

just one example in relation to GM cotton in South Africa: " ISAAA implies that

small farmers have been using the technology on a hundred thousand hectares.

Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe – an industry coalition - suggests 5,000 ha

of " smallholder cotton " . The survey team suggests 3,000 ha.

 

" In addition to conflicting data on the area and numbers of farmers, the profits

gained by switching to Bt cotton are unclear. " DeGrassi writes. " CropGen says

farmers gain $113 per hectare. Monsanto says farmers gain an extra $90. ISAAA

argues that switching to Bt allows farmers make an extra $50 per hectare.

University researchers calculate $35, whilst the survey team found farmers

gained only $18 in the second year, but in the first year, " Bt cotton

nonadopters were actually $1 per hectare better off " . [emphasis added] "

 

Meanwhile, the very crop that has been reported to be giving small farmers an

easier and more affluent life, turns out to have not only failed to solve

Makhathini farmers’ existing problems with debt, but to have actually deepened

and widened indebtedness. The expensive crop have helped to saddle them with

debts of $1.2 million!

 

Despite that, CropGen claimed GM cotton has turned the area from one that wasn’t

viable for agriculture into " a thriving agricultural community " . Monsanto says,

" The region has become an example to the world of how plant biotechnology can

help the smallholder farmers of Africa " . Not to be outdone, Steven Smith,

Chairman of the UK’s Agricultural Biotechnology Council, has said of the

project, that " small farmers are realizing huge economic benefits " . A group of

academics in South Africa have even claimed that projecting the results across

the entire continent shows that " it could generate additional incomes of about

six billion Rand, or US$600 million, for some of the world’s poorest farmers. "

ISAAA’s claims, according to deGrassi who details the various claims in his

carefully referenced report, are apparently even more fantastical.

 

The report shows that GM cotton is, in truth, at best irrelevant to poverty in

the area, and at worst is " lowering wages and job prospects for agricultural

laborers, who are some of the most impoverished people in South Africa. "

 

The other showcase project that deGrassi looks at in detail centers on GM sweet

potatoes in Kenya. Again deGrassi demonstrates the total gap between the

supposed ‘evidence’ and hyperbole – " Transgenic Sweet Potato Could End Kenyan

Famine " - and the wholly unimpressive reality.

 

" The [GM] sweet potato project [which may increase production by as much as 18%]

is now nearing its twelfth year, and involves over 19 scientists (16 with PhDs)

and an estimated $6 million. In contrast, conventional sweet potato breeding in

Uganda was able in just a few years to develop with a small budget a well-liked

virus-resistant variety with yield gains of nearly 100%. "

 

Yet it has been claimed that the virus in question " is a classic example of a

problem that cannot be solved through conventional breeding, " and that " the time

and money spent actually developing GM varieties are less than for conventional

varieties. "

 

DeGrassi also notes: " Another surprising example of advocacy trumping facts is

C.S. Prakash, the influential biotechnology advocate who has advised the US

Trade Representative. Prakash has repeatedly cited sweet potatoes as a positive

example of the benefits of GM for African countries, but has confessed to having

no knowledge of the results of scientific trials in Kenya. "

 

Prakash issued a press release ahead of the Sacramento ministerial meeting in

June demanding that international leaders ignore the protesters and " let sound

science determine the future of agricultural technologies in developing

countries " .

 

DeGrassi mercilessly exposes the kind of ‘sound science’ that has been used to

lobby leaders around the world and to mislead the rest of us. Read deGrassi’s

report. The truth is out!

 

Sources

Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan

Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence by Aaron diGrassi, published by Third

World Network, Africa

http://www.twnafrica.org/docs/GMCropsAfrica.pdf

 

http://allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/00010161.html

 

http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0306/28/technology-204631.htm

For the section on the biotech industry's PR use of Africa:

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1006

 

 

 

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