GMW: 'Smoke, Mirrors and Poverty' - biotech's deceptive fiction

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GMW: 'Smoke, Mirrors and Poverty' - biotech's deceptive fiction

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:57:54 +0100

 

 

 

 

 

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http://www.gmwatch.org

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'I wish we could clone her,' says a Biotechnology Industry Organisation

Vice President about Dr Florence Wambugu. And the US magazine Forbes

even named her as one of fifteen people around the globe who will

'reinvent the future'.

 

But now a new paper has exposed (yet again!) just how that

'reinvention' takes place - through bogus and unsupported claims that

serve to

create a deceptive fiction.

 

What alse emerges is that while the industry may not be able to clone

her, Florence Wambugu is far from a lone actor when it comes to

deceptive fictions involving biotechnology and poverty.

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'Smoke, Mirrors and Poverty' - biotech's deceptive fiction

 

Earlier this year the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation granted a

consortium led by the lobby group Africa Harvest and its CEO, Dr Florence

Wambugu, the better part of $16.9 million to develop a GM sorghum.

 

A key part of the Wambugu consortium is DuPont, the GM and chemicals

giant, and this is not the first time that DuPont and Dr Wambugu have

collaborated.

 

In mid-August, a subsidiary of DuPont's, Pioneer Hi-Bred International,

put out a press release entitled: 'Harvesting Hope: Kenyan Farmers

Celebrate First Banana Harvest Using New Growing Technology'. In it

DuPont's Chairman and CEO, Charles O. Holliday, Jr, was quoted as saying,

" DuPont is proud to partner with Africa Harvest in bringing tissue

culture

banana technology to the Chura community " .

http://www.just-food.com/press_releases_detail.asp?art=1581

 

Dr Wambugu is also quoted in the press release, saying that tissue

culture technology in Africa has increased banana productivity from 20 to

45 tons per hectare. For the typical Churan family, according to

Wambugu, this remarkable increase in production can translate into a

tripling

of income - from the current average of $1 per day per family to as

much as $3 per day per family.

 

" For these families, this additional income can mean the difference

between sending their children to school or being forced to keep them

home, " says Wambugu. " It is important to understand that the difference

tissue culture bananas make is far beyond the field. "

http://www.just-food.com/press_releases_detail.asp?art=1581

 

According to Wambugu, tissue cultured bananas are reversing a dire

situation in Kenya. " Banana production in this country has been in

decline

over the last 10 years, " she says. " Yields can be reduced by up to 90

percent from using the same suckers on multiple farms, and this of

course, means a major income loss for farmers. "

http://www.just-food.com/press_releases_detail.asp?art=1581

 

Elsewhere Dr Wambugu has written of an even longer decline in yields,

" This project was conceived in response to the rapid decline in banana

(Musa) production experienced in Kenya over the last two decades. "

http://www.gdnet.org/pdf/909_Wambugu.pdf

 

Dr Wambugu has also emphasised the importance of bananas as a staple

crop in Kenyan agriculture, the centrality of this crop to small holder

farmers and their incomes, and the important calorific contribution of

bananas to rural people's diets in Kenya. (Wambugu and Kiome, Benefits

of Biotechnology for Small-Scale Banana Producers in Kenya)

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1121332705303/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-31-Final.doc

 

Against this disturbing background of a rapid decline of a key crop for

food security in Kenya, Wambugu notes that the success that has already

been attained by her tissue cultured banana project is " incredible to

say the least. "

http://www.gdnet.org/pdf/909_Wambugu.pdf

 

Although tissue culture is a relatively unsophisticated, and largely

uncontroversial, biotechnological technique that does not involve genetic

engineering, Dr. Wambugu has been keen to draw the widest possible

conclusions from the project. For instance, in a 'Statement on

Biotechnology in Africa' submitted to the Committee on Agriculture of

the U.S.

House of Representatives she argued, " programs such as the tissue culture

banana project in some East African countries have demonstrated that

biotechnology can have a positive impact on hunger, malnutrition and

poverty. In some cases, rural farm incomes have tripled as a result of

biotech techniques. "

http://www.bio.org/foodag/action/20030326.asp

 

According to DuPont's Chairman, the success of this project makes it " a

model for other sustainable agricultural and developmental projects

that can benefit many more communities and farmers throughout Kenya,

Africa, and the developing world. "

http://www.just-food.com/press_releases_detail.asp?art=1581

 

However, last month a paper was published that casts serious doubts on

just about every one of the claims of Florence Wambugu and her

collaborators. In 'Smoke, Mirrors and Poverty', Joanna Chataway - a

Professor

in Biotechnology and Development at the Open University - and James

Smith - an African Studies specialist at the University of Edinburgh -

draw

on an earlier analysis of Wambugu's project by Smith (2004) as part of

a discussion of how projects involving innovation and development are

communicated. Their conclusions are damning.

 

Wambugu and her collaborators have promoted their project by creating

what the authors term a " crisis narrative " , which they define as an

attempt to paint a picture of " a situation that is inexorable, inevitable

and above all cannot be managed with the existing portfolio of

development interventions " .

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

This " crisis narrative " is created by establishing the banana as an

important crop in East Africa and by documenting a very serious

decline in

yield. However, this decline is a complete myth. " It is important to

note that both broad data on banana yields in Kenya and data gained from

speaking to many small-scale farmers in the areas surrounding Nairobi

do not in any way back up the disastrous declines in yield documented by

Wambugu and Kiome (Food and Agriculture Organisation Data, 2004). "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

In his earlier paper (2004), Smith notes that the " progressive yield

declines " claimed by Wambugu et al are not, in fact, " measured,

referenced or sourced in any of the literature concerning the

project " , and he

concludes that the yield declines " have little or no statistical or

empirical basis " . Indeed, he contrasts Wambugu's claims with FAO time

series data of mean annual yields for Kenya between 1975 and 2003, which

shows " there is no discernable decrease in banana yields over the past 20

years... In fact, if anything there has been a significant increase in

yields in Kenya... over that period. " The exact opposite of what

Wambugu and her collaborators claim.

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1121332705303/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-31-Final.doc

 

Having established a mythical decline in yields Wambugu then asserts

that the decline can largely be attributed to the infestation of Kenya

banana orchards by pests and diseases - something tissue culturing

bananas could counter. The only problem is, " They provide no empirical

evidence for this assertion. "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1121332705303/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-31-Final.doc

 

Just as fictitious as the declining yields is the importance Wambugu

claims for bananas in Kenyan agriculture and the centrality she says this

crop has for small holder farmers: " the majority of rural households

only cultivate very few banana plants. Banana is almost never the primary

crop, and in fact, agriculture as a whole is usually only one of

several livelihood activities that a household engages in. " In short,

" it is

clear the banana is not an important crop within the majority of

agricultural system " .

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

Equally fictitional is Wambugu's claim that bananas make a significant

contribution to rural people's diets in Kenya: " data from the Food and

Agriculture Organisation indicates that the mean nutritional

contribution of bananas has been in the order of 11-12 calories per

capita per

day over the past 25 years... It is likely that the poorest percentiles

of rural households consume proportionately more bananas than the FAO

figure, but it appears highly unlikely that the banana forms the main

component of either their diet or their income. "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

In other words, there is no sound basis for any of Wambugu's claims for

the banana being an important crop for rural development, for food

security or for income generation.

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

What then of Wambugu's claims for the project's " incredible " successes,

for its more than doubled yields and for its ability to triple farmer

income?

 

The evidence Wambugu bases such claims on is difficult to assess

because, " No published peer reviewed papers seem to exist to document the

impacts of TC banana projects in Kenya. "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

The authors accept that an increase in yield seems likely, not least

given that such projects involve increased time spent on orchard

management, irrigation etc, but the total absence of any peer reviewed

research

means " this is not quantifiable in the context of small-scale

production and market access " .

 

Indeed, the authors provide a number of reasons for doubting the

reality of the " incredible " successes Wambugu claims. They report

that, " we

have found a mixed reaction amongst farmers involved in the projects and

documented considerable disappointment from many of them. "

 

Although tissue culture bananas were judged to have positive

attributes, " problems with growth cycles of tissue culture bananas and

lack of

marketing outlets meant that farmers had gluts of bananas " that they were

unable to sell or consume. " Quotes from interviews with small farmers

carried out for this research included the following: 'TC bananas are

not meant for local cultivation', 'Kenya needs some mechanism to add

value to its bananas', 'No one thought ahead about surplus bananas.' "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

The authors also note that, " farmers who planted TC bananas were

encouraged to greatly increase their investment in banana growing, this

involved not only purchasing the TC plantlets (c. $1.50-2.00 per

plantlet)

but also introducing more labour and capital intensive orchard

management practices such as weeding, irrigation and intercropping.

Without

viable markets this clearly left farmers in a vulnerable position. "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

The authors conclude that Wambugu and her collaborators appear to have

both overestimated the importance of tissue cultured bananas " in terms

of subsistence and diet and ignored some of the production and

marketing constraints... Essentially, TC bananas were pushed as a

technology

solution and not examined sufficiently from a demand perspective. "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1127824457271/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-36-Final.doc

 

In a sense then, Wambugu and DuPont are quite right to say this project

offers wider lessons for Africa and the developing world. The most

obvious lesson is to beware of corporate-connected scientists bearing

crisis narratives. They may come pushing biotech solutions in search of a

problem.

 

Unfortunately, though, such narratives can be very seductive. Dr

Wambugu has had enormous success in promoting another project in Kenya

- the

GM sweet potato - and in an exactly similar fashion. Once again she has

used low figures on average yields in Kenya to paint a picture of

stagnation.

 

This time in constructing her crisis narrative Wambugu repeatedly

claimed that only 4 or perhaps 6 tons of sweet potatoes were being

produced

per hectare in Kenya - without ever mentioning the data source.

However, as the development specialist Aaron deGrassi has pointed out,

FAO

statistics indicated average yields in Kenya of " 9.7 tons, and official

statistics report 10.4 tons " per hectare. In other words, Wambugu's

figures on average non-GM yields massively understate the reality.

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

 

The contrasting success of the GM sweet potato was very widely reported

on the basis of the claims of Wambugu and her collaborators, even

though no peer reviewed reports or official figures were published during

three years of trials in Kenya. These results were said to be

" astonishing " - just how " astonishing " only finally emerged at the end

of the

Kenyan trials: the GM sweet potatoes, which supposedly yielded more, had

been outperformed by the conventional crop. They were worse than useless.

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

 

It would be easy to conclude from this that Dr Wambugu is a particular

case - a specialist in crisis narratives and hyped solutions, but she

has not acted alone. As well as Dupont, Wambugu's collaborators have

included Martin Qaim, Monsanto, USAID, ISAAA, the Rockefeller Foundation,

and DfID. And, as James Smith tellingly notes, this type of " narrative

prevails amongst a whole range of literature supporting

biotechnological development in Africa. "

http://assets.innogen.ac.uk/assets_innogen/dynamic/1121332705303/Innogen-Working\

-Paper-31-Final.doc

 

 

..

 

 

 

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