The Africa I know: Teza tea plantation in Bujumbura, Burundi.
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In the continent where natural oil resources are seen as less of a blessing and more of a curse, and where diamonds are bought with the price of blood, Africa can now find itself in the midst of a new natural resource controversy: the main agenda of the scientific community’s insistence on growing crops with enhanced seed technologies. A new dependance of poor farmers on foreign companies for seeds is inevitable and in progress. Right now, it’s embedded in the practice of replacing small-scale subsistence farming with genetically modified (GM) crops, spearheaded by the biotech industry.
So what are GM seeds? Also known as Hybrid seeds, at the most elementary level, they are created when genes are transferred from one species to another completely different species in order to create a ‘Dream Team’ like structure of one seed. For example, DNA from an animal can be transferred to a vegetable. Those in favor of GM foods are making grand claims: the way food is grown and harvested can end world hunger. Proponents also argue that GM foods can benefit agricultural production with greater yields, crop resiliency and more pest-susceptibility, and even healthier foods with increased protein and vitamin complexes. Africa is just the last largest area in the world to begin utilizing these new agricultural methods.
AGRA partnership with local farmers show a farmer with her cassava field in Kenya.
Some advocates for this implementation in African countries are clamoring the loudest. President of British Association for the Advancement of Science, David King holds a unique perspective as he states, “the suffering within that continent, I believe, is largely driven by attitudes developed in the West which are somewhat anti-science, anti-technology – attitudes that lead towards organic farming, for example, attitudes that lead against the use of genetic technology for crops that could deal with increased salinity in the water, that can deal with flooding for rice crops, that can deal with drought resistance.”
…Attitudes that lead towards organic farming? Last time I checked, this was a good thing. Better yet, a great thing. King’s concerns are almost laughable, if they weren’t so earnest. He equates organic methods of farming with the exacerbation of food shortages and ultimately identifies an organic approach to farming as inherently impossible to implement on a wide scale and even more, totally unnecessary. Unfortunately, it seems as though he is now twisting personal convictions and shaky ideas into a grossly generalized theory.
Crediting the West as enabling Africans in creating an unstable future for food production, he not only undermines the decision-making of local African farmers, he never entertains the thought of working with native inhabitants of the land who utilize this natural system of food production. King derives the blame of continuing these farming methods from the presence of NGOs that partner with rural communities and condemns these liaisons for less obvious reasons: they are actually promoting the cultural way of farming by African rural communities, and to King, this is inherently, well, backward. I find his rationalizations not only distorted, but strange.
King continues: “Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods.” It is easy to understand why this can be unsettling, as we witness the effects of starvation and lack of food that many African countries face.
Greenpeace volunteers spread awareness of Nestle's pro-GM stance in India to consumers.
Comparisons have thus been made to the ‘Green Revolutions’ of Asia and the question of when Africa will fully emerge in this arena is now being implemented. Yet, comparing Africa to Asia is dangerous; when we compare, we automatically and perhaps unintentionally, produce standards. And lest we soon forget, in the Durg district of Chhatisgarh, 23 suicides in 2008 alone were committed by Indian farmers. The cause of these deaths are linked to loans taken out to pay for expensive farming treatments and the increasing debt the families face when crops fail and the loans cannot be repaid. According to a January 2010 CNN article, the suicides have been reported in India since 1997, and the total number of suicides by Indian farmers are in the thousands.
With Africa now at the focus of GM efforts, especially when there is much protest against selling these products in Europe (e.g. “zero-tolerance” laws) and a small yet increasing awareness in the United States, this dilemma serves as just another quandary to complicate a vital African sector in its infancy. For instance in Kenya, the lands of the Mau people were deforested by colonial influence to establish plantations, thus producing erosion and land shortages for previous inhabitants after colonization. A rebirth of food exports after colonialism and through political instability is the lifeline for many African economies GDP.
Whenever Africa is put at the center of attention in terms of development and technology, I tend to (and rightly so) wonder what the ulterior motive is. It is not ironic when a ‘developing’ country is put on the center stage for examination and aid efforts that the fire is not too far from the smoke. Look at Haiti for example. We cannot forget, just days before the debilitating earthquake that shook Port Au Prince to its core, these same people were eating cookies and pies made from mud, yet now the French are breaking down doors to help? And this is the same way I feel about ‘concern’ for Africa, especially from the scientific community. Why so much attention at this point?
A broad scope of GM food/crops worldwide.
Yet this ‘concern’ may deal with the overarching issue of modernity and the development of non-Westernized countries. As we label organic farming techniques as ‘unsophisticated’ and primitive, we automatically assume they are working towards one uniform goal of modernization and utilization of technological advances. Not only is this perspective especially narrow, it also perceives organic and cultural methods as inferior to widely practiced methods. And in reality, this goal of technological advancement at any cost, may not actually be the desire of rural farmers. So to sum it all up, the concern is rather for stakeholders rather than desire to help devastated populations.
To drive my point further, in the 2005 British The Guardian, the columnist George Monbiot wrote about the controversially and albeit, poorly constructed ‘poverty index’ of less than a dollar a day attributed to the living standards of African countries by organizations such as the IMF and World Bank. Monbiot states, “That the key global economic statistic has for so long been derived by means which are patently useless, is a telling indication of how little the men who run the world care about the impact of their policies. If they can’t be bothered even to produce a meaningful measure of global poverty, we have no reason to believe their claim that they wish to address it.” If proponents of GM crops like King cannot even take into consideration the wishes and demands of the farming communities in African countries, what makes me think the interests are sincere?
This then leads me to consider, who is actually going to profit off of this, in the event that more arable land is used to employ these scientific farming techniques? Where will the seeds come from? I believe we already know where these seeds will come from. The better question then is, who will be able to afford them? GMOs are the inevitable push towards industrialized markets and the weighty topic of free trade. The liberalization of trade markets many argue have rather hurt the majority of African countries economies. In essence, the land is bought out by wealthy farmers who then buy the genetically modified seeds, and make a profit whereas rural farmers have less arable land to produce a profit, and the local markets are overwhelmed by competitive prices.
Increased pesticide use is common for GM crops and toxic chemicals are loaded into a variety of soils that produce runoff into water sources like streams, lakes and rivers. Additional treatments of insecticides are mandatory to prolong the storage and shelf-life of the harvested crops. Ultimately, the benefits of these new GM crops cannot be realized by many local farmers, as the cost of insecticides and other treatments coupled with cutbacks on acreage prove too great of a financial burden.
The original Farmer's Market; a local veggie shop in Ghana.
One of the biggest elements of science that we forget is that it is not only a discoveratory discipline, but it is also a discipline that relies on testing and experimentation; there is still much to be determined surrounding the cross-breeding of seeds and the lasting environmental effects of GM seeds. It is indeed very frightening to see how less and less we depend on the natural environment, and more and more on synthetic procedures to produce sustainability. In fact, as King sees it, we can actually control the environment and drought patterns now, based on the properties present in GM seeds. If only we plant GMOs.
Now not only are we failing at looking at how they affect our bodies, we don’t look at its effect on the natural environment on a long-term scale. In fact, ‘Seeds of Deception’ author Jeffery Smith explains that these GMOs do not actually work to create water salinity or drought tolerance. As of this point, the cons increasingly outweigh the pros in the discussion of the usefulness of GM crops. Genetically modified soy has 7 times more allergens than natural soy and pre-cancerous strains have been linked to some GM foods. Many of the effects of GMO’s are known but are not recognizable yet, and the long-term effects of cross breeding have yet to not only be determined, but also physically realized.
Proposing sustainable organic farming methods should not be deemed impossible; in the largest ‘underdeveloped’ continent in the world, the natural physical environment of Africa is unique in its diversity of not only food crops and husbandry, but climate as well. Year round, Africa has ideal atmospheric conditions for maintaining these crops, and more emphasis on water treatments and irrigation systems should be considered. Echoing Sierra Club founder David Brower’s quote in the introduction of this post, we as a global community must desire to work with nature instead of constantly against it. And we must not undermine or devalue the input of the communities who are doing just that. I think it best we learn from Africa in this instance, instead of attempting to replace what can actually work more sustainably.
Millet crop farmer in Kenya, in alliance with AGRA.
Organizations like the Nafula Foundation embark on projects centered on working with local communities to develop rainwater systems, specifically in Kenya, to combat the ill-effects of lack of [clean] water and its effect on people and the environment. For more information, visit them here: http://www.nafulafoundation.org/
For more general information about GM foods, please log onto Jeffrey Smith’s excellent website, Seedsofdeception.com. It gives in great detail more information about GM products in the United States, foods that commonly use GM and tips to avoid buying them. http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/BuyingNon-GMO/index.cfm
To hear more information about GMO’s, this podcast hosted by Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness examines the history and issues of GMO’s by author of the book, ‘Seeds of Deception,’ Jeffrey Smith. Please click this link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/undergroundwellness/2010/01/21/genetically-modified-foods-with-jeffrey-smith
The tragic reactions of corporate seeds in India: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/05/india.farmer.suicides/index.html
Full article on David King’s perspective: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4699096.ece
In Diaso, Ghana, this cocoa farmer presents the fruits of his labor.
