Anne Perkins asks whether GM crops might be key in helping to unlock Africa's agricultural potential
It seems the perfect answer: use scientific advance to develop food
crops such as bananas and maize that are capable of resisting the pests,
diseases and the vagaries of the rainfall that each year threaten the
survival of many of sub-Saharan Africa's small farmers. This, surely, is
the key to unlocking its green revolution - and preventing another
food crisis like the current one.
Where
the rest of the world has seen an explosion in agricultural
productivity that has mainly outstripped population growth, Africa
produces less food per capita now than it did in 1960. The average
calorie consumption
is about 600 calories less than required. In some parts of Africa, as
much as a third of the population are reliant on some degree of food
aid. About 40 years of structural transformation has yielded almost
no growth.
Poor
soils, increasing salinity, and lack of security are part of the story.
But the damage that diseases and pests inflict on crops and livestock
is a significant problem. For example, the infestation of maize by a
parasitic weed called striga
has spread to over a million hectares of Africa's precious grainlands.
The East African banana, another vital food source, is attacked by fungi
such as black leaf strike and banana wilt, which is creeping south
across the Great Lakes region.
Global warming poses another threat. Already farmers are complaining of infrequent and variable rainfalls which the
latest research
suggests will lead to somewhere between a 17% and a 30% fall in
productivity before the end of the century. The difference depends on
the use of carbon fertilisers. But they are major contributors to global
warming.
Biotechnology seems to offer some protection from these
challenges. But doubts persist not only about its safety, which has led
to some African countries banning the import of genetically modified
maize and soya (as well as Europe refusing to take GM exports), but also
about its usefulness in building food security. Africa has been a slow
and reluctant recruit to the
biotech revolution.
One
reason is that technological advances in agriculture are largely done
by big business for big farmers. Biotechnology is expensive to develop,
and the companies involved such as Monsanto want big returns. Only
large-scale commercial farms can afford the investment, particularly
when the product is accompanied by licences that restrict its sale and
further use. The so-called 'terminator' strategy - now less common -
made it impossible to hold back seed for the following year's sowing.
When
a new technology is successful on a wide scale it has the effect of
forcing smaller producers into the same game. The commercial dominance
of the new drives out the diversity of the old, even though it is
variety that small producers need to get the most from their land for
the lowest inputs. They find themselves forced into a relationship they
can't afford with the corporate sector.
Commercial farming carries
a high level of risk for a small grower. Relying on a single crop makes
them highly vulnerable to drought and flood, while a variety of produce
sown at varying times gives at least some resilience. If the worst
happens, small producers find themselves in debt, with nothing either to
sell or to eat. Far from enhancing food security, it destroys it.
Part
of the answer is to reduce the cost of technological advance. That
means rebuilding public research centres from the ruins of the
privatisations of the 1990s enforced by World Bank economists demanding
reform in return for loans. This is now happening across Africa. In
Uganda, for example, trials are underway for a
genetically-altered banana variety that will resist black leaf wilt.
Bananas
are particularly vulnerable to pest and disease epidemics because there
are few genetic variations - they propagate by cloning through suckers.
But this also means they are safer for genetic modification because
there is little risk of them spreading the modification unintentionally
through cross-pollination.
But like many African countries, Uganda
has allowed its infrastructure of agricultural 'extension' workers -
trained agronomists who relay developments from research centre to the
farmer, and report on farmers' needs to the researchers - to fall apart.
It is the commercial sector that has developed a marketing network in
rural areas, not government, and its objective is profitability rather
than poverty alleviation.
Nonetheless experiments and
trials in GM crops are now underway across Africa, in countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Senegal and Burkina Faso. They have ratified the Cartagena Protocol on
biosafety and are developing their research and development capacity.
But
outside agribusiness, there are few believers in the transformative
powers of biotechnology. Equally few rule it out altogether. This week
the UK government - unlike the US - accepted the report of the UN-backed
International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) from its meeting in Johannesburg in April.
This
body of American, European and African scientists recommended a
completely different approach to stimulating an African green
revolution. Its report is the latest in a growing body of research that
says the smallholder is the key to unlocking Africa's agricultural
potential and building food security.
This is the agricology approach. As
Farm-Africa seeks to do in Katine,
it believes that the men and women who work the land are the people who
know what problems need to be solved, and in what order. The challenge
is to find ways of channelling their knowledge into research and the
results back out into rural communities - and the funding to do it.
GM crops may one day be part of the answer. They must not be allowed to become part of the problem first.
Link
Task 1: Multi-part choice (8)
1. According to the text, choose the crops, which are expected to be perfect for growing in Sub-Saharan conditionals:
a)tomato
b)maize
c)rye
d)coconut
e)potato
f)cabbage
g)banana
2.How many calories (than needed) do not get average Africans with food every day?
a)1960
b)600
c)40
d)300
e)900
3. Which factors make difficult to grow these crops?
