Demystifying biotech crops

Sifelani Tsiko Senior Writer
Even though Africa is registering a steady rise in the uptake of biotech crops, the majority of people on the continent only readily accept biotechnology in science and medicine but less so in agriculture.
“Biotechnology has brought numerous benefits to farmers and consumers, and thousands of studies support the safety of food from GMO crops,” says Dr Margaret Karembu, director of the International Service for the Acquistion of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in an interview with The Herald in Nairobi recently.

“People in Africa accept biotechnology in science and medicine but when it comes to agriculture it’s a different story altogether.

“It seems many people don’t understand the technology.”

According to the 2013 Global Status of Commercialised Biotech/GM crops, a record 175,2 million hectares of biotech crops were grown globally, up 5 million from 170 million hectares in 2012.

In the 18th year of commercialisation, the global hectarage of biotech crops has increased more than 100-fold from 1,7 million hectares in 1996 to over 175 million hectares in 2013 in what Clive James, the renowned biotechnology proponent and founder of ISAAA says makes ‘biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in recent years.’
ISAAA further says that the there is growing uptake of biotechnology in developing countries and suggest that more than 90 percent or 16,5 million farmers in small and resource-poor countries planted Genetically Modified crops.

Proponents of biotechnology argue that biotech crops are demonstrating their global value as a tool for resource poor farmers, who face decreased water supplies and increased weed and pest pressures.

They say the effects of climate change will only continue to expand the need for this technology.

In Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan increased biotech cotton hectarage by 50 percent and 300 percent respectively while seven other countries — Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda are conducting biotech/GM crop field trials as the penultimate step to approval for cultivation by farmers.

Planting of biotech drought-tolerant maize in Africa is expected in 2017, according to ISAAA.

In Kenya, field trials are being conducted on biotech drought-tolerant maize technology through the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project.

The project is being implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico and Kenya-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

In Africa, biotechnology is accepted by people when applied to medical products but when it comes to biotechnology in agriculture people are afraid.

Biotechnology experts say there is a disconnect from agriculture and whenever people hear that food is being “altered” or “modified” people get frightened.

“But food from genetically modified crops is exactly the same as food from conventional crops,” argues Dr Jonathan Mufandaedza, chief executive of the National Biotechnology Authority of Zimbabwe.

He says lack of awareness coupled with a low human resource base in terms of competencies in biotechnology is to blame for the low uptake of biotechnology in Africa.

“It’s a new technology and we need to build a critical mass of expertise running through the entire education chain,” Dr Mufandaedza says. “Opinions and policies generated by policy-makers have to be beefed up by experts.

“Our politicians need to be equipped with proper information so that when they make decisions they are properly informed not through misinformation or other wild claims but by facts.”

Zimbabwe, Dr Mufandaedza says, needed to conduct more research to enhance the uptake of agricultural biotechnologies.

“Where are we as Africans? This is the question, we need to think seriously about the good work (on agricultural biotechnology) going on in our labs,” says Dr Karembu.

“What is our place in the global biotechnology space. We need to reclaim it and improve the livelihoods of our farmers across the continent.”
She says lack of awareness and a constrained regulatory environment had also slowed down the uptake of agricultural biotechnology.

“Lack of awareness of the benefits and the regulatory framework has affected the tide towards the adoption of biotechnology. The victim mentality has been largely to blame for this.

“We think of ourselves as victims of the technology. The fact is that our public institutions and universities have been doing research on biotech crops for years and this has not moved to the commercialisation stage,” the biotechnology expert says.

Dr Karembu says the “victim mentality” impacted negatively on regulation.

“If we make the regulatory framework tough we are perpetuating the dominance of multinationals,” she says. “A stringent and expensive regulatory process slows down uptake and the completion process of products for commercialisation.

“The regulatory process is so burdensome and makes everything unpredictable. There is fear of change and challenging of the status quo. There is so much resistance and that push and pull effect.”

In Africa, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan were growing biotech crops while Kenya, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda have been conducting biotech crop field trials in preparation for commercialisation.

Of the 27 countries which planted biotech crops in 2013, 19 were developing and eight were industrial countries.

ISAAA says Latin American, Asian and African farmers collectively grew 94 million hectares or 54 percent of the global 175 million biotech hectares compared with industrial countries at 81 million hectares.

Biotechnology supporters say lack of appropriate, science-based, cost and time-effective regulatory systems continue to be the major constraint to adoption in Africa and across the world.

Prof Naagla Abdullah, head of the Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute at Cairo University blamed the media for stalling the adoption of agricultural biotechnologies on the continent.

“The problem is the media and people against biotechnology,” she said. “The media has peddled lies and misinformed policy makers and the public. We need facts and to keep our enemies (media and anti-GMO activists) near us and not way. We have to put facts forward for policy makers and the public to make informed choices.”

The publication of a controversial and much criticised GMO study suggesting GM corn caused tumours in rats by French research Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini in the Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) journal in September 2012 sparked a worldwide outcry from the scientific community that stoked fears held by consumers on GM crops.

However, in a major climb down, the publisher of the study withdrew the paper after a year-long investigation found it did not meet scientific standards.

“This retraction comes after a thorough and time-consuming analysis of the published article and the data it reports, along with an investigation into the peer-review behind the article,” the journal said in a statement.

“Ultimately, the results presented — while not incorrect — are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.”

The infamous Seralini study which claimed to show that GMO corn causes cancer in laboratory rats attracted an avalanche of criticism from scientists but it was immediately embraced by anti-GMO activists who continue to cite it as evidence that GMO foods are unhealthy.

In Zimbabwe, links of biotechnology to the biological warfare of the 1970s war of independence still makes the majority of rural people and liberation war struggle leaders jittery of the technology.

Thousands of people died when Rhodesian forces used the anthrax epidemic as a biological weapon to fight the increasing insurgence by Zimbabwe’s freedom fighters from 1978-1980, a period which coincided with the final stretch of the liberation war.

The scars of this biological terrorism are still fresh in the minds of struggle leaders who are now policymakers in Government.

Despite, the sad episode in the misuse of biotechnology in Africa, scientists and policymakers now believe that Africa must not remain trapped in the past, but must move to tap the huge benefits that comes with biotech crops in enhancing the continent’s food and nutrition security.

“Biotech crops are essential but are not a panacea to hunger and adherence to good farming practises such as rotations and resistance management are a must for biotech crops as it is for conventional crops,” says Kenyan legislator Kareke Mbiuki. “We have to review our position banning GMO crops in Kenya and move to tap the benefits of biotechnology.”

Adds another Kenyan legislator, Cecilia Ngetich: “The benefits seem to outweigh the risks and it is time to dialogue and come up with a way forward on GM crops.

“Let the truth be told and facts be tabled so that the myths and wrong information can be corrected so that our economy can grow fast.

“We need to address concerns of those opposed to biotechnology as they too are raising pertinent issues.”