GM staples in Africa

February 2022

The vast continent of Africa has long been a key target for GM agriculture [1,2]. So far, three GM crop types (cotton, soya and maize) all with the standard insect-resistance or herbicide-tolerance traits have been released across six African countries, the most widely adopted one being 'Bt' insecticidal cotton. These are all commodity crops designed for maximum yield, and are promoted as a tool to boost agricultural productivity and alleviate food insecurity. There has, however, been a clear gap between the promises and the reality.

A study published in 2021 explored this problem.

GM Africa now

May 2016

Echoing GRAIN's 2014 Report that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's philanthropic endeavours are promoting an industrial, global market- and biotech industry-driven model of agriculture in Africa, while bypassing local social needs and knowledge [1], Global Justice Now released a similar Report in 2016.

It warns:

"the Gates Foundation is in effect preparing the ground for (the biotech industry) to access new profitable markets in hitherto closed-off developing countries, especially in Africa. The Foundation is especially pushing for the adoption of GM in Africa."

Gates has an aggressive corporate strategy and extraordinary influence across governments, academics and the media. It seems that, shielded by its unarguable philanthropic purpose, and by its connections to corporations and international development agencies, or its self-created 'partners' [1], and by the loyalties required to gain and retain its funding and patronage, healthy dissent and criticism have been stifled.

So what's happening on the ground in Gates' GM-Africa?

GM carotene-enhanced bananas

March 2015

In August 2014, a touch of déjà vu led GM-free Scotland to comment that "the safety and efficacy questions (of golden GM bananas) are going to be by-passed in favour of ignoring scientific ethics and hyping the product, as it seems to be the case with golden rice" [1].

The excuse for copying a gene from one banana into another is that, apparently, "Residents of Uganda and nearby countries don't favour the type of sweet banana that naturally carries the extra beta-carotene. So researchers put the gene into a less-sweet type of banana that East Africans often use in cooking".

Like golden rice, golden bananas are designed to provide beta-carotene which the body converts to vitamin A. Like golden rice, the GM bananas are planned to target poor, malnourished populations. Like golden rice, the GM bananas have not been safety tested on animals, will not go through clinical trials, and are going to be fed to a small number of well-nourished healthy individuals (this time female American university students) to measure how much vitamin A is produced.

Unlike golden rice, the US researchers are trying to avoid the ethics scandal which broke over the surreptitious feeding of experimental GM rice to Chinese children.

Golden rice going bananas

August 2014

Golden Rice. CC photo by IRRI photos on Flickr

Academics seem to be going bananas over the crimes against humanity perpetrated by all those green NGOs and individuals who keep voicing their concerns about GM food.

Last year, some eminent international scientists got together to write a letter to a top science magazine. Their aim was to broadcast the role of the green movement in delaying the development of 'golden rice'. They claim this wondrous, philanthropic rice has been genetically transformed to produce vitamin-A to save the poor in countries where many suffer from malnourishment.

This year, a group of academics at the University of California prepared a report for their university's bi-monthly publication. Their aim was to expose the presence of 'powerful forces that hide behind environmentalism' and which are blocking the development of golden rice.

The refrain has, of course, been eagerly picked up by others in the pro-GM lobby [1].