Enslaving Africans again

June 2019

In 2005, the Head of the Ethiopian Environment Protection Authority suggested that GM crops would, once more, enslave the people of Africa.  Instead of being transported as slaves to grow crops in America, they would be forced to grow America's crops in African soil.

Also recognised even then was that the issue of GM food safety is a much bigger question in Africa than in the developed world.  This is because chronically malnourished people will be more susceptible to any harmful effects from their food.  In the case of GM maize, in particular, account must be taken of the quantities likely to be consumed: maize may be eaten three times a day by African populations, while it forms no more than two per cent of the American diet.

Indeed, the biotech industry's new frontier in GM crop expansion does appear to be Africa, and does appear to be focusing on GM maize.

Industry promises are, our course, yield, yield, yield, with a feel-good refrain of help the poor, feed the hungry, and improve efficiency and farmer livelihoods.

But, what does the GM-based agricultural dream model really offer the people and states of Africa?

Heavily politically-orientated food

May 2019

Earlier this year, a story appeared in Le Monde newspaper entitled "GMO poisons? The real end of the Séralini affair". Le Monde implied that a newly published study, pithily named 'GMO90+', disproved Séralini's controversial experimental results, and showed that the alarm generated by media reports on Séralini's work was fake news.

Somewhat different crops for Africa

May 2019

The WEMA project to provide 'Water Efficient Maize for Africa' is a public-private partnership co-ordinated by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, and involving among others, agribusiness multinational Bayer-Monsanto, and national research systems in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and most recently Ethiopia. It is largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Howard G. Buffet Foundations, and USAID. (African Centre for Biodiversity)

The US government / Gates Foundation project to provide 'Water Efficient Maize for Africa' (WEMA) is hitting some rocks.

Bullet-proof bees

May 2019

People need bees to produce over 80% of their food. Bees need flowers to produce 100% of their food. The people, the bees and the flowering plants all have to be in the right place at the right time, or none will survive.

Paradoxically, modern man seems to have gone out of his way to make life impossible for the insects he depends on.

Roundup on trial

May 2019

Monsanto has spent four decades manipulating the science, the regulators, the media, and patent law in pursuit of profit from its blockbuster glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup [1]. When the Roundup-causes-cancer scare reared up, Monsanto seemed confident it could manipulate that too. Bayer, a company well used to handling litigation over harmful products [3], also seemed confident it could ride out the storm, and proceeded with its acquisition of Monsanto despite the impending law suits.

It's interesting to see what's been unfolding in the American courts, where two glyphosate-based cancer cases have so far been judged (although the appeals will no doubt stretch out for some time to come).

Herbicides, GM crops and autism

May 2019

Indications of links between the world's most used, GM-friendly herbicide, glyphosate, and premature death from cancer and Parkinson's disease raise concerns about what we may be inflicting on ourselves in the longer term [1,2].

Do glyphosate-based-herbicides only make their toxic presence felt as we approach old age? What are the chances they cause us damage in the womb and in infancy too?

Many pesticides, including glyphosate, are known to have neurotoxic effects, and increasingly scientific evidence is implicating ambient pesticides as a risk factor for autism spectrum disorder.

Glyphosate and parkinsons disease again

May 2019

In 2012, a rat feeding study on the toxic effects of Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant GM maize sprayed with the herbicide was published [1]. During the experiment, an excess of tumours was observed in treated animals. This unwelcome suggestion of a link to cancer caused panic in the biotech lobby and sparked a controversy which just keeps on simmering [2].