Biotechnology: New danger or solution to Africa's food deficit?

Africa News Service 11apr00

Nairobi - An entire country faces famine. The government calls out for food relief to help stem the death and starvation across. The relief food that is donated is genetically-modified. The government knows this. Should it accept the food or not? Or is this really a rhetorical question?

This scenario goes to the heart of the issue of genetically engineered food for Africa. It was painted by a University of Zimbabwe biochemist at an interview during a recent conference on bio- diversity in Mombasa. The scenario brought together the science and economics of genetic engineering and the uncertainty surrounding the safety of genetically- engineered food.

Genetic engineering is not yet widespread on the continent. The Executive Director of Nairobi's African Center for Technology Studies (Acts), Dr John Mugabe, reports that only three countries are now involved in genetic engineering: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. In Dr Mugabe's assessment, Kenya is really in between tissue culture technology and genetic engineering. Tissue culture technology and genetic engineering are part of a broader field of biotech, a technique using living organisms to make or modify a product, to improve plants or animals or to develop micro- organisms for specific uses.

Right now, Kenya has only one genetic engineering project. The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) and Monsanto, the besieged multinational, are working on a transgenic sweet potato.

Aventis, another multinational, formed by merging Rhone-Poulenc with AgrEvo, may be working with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) on another genetic engineering project in Kenya. 

In the African and Kenyan context, genetic engineering is mainly a Western import. It follows that the debates in the West are important to Africans as they generate their own debates," says Dr John Nderitu of the Association for Better Land Husbandry (ABLH).

"The effects of genetically modified crops and products on the human body are not known. There is no conclusive evidence of whether or not they can be harmful."

The Association for Better Land Husbandry is an organization that promotes organic farming as a sustainable form of agriculture. Dr Idah Sithole-Niang, a senior lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe's Department of Biochemistry, agrees. She "absolutely" supports the development of agriculture biotechnology.

"There are no data on the long-term impact or effects on human health that a genetically modified organism may have. Nobody has such data because nobody has eaten them long enough for the data to be collected". 

In the United States, genetically modified organisms have been in use for close to a decade. So, ideally, that is where data should be available on the long-term impact of such food on human health. The US Food and Drug Administration, the body officially charged with regulating new food and drug products in the US, declared in 1992 that there was no major difference between conventional and genetically engineered foods.

This meant that the rigorous testing to which new products are normally subjected in the US has not been applied to genetically engineered foods. The result is that no labeling is required for genetically engineered foods in the US and no special safety tests are carried out.

Therefore, data that would help clear the air about genetically-modified foods have not been collected in a country where genetically modified seeds are used by many farmers.

Sithole-Niang observes that such foods can be tested for toxicity and allergy in humans. She says this is standard and that such effects are not necessarily because the food is genetically engineered. For instance, an individual's allergic reaction to such food is similar to somebody else's allergy to eggs or meat.

In 1992, countries gathered for the Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio to discuss the environment and what needed to be done to reverse any damage done on it. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which resulted from those talks, has been ratified by several African countries, including Kenya. Significantly, the US has not ratified it to date. 

Article 19.3 of the convention provides for Parties (countries that have ratified it) to consider the need for and modalities of a protocol on the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms, or what in this article are called genetically-modified foods, that may have an adverse effect on biodiversity.

The negotiations around such a protocol began in 1996 and have been extended several times. But a final text was eventually agreed on in Montreal in the wee hours of last January 29. That text is known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

It is named after the Colombian city where it was to have been adopted by the negotiating countries in February, 1999. The protocol will be open for signing during a conference in Nairobi next month.

One significant aspect of this protocol is that it allows countries to stop the importation of genetically-modified foods even when there is not enough scientific evidence of the risks presented. It also allows countries to stop the import of such foods if new scientific evidence shows negative effects of the foods.

Once 50 countries ratify the protocol, present it to their parliaments for ratification and then inform the UN, those with any worries about genetically-modified foods, especially as their long- term effects are not known as yet, can still stop importing such foods.

Article 18.2 of the Protocol also requires that such products be labeled. However, labeling states merely that product A "may contain" modified foods not intended for introduction into the environment. It also specifies a contact point to obtain further information. 

Against genuine safety concerns about genetically-modified foods are the genuine food needs of many people in the world. "This technology will help fight hunger in Kenya," states agriculture economist Gem Argwings-Kodhek. A senior research fellow at Egerton University's Tegemeo Institute, he says: "The cost of production of commodities will decrease and help protect plants against pests." He sums it  up as "High production for little seed input".

Nderitu sees the food needs issue in a different light. "Food-for- the-whole-world proponents argue that with modified foods there will be increased availability of seeds and it will be easy to feed the world," he observes. He sees this argument as, basically, a marketing strategy. 

Generally the whole debate revolves around seeds that, for example, produce an insecticide-resistant crop that allows for indiscriminate spraying of the crop's area, killing harmful insects at one go while sparing the crop. Therefore, whoever controls the sale of that seed or other genetically engineered seeds will in effect control agriculture and its profits.

The Canada-based Rural Advancement Foundation International (Rafi) has been monitoring the agriculture biotechnology business for more than 20 years. In 1979 it carried out an assessment of who markets seed around the world.

They came up with a list of 7,000 public and private institutions. At that time not one company controlled a significant percentage of the global commercial seed market. Today, 10 companies control in excess of one-third of the global commercial seed market.

Another trend is seed companies merging to form what are now called "life sciences companies". These seed companies usually already have a division that develops and markets crop chemicals. In fact, according to Rafi, nine companies today control 91 per cent of the global market for insecticides, herbicides and nemacticides.

All are based in the West. And the monopolistic hold they have on seed and crop chemicals allows them to dictate the prices of their products, usually on the higher side to make more profits, because there is little competition to force their prices down.

The pitch for genetically engineered seeds today is part of a global marketing strategy. But that does not mean there is no serious food problem in Africa, in general, and in Kenya, in particular. In a November 1999 paper, Oxfam admits that 790 million people in the world are undernourished. However, in their view, food insecurity is primarily caused by low incomes and unequal access to land, water, credit and markets. In short, poverty is the cause of the food crisis in many parts of the world, and not low food production.

The obvious gains in planting modified crops include the lower costs of production owing to their herbicide and insect resistance properties. In the words of Novartis' Dr Florence Wambugu: "This frees women and children's weeding time considerably, allowing them to engage in other activities."

If the whole debate is really just about more people having more food to eat in Africa, in general, and Kenya, in particular, has anybody asked the farmer why she (for, in most cases, it is a she) or he generally produce less and less each year? Why is she or he experiencing famine? The answers to these questions may be surprising.