Charles Mpaka

Wynand van der Walt

South African biotechnology expert Wynand van der Walt headlined a panel promoting biotechnology as a solution to raising Africa’s agricultural productivity. The audience was not entirely convinced.

“Biotechnology is not a super solution to every problem in agricultural production,” Van der Walt told delegates to FANRPAN’s regional policy dialogue, but Africa faces a food security crisis and genetically engineered crops offer a way out.

GM crops have been engineered to produce higher yields, to be more resistant to pests or changing climactic conditions. One GM cotton, van der Walt explained, is designed to reduce the amount of pesticides used, thus lowering input costs and protecting the environment.

Richard Sithole has been a farmer in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province since 1969. In 1990, he adopted genetically-modified maize seeds. He was trained to use the seeds by Monsanto, a multinational company producing and marketing genetically-modified seed. It is one of the largest in the world.

Monsanto’s seeds helped Sithole reduce his input costs in terms of labour and pesticide application. As a result, he has been able to realise enough money to buy new farm equipment, including a tractor. He has also managed to build a house and has enough food in his home.

Despite Sithole’s tale of success, delegates speaking from the floor expressed reservations.

Speakers asserted that GM crops in Europe are grown for livestock rather than human consumption; others urged careful consideration of impacts on the environment and indigenous biodiversity, while questioning whether research funded by Western companies truly had Africa’s interests at heart.

Roger Phiri, president of the Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Zambia, said some farmers in Africa were using bioengineered seeds without understanding their effects. Like many Zambians, he believes that GM food is unsafe and that Zambia should not permit it into the country.

Zimbabwe-based Professor Idah Sithole-Niang, from the Biosafety Network Project – Eastern and Southern Africa, said perceptions that European countries are not growing GM crops are false; she also rejected criticism of Western companies’ and agencies’ motivations in promoting GM in Africa, saying that the same organisations being slammed from the floor – taking USAID as one example – were applauded for some of their other activities such as supporting the fight against the AIDS pandemic.

Van der Walt said that Europe is not starving, it is well fed; it is Africa that faces a food crisis and so the continent must choose from available technologies to solve its problems. Africa must come to grips with issues of proper legislation, he said, and not just throw the technology on to the market.

“We can never force a farmer to accept any technology – let them make decisions on their own based on evidence. They must be given an option. We must guide them by giving them correct information and then allow them to make a choice.”