Biotechnology giants in Oslo for food security conference

Agricultural experts from across the world have congregated in Oslo, Norway, to discuss the future of Africa’s agriculture, including agricultural biotechnology. They are strategizing on how to kick-start the African Green Revolution. Being envisaged is an agricultural renaissance in Africa along the lines of Norman Borlaug’s 1950s Green Revolution, which transformed dozens of Asian and Latin American countries from paupers to food baskets.

I pray that the folks in Oslo exhaustively discuss every strategy that can make Africa’s agriculture shine. Africa needs to feed itself, but it wouldn’t succeed in this endeavor unless it abandons its antiquated farming methods.

Judging from the line-up of speakers attending the conference, good tidings abound. Norman Borlaug is attending, and this is good for Africa. A 1972 Nobel Peace Prize winner for his selfless efforts to feed the poor through innovative agricultural technologies such as crop genetic engineering, Borlaug is a man Africa must court at whatever cost. Borlaug never shy from reminding the world that modernizing agriculture is the surest way to enhance global food security.

In the ongoing debate about biotech agriculture, Borlaug has assumed an uncompromising position that Africa’s continued procrastination on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) endangers its own economic prosperity. African delegates attending this conference have a chance to hear from Borlaug what agricultural biotechnology is all about and how it can help farmers.

Then there’s Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Head of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project. Like Borlaug, Sachs’ familiarity with Africa’s food problems and how they can be fixed is unrivaled. He has spoken fondly of integrating biotech agriculture into Africa’s agriculture. Sachs, a renowned agricultural economist, brings to the conference a wealth of experience in formulating agricultural policies for developing countries.

It is encouraging representatives of the recently formed Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are also attending this conference. Recently AGRA’s President, former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, ruled out including genetically modified crops into its programs, a declaration that triggered uproar from the scientific community both in and outside Africa. AGRA’s interim Vice-President, Akinwumi Adesina, who’s in Oslo, might consider having tête-à-tête with Borlaug and Sachs on the issue. I, myself, have already advised AGRA against demonizing GM crops because, who knows, they might be part of the solution to Africa’s food problems.

Let the Oslo conference explore and discuss every possible solution to Africa’s food problems, including food biotechnology.