A flawed argument against GM crops

This week I revisit the relevance of GM crops to Africa’s agriculture. Two anti-biotech activists from South Africa prompt me to do so.

Andrew Taynton of South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering (SAFeAGE) and Dulcie Krige, a social scientist, claim GM crops aren’t the solution to food insecurity that bedevils Africa today. Writing in the Legal Brief, the two, in their article entitled, “Are GM crops the solution to Africa’s food problems?” argue food sustainability in Africa is possible without crop genetic engineering.

“…thousands of years of careful seed selection by African farmers has given rise to local varieties with valuable attributes such as drought and disease resistance,” they observe. To them, seed scientists can use a marriage of indigenous knowledge and modern technology to produce “…varieties which result in increased yields and disease resistance without running the risks associated with GM.”

Taynton and Krige identify Marker Assisted Systems (MAS) as one of the technologies that Africans must embrace in place of agricultural biotechnology. They argue it’s safe and cost effective. They even sneaked in a quote Jeff Cox, Monsanto’s Northern Europe, made in August 2002, to the effect that Marker Assisted Systems (MAS) could be used to boost crop yields, to bolster their argument.

The two take issue with GM crops out of concern that biotech companies’ sole interest is to patent seeds, then sell them to farmers at rooftop prices. Here, the obvious targets as usual are multinational biotech companies like Monsanto, DuPont and Bayer. My question is, if the problem is corporate profiteering, why should Africa not see this as an opportunity to invest in GM seeds production? Africa has a galaxy of scientists who can make great marks in this field.

The debate on GM crops’ relevance to Africa is as old as the technology behind them. There are those, like Tayton and Krige, who believe GM crops have no role to play in Africa’s agriculture. There are others, like myself, who deride the argument that Africa must avoid GM crops at all costs. Other continents are practicing agricultural biotechnology, and so should Africa.

I agree GM crops might not solve all of Africa’s food problems, but they have a pivotal role to play to solve the problem. It would be an aberration to, even, declare GM crops the cure to global food problems.

Every technology, including crop genetic engineering, has a value to a particular segment of the society. Farmers who prefer Marker Assisted Systems technology, for instance, must be allowed to embrace it, while those for GM crops should be left to their own devices. There’s nothing like mutual exclusivity, where the adoption of one agricultural technology automatically excludes the other.

People must stop inciting African farmers against technologies, such as agricultural biotechnology, that might improve their bottom line.