Resistance to genetic engineering in Africa.

• Author: Bokor, Raymond K.
• Position: Biodevastation 7

Uptake of biotechnology in Africa is growing at an increasing rate as multinational corporations continue to flood it with genetic engineering technology. This uptake cannot go without negative impact on biodiversity, the environment, producers and consumers. The most significant impact is on the numerous resource poor farmers. Most farmers will never be able to afford technology fees and the chemicals to grow these new GE seeds. It is even possible now to genetically engineer plants to produce sterile seeds, stopping farmers from saving their seeds for replanting the next year.

About a third of humanity (1.4 billion people) depends on saved seed for their survival. Genetic engineering in its present form cannot be part of the solution of the food crisis in Africa. It is part of the problem. Most farmers in Africa lead egalitarian lives and are able to save, sell and exchange seeds freely, so biotechnology will dissolve these good values and prohibit farmers from such practices.

I would like to give you an overview of the key issues relating to resistance to genetic engineering in Africa. In the first place, the problem is a complex one and its solution is not clear or well articulated. Unfortunately, and miserably to say, the majority of Africans neither know of GE implications to health and the environment nor do they understand what genetic engineering is and for that matter what genetically modified foods are and the threat they pose to health and environment. Some of these problems are complicated for economic and political reasons. For instance, most of the information is hidden from the public and confined to the scientific environment and to the politicians. Africans become mere consumers of public goods and do not know where and what kind of food is available to them, especially when it comes to receiving and distributing of food aid.

Food aid comes as a result of the myth of hunger. Hunger in Africa is unevenly distributed and I must say that this is a result of inequitable economic systems, which deny the poor access to food and land--not merely inadequate supplies of food.

Many corporations--particularly the agribusiness giants--think Africa lacks technological expertise in meeting its food needs and therefore have lured governments to adopt genetic engineering technology as a panacea to end hunger as well as to bring economic and social relief to the masses.

Last year about 14.4 million people (according to the UN Food program) needed food aid in southern Africa due to grain shortages. The US government through...