The GMO Debate a "Miracle" or "Poison"
by Arthur Karugu
(Kikuyu,Kenya)
Hellen Wangari
Hellen Wangari is the perfect picture of a desparate small-scale farmer. Taking shelter from the sweltering heat of Kieni plains in Nyeri District, Wangari, a mother of six, cannot comprehend why virtually every harvest season produces the same dismal results from her half acre farm in this semi-arid region of central Kenya. “It is always the same. My consolation is that I will be able to get some little food for my family and seed for the next planting season”, she laments. “But I can never hope to make money out of this”.
Wangari’s half-acre farm is divided into two equal portions. She plants maize on one section while the other is taken up by Irish potatoes intercropped with Rose Coco beans. But recurrent drought and inadequate funds and critical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides have failed her in her unending quest to escape rural; poverty and provide a decent livelihood for her fairly large family. Last year, Wangari says, a distant acquaintance who had returned from the Nairobi International Trade Fair, reported that there were on-going trials of special seeds that resulted in pest-resistant maize that also required virtually no fertilizer yet produced high yields within very short time. “It sounds magical but what if I could get such seeds?’ poses Wangari.
Wangari was probably hearing of genetically modified crops, a relatively new biotechnology application that is slowly taking hold around the world, but is yet to reach thousands of farmers across the globe for myriad reasons. And even as it spreads, farmers like her may no even have heard of the raging debate on the suitability of GMOs i.e. Genetically Modified Foods.
Although GM technology is also applicable in animals, it is mainly in crop production that the subject has sparked controversy, with some arguing that this bio- technology should not be ignored while others are calling for its outright ban. GMO opponents also see it as an assault to natural order and consequently as unethical. Moderates have maintained that as a minimum, foods whose genetic composition has been altered must be clearly labeled. But this middle-ground position has also been criticized since some consumers of these foods in developing countries where food scarcity is common may not pay attention to such labeling.
Controversy not withstanding, the United States alone has more than 100 million hectares of GM crops and sources estimate that as much as 60% of U.S. grocery food contains GM ingredients. Many other parts of the world are rapidly deploying GM farming.
But no matter which side of the divide one is, one reality is increasingly becoming obvious. GMOs, despite their current uncertainty scares, are steadily gaining a foothold in worlds agriculture, largely because of strong lobbying by multinational; organizations. In 2005 the world celebrated the 10th anniversary of the commercialization of GM crops, now more often called biotech crops. Within this relatively short period, the adoption of GM crops has been unprecedented considering the stiff opposition they’ve continued to attract.
According to statistics by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-boitech Applications (ISAAA), the area under biotech crops has increased every year since 1996 by at least 10%. Today, a total of 1 billion acres (400 million hectares) of the world’s cultivatable land is under GM. Besides, the number of farmers planting GM crops has increased from 8.25 million in 2004 to 8.5 million in 2005 with the number of countries adopting the technology increasing from 17 to 21 within the same period. The trend, avers ISAAA, is bound to continue in the coming years. “ Many resource-poor farmers in developing countries are realizing the importance of biotech crops in poverty alleviation,” states the organization on its annual global status report.
What does this signify?
The continued penetration of GMOs globally brings into focus a number of facts. One is the vulnerability of the world to food insecurity. Granted, there exits a consensus that biotech crops are not the absolute solution to this recurring problem. The issue of food security, is complex.
Food security rotates around many dynamics. It’s more than GMO. However, GMOs are taunted as a viable and practical response if well managed and applied. Indeed this is more crucial in a world where population growth is of an alarming rate.This could be the decisive card on the future of GMOs, is the issue of farmers demanding the right to choose what seeds they want to plant. Though currently most governments, and in particular in developing countries, are rigid against amending laws or enacting new ones and some are even contemptuous of the technology, in the coming years they might be confronted by farmers demanding to choose what they want to plant. Already in most Western countries farmers are having their way and while African Presidents like Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia can sensationally reject an offer of food grown using GM technology despite a biting famine like he did in 2000 branding them as “poison”, the big question is for how much longer this indifference can continue.
