GM won't cure hunger in Africa

1 January 2003

In Ethiopia - which is mountainous into the bargain - some areas have been hit by drought and some have not. Is there enough food being produced in those areas not hit by drought to feed those that have been hit? These are questions that should be answered soon and they are being studied. But assuming that they could, you have two problems. One is transportation. France, Germany, the Low Countries, Austria, Switzerland would all sink into Ethiopia in terms of area, and there would still be some land to spare. So we are talking of the need for transportation facilities over a big area.

Ethiopia has not been part of the Northern world for long, only about 60 years. Sixty years for a society that has totally isolated itself to come to terms with the industrial world and to learn how to deal with it is a big thing. In the attempt to adapt to a totally changed situation we've had a series of disturbances in the country, civil wars and so on, lasting for a long period. That meant infrastructure could not be built and Ethiopia is probably one of the countries with the lowest ratio of road transport to land area.

Air transport exists but you cannot take large quantities of food by air. So the infrastructural development has not taken place to make it possible to move large quantities of food from where they're available to where we need them. To make matters worse, because of the problems we've had for many decades our government has been at peace for little over a decade and reconstructing an economy and infrastructure that had been destroyed by several decades of civil war is a long process. The road network has more than doubled in the last 10 years and that is still not enough and it's still dirt roads, not asphalt, so transporting food is very expensive there.

Perhaps the most important factor is that if you are to be insured against famines, in good years you have to store food to use in bad years. The maximum storage capacity [in Ethiopia] is in the order of 400,000 tonnes, for a population of 65 million - the insurance is minute. What has happened now is that drought has hit the country and the government says it is too poor, it doesn't have funds even to buy the food locally and take it to the areas which are hard hit.

And you cannot say those areas can buy the food themselves because they are farmers. If they lose their harvest they have nothing to buy with.

The situation in southern Africa is similar, but in terms of infrastructure, certainly in terms of transportation infrastructure, they are much better off than Ethiopia. Malawi had enough stored food and if its stored food were in place it could have weathered the drought now. But apparently what happened was the World Bank insisted it had to sell it and pay its debt. Paying up the debt was more important than insuring the food for the population. Therefore it sold the food and this year it's hit by this major drought.

In the southern African countries there has also been another factor. Maize is not of African origin. The African crops grown in southern Africa were mainly sorghum, millet and cow peas. Starting with the colonial period, successive governments have pushed for replacing all these with maize. Maize is very appealing to researchers and governments because it can produce very high yields under good conditions, but if conditions are not optimal the disaster is equally great and the appeal of the good years was enough to convince governments to force their populations to adopt it. In many of the countries there were laws that made it criminal offence for farmers to plant seed that is not certified by the government for planting and that almost always was maize. This way maize expanded and maize is one of the most vulnerable crops to drought and so that shift has meant that in southern Africa the impact of the drought has been made much greater than it might have been.

This has been made possible by creating seed companies that breed maize and distribute maize. Recently the seed companies have been increasing the hold by corporations directly in or linked to the biotech industry, and the whole presence of corporate interests in southern Africa, and the shift in crop production, and the increased vulnerability to drought has been correlated and orchestrated by governments. The governments didn't do it maliciously, they did it because they thought they were doing good and now the Malawi government has openly stated it will try to reinstate the old crops which are more capable of withstanding drought.

Do you think the West should be helping? If so, what help is needed?

Africa and Europe have always been intimately linked. The links have not always been good or positive - all the more reason why Europe feels that it needs to help Africa and that is really positive. Now, the question arises, when is it good to help and how? When there is a crisis like this and people are going to die without it, making food available is helpful. Of course, first you make money available to buy food locally and distribute it. If that is not enough, you buy from neighbouring areas and distribute. If that is not enough then you get food in kind. In the past Europe has been giving food only in kind, but in recent years it has really thought about the issue and it is primarily focusing on giving financial support and only if necessary does it give grain in kind. The United States insists on only giving grain in kind, no other kind of aid for famine relief.

The question arises, what should we do for the long-term so that Europe will not need to keep helping, so that Africa will start feeding itself, so that Africa will become food-secure? I don't think food aid is the answer to that. If you keep sending food every year as the United States now does and Europe did in the past you are going to create expectations among the farmers that food is coming. They will be recipients instead of producers. Food aid should be restricted to times when there is real shortage.

I hope that countries now who have been hit will reorient their thinking and make sure they have their priorities right. And I hope Europe and the rest of the industrialised countries will help in the priorities they make and those priorities should be aimed at making that country competent in storing food and making food available in time of need. In that way, in most countries, food problems will cease to happen because in Africa it is not lack of ability to produce or lack of land. There are enough years with sufficient rain. There may be some exceptions, some specific countries which cannot produce enough food, and consideration may need to be given to the management structure. But in most cases it is simply increasing the competence to store and make food available.

In the long run the problem of the actual people affected by drought having the financial capacity to buy food from the market requires the creation of alternative income-earning activities for the people. And that I expect to take a much longer time and a much closer study in each country as a second step.

What, for you, is the link between corporate accountability and the GM issue in Ethiopia?

We have virtually no corporations in Ethiopia. The seeds, that's how corporations come into the agricultural system. The seed system [in Ethiopia] is still largely under public control. Most is produced by the farmers themselves through their traditional systems.

But if you have patented GE [genetically engineered] seed, and if through the natural process of pollination it goes into other varieties of the same crop species, then your own variety becomes the patented variety. Then Article 34 of TRIPS [the World Trade Organisation's agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights] puts the onus of proof on the person accused [of stealing the patent]. As somebody whose crop has been cross-pollinated by wind you are the one presumed to be an infringer.

How can I, as a poor farmer, prove I'm not responsible for cross pollination? Will I ask the wind? Will I ask the bees and butterflies? All of Africa's farmers will become criminals. In the US many farmers have been prosecuted and the courts have made them pay damages.

So farmers would become patent infringers liable to criminal proceedings in the courts. And after that to continue using their own varieties they would have to pay royalties to these companies. That's the connection. It's the nature of genetic engineering inter-acting with the nature of patenting and TRIPS that makes us frightened of corporations in agricultural control. But of course control of corporations is not only in agriculture, it's in all sectors.

And is this why the issue of keeping GM foods out of Ethiopia is so significant currently?

It is one of the reasons but there are others. The most important is that even the United States has a system in place for approving genetically-engineered varieties. If you simply introduce genetically-engineered crops you are by-passing the country's ability to scrutinise and clear varieties, and if we are to follow the Cartagena Protocol on crop safety this clearly works outside procedures.

Before importing you should have complete and accurate information - the supplier guarantees that. Failing the guarantee is breaking the law. The country then looks at the information, it carries out an impact assessment analysis and it's only after that that we can decide to import or not to import. All this is being shelved aside simply in the name of relieving famine.

But you may ask: "Why bother?" You bother because there are risks involved. The risks include those to human health. The Americans claim they have been eating GE food for many years now and nothing amiss has happened. 'Many years' is not even 10 years - some impacts from food can take much longer period [to materialise]. We are not necessarily reassured [by the fact] that no obvious problems have arisen so far.

In the country that's short of food, where people have no other food but GE maize, GE maize will [make up] 100 per cent of their diet. If we look at the Americans, who have been eating GE food for years, at most they'll eat cornflakes for breakfast. Apparently it's in the order of 2 per cent or less of the maize that goes into the cornflakes that is genetically engineered - so the intake of genetically engineered food [in the USA] is fairly low.

In terms of commercially available grain in large quantities it is really maize, and mostly BT maize. There are risks. BT maize is reported to be disliked by domestic animals as food. In Africa and most developing countries crop production and animal production are integrated - the animals constitute the basis for crop production and their food is largely crop residues. If crop residues become not good enough food for the animals, you're losing the animal production component. And then we have also heard some disturbing reports - for example it is reported that pigs in North America who have been fed on BT maize stubble, BT maize cane, have lost fecundity to the order of about 80 per cent. An 80 per cent loss in reproductive ability is very serious in animal production.

So we worry about the possible impact on the agricultural system. Even though the Americans reassure us they are growing BT crops and their environment is okay we worry that butterflies and moths would be killed by BT and very often they are important in pollinating crops.

And so the impact on the environment is bad enough per se. To also have economic implications - these together make us worry about genetically-engineered crops that are just pushed on us because there is a famine at the moment.

What do farmers in Ethiopia think about GM?

Most farmers are really not aware of GM until we explain to them. They get horrified because they cannot imagine that what God made would be mutilated in this way.

It depends on how you explain it to them - we try not to portray genetic engineering in an unduly negative manner, we focus only on the real fears that we have, genuine fears of safety. When we explain they appreciate them.

When we explain the question of patenting and loss of control they find it totally absurd. After a long discussion, when they understand it, they become absolutely incensed - they can't imagine there would be humans who would do that. They cannot understand that anybody would refuse to make seed available to anybody who needs or asks for it. Their tradition is if you want some seed from what they have, take it. And the kind of control that patenting seed implies they find totally abhorrent when they know, when they understand it.

Does the Northern campaign against GM, the one going on in Britain at the moment for example, help your cause? Or do you regard it as an indulgence on the part of environmentalists?

No. Absolutely not. I think people should have the choice. If we, through governments, make a conscious choice to introduce this or that GE crop, that's fine. And the position of Europe is definitely helping us to argue against surreptitious introduction without going through the due process.

I told you our farmers find it difficult to understand genetically engineered crops. It's not only the farmers. The urban people also find it difficult, as it is such a new and strange thing, even the technical people don't understand the implications. Only those people that have involvement in biosafety are perfectly aware. So you need capacity development to be able to effectively regulate genetic engineering in our respective countries and the position of Europe is very helpful. I know there are some who say that because Europe has rejected genetically engineered food, Africa, which needs it, is under pressure. But there is no pressure by Europe on Africa to say no to GE of any kind. So, it is totally unfair. Africa's rejection is based on its own realisation of various risks.

It is the biotech industry that is trying to blackmail Europe by saying look, you impoverished Africa to begin with, and now when Africa wants to take up genetic engineering, you, by not taking it up, are showing it to look as if it were dangerous when it isn't. And that is rubbish. Africa's reactions are based on real appreciation of possible risks.

The claims of the biotech industry that Africa's food problems would be solved is also rubbish, for two reasons. Number one, they are assuming the adoption of biotechnology would increase agricultural production. There is nothing suggests that. The varieties they have so far are BT and herbicide-tolerant. African farmers use more plots of land, each with less hectares. They have enough time and energy to weed and the genetic diversity is usually enough to protect them from pest epidemics. Should they happen, we use conventional pest control methods that are applied at the necessary time and you withdraw. If you have BT, you have pesticides continually being applied. Secondly, there is no evidence to show that genetically engineered crops yield higher than non-genetically engineered. The reverse seems to be true. Data released by the Department of Agriculture of the United States (USDA) show that on the whole, if anything, there has been a depression on yields grown. In any case, the most important argument is that Africa's food problems are not because of inability to produce food. It is bigger than that. It is in our ability to store and transport food, and process and make it available where it is needed, when it is needed. It is not the technological fix at the variety level that will change it.

Europe's position on GE is only helping Africa to be heard more in its legitimate realisation of the risks, which predated Europe's. In 1995 when the positions on the Cartagena Protocol started, Africa took the position to examine genetic engineering and the risks and to develop a draft protocol that is satisfactory for its production, and we did it. In 1995, early 1996, we submitted it and that has been the basis of the African position - nothing to do with Europe's position. If you look at the African Group's draft protocol of the time, it is a lot tighter than the present Cartagena Protocol and we are at the moment saying please make sure that at least the Cartagena Protocol is observed. Europe has nothing to do us with us developing that. We took our position long before Europe took this movement to keep GE out, and therefore it is totally unfair to say that the African position is influenced by Europe.

Date of interview - Nov 2002

Adam Bradbury is Publications Manager at Friends of the Earth - England, Wales and Northern Ireland. A shorter version of this interview appeared in our supporter magazine, Earth Matters.

Images: © Adam Bradbury/Friends of the Earth, Jennifer Bates/Friends of the Earth

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