The Daily News (Harare)
Takaitei Bote Farming Editor
10 October 2002
AS most of Southern Africa comes to terms with hunger and food produced through the controversial genetically modified (GM), technology, governments and scientists are frantically trying to introduce alternative technologies to produce non-GM food.
Southern Africa has been gripped by drought but the only food available is produced through GM technology, condemned by African scientists for allegedly causing allergic reactions in human beings, if consumed.
The alternative technologies, which have been in use for centuries in some parts of the world, fall under the what has been termed biotechnology.
While GM technology is the latest form of biotechnology which involves the manipulation of plant, animal and micro-organism genes, farmers in Africa are being encouraged to use old forms of biotechnology such as tissue culture to produce food compatible with African needs.
Social concerns have been raised about GM technology, which makes it possible to transfer animal genes into plants. For example, the genes of a fish can be grafted into a maize plant.
In fact, biotechnology is used in fermentation and has been in use for decades in Zimbabwe. This is referred to as first-generation biotechnology, which only manipulate organisms to produce substances such as bread, wine, and cheese. There is no movement of genes in fermentation, neither is there transfer of genes in second-generation biotechnology, such as tissue culture.
Tissue culture, which is mainly used in crop science, involves the manipulation of plant tissue to produce disease-free seedlings, which can be used by farmers. Scientists from East and Southern Africa gathered in Zambia last week to create awareness of biotechnology, largely associated with GM technology.
Scientists say if Africa uses technologies such as tissue culture, farmers could diversify Africa's food base and produce drought-tolerant crops such as cassava , sorghum, millet and sweet potatoes.
Instead of relying on maize, which fails in times of drought, tissue culture explores opportunities for producing millions of seedlings of sweet potatoes and cassava.
Cassava is a staple food in East Africa. Prior to the introduction of maize, Zimbabwe relied on traditional foods among them sweet potatoes sorghum and cassava. Maize production increased in the then Rhodesia in 1952 when maize seed hybrids were produced on a commercial basis.
But most of the technologies African countries want to introduce to counter genetic engineering are still in the laboratory. The challenge is to take the technologies to the starving nations.
In Zimbabwe, sweet potatoes and cassava are produced by few farmers. Some farmers in Buhera and Hwedza through the Biotechnology Trust of Zimbabwe (BTZ) are producing mushrooms and sweet potatoes, using tissue culture. Doreen Mnyulwa, BTZ executive director, said her organisation had established pilot projects on sweet potato and mushroom farming in Buhera and Hwedza. The farmers have been trained to produce sweet potato nurseries, cleaned and multiplied using tissue culture.
Mnyulwa said: "The nursery farmers are generating income from both sale of planting material and tubers - farmers have indicated that they use the income generated to pay children's fees and purchase farming implements." While the sweet potatoes produced are indigenous varieties, the mushrooms being produced are not local varieties.
Research on producing indigenous mushroom seedlings is still ongoing. Asked if it would be possible to wean Zimbabwean farmers from producing foreign food crops such as maize to grow crops such as sweet potatoes, millet and sorghum, Zimbabwe Farmers' Union spokesperson, Violet Mandishona, said: "It would be difficult for farmers to stop growing maize. What would be feasible would be to grow both maize and indigenous crops. If maize fails, then farmers have something to fall back on."
Zimbabwe first produced hybrid maize seed in the early 1950s and from then the commodity was produced on a large scale.
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