Johannesburg — South African smallholder farmer Motlasi Musi is not happy with the African Centre for Biosafety's call for his country and Africa to ban the cultivation, import and export of all genetically modified maize.
"I eat genetically modified maize, which I have been growing on my farm for more than seven years, and I am still alive," he declared.
Musi, 57, a maize farmer in the Fun Valley area of Olifantsvlei, outside Johannesburg, and a beneficiary of South Africa's Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development programme, has embraced the science of biotechnology with gusto.
"What have changed are my yields and my income." He said that he earned about 225 dollars more per hectare for his GM maize crop than he did when farming ordinary maize.
He said that he was helping reduce food insecurity in South Africa by growing and selling GM maize.
"Biotechnology has a very big role in food security," Musi told IPS. "The climate has changed and I know that with drought-tolerant seed I have a tool to fight climate change. I cannot guarantee that the rain will come and I if plant crops which are not drought tolerant, I could get into debt and lose my farm."
A report in April 2012 by the Climate Emergency Institute titled "The Impact of Climate Change on South Africa" said the country is experiencing a gradual, yet steady, change in climate with temperatures showing a significant increase over the last 60 years. Temperatures in South Africa are predicted to rise in costal regions by one to two degrees Celsius by 2050.
But the ACB does not believe that GMOs can deliver food security on the continent, specifically in South Africa, a leading African producer of GMOs.
The organisation is behind an African Civil Society statement calling for a ban on GM maize in South Africa and on the continent, which it hopes to submit to African governments. To date 656 signatures have been collected on the online statement, including those of 160 African organisations.
"We have sent an open letter to our minister of agriculture in October to ban GM maize in South Africa," Haidee Swanby, an officer with ACB, told IPS.
"We (South Africa) have been cultivating, importing and exporting GM crops for 14 years with absolutely no impact on food security whatsoever. In fact, a bag of mealie meal is 84 percent more expensive than it was four or five years ago due to international prices and the extensive use of maize for biofuel production."
Swanby said there was a need to improve access to food, by addressing poverty, unemployment and issues around land tenure, service delivery, infrastructure, access to markets, and unfair global trade practices.
"Genetically modified food has never been labelled in South Africa so there is no way to know if it is causing health problems," Swanby said, calling for a rigorous scientific study into the health implications of GM food.
"If someone is getting sick, how are they going to trace it back to GMOs when they don't know they're eating them? We want more science, not less!"
The ACB has a supporter in Friends of the Earth International, which is also lobbying for a GMO-free Africa.
The organisation's coordinator Nnimmo Bassey told IPS that GMOs do not deliver on the promises made by the biotechnology industry. He argued that hunger in Africa is used as an excuse to contaminate and erode genetic diversity on the continent.
Bassey said that GM crops are neither more nutritious nor better yielding nor use fewer pesticides and herbicides. And he said they are unsafe for humans and for the environment.
"It is all about market colonisation," Bassey told IPS. "GM crops would neither produce food security nor meet nutrition deficits. The way forward is food sovereignty - Africans must determine what crops are suitable culturally and environmentally. Up to 80 percent of our food needs are met by smallholder farmers. These people need support and inputs for integrated agro-ecological crop management. Africa should ideally be a GMO-free continent.
Friends of the Earth International cites failed GMO experiments in Africa with Bt cotton (a strain of cotton that had the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium inserted into its genetic code) in Burkina Faso and South Africa where they had been touted as the crops to pull smallholder farmers out of poverty.
Global developer and supplier of plant genetics, including hybrid seed, DuPont Pioneer, said that the effect of switching from saved seed to hybrid seed is dramatic.
The company's vice president responsible for Asia, Africa and China, Daniel Jacobi, told IPS that of the 24 million hectares of maize planted annually in sub-Saharan Africa, about a third was hybrid seed.
Furthermore, farmers get a fuller yield from hybrid seeds by using fertiliser and agronomic practices, reducing post-harvest losses and getting the crop to market, he maintained.
"We can spend a long time and gain a lot of productivity in sub-Saharan Africa by doing all those things without ever getting to the introduction of GMOs," Jacobi said following a tour of the DuPont Pioneer facility in the Midwestern U.S. state of Iowa.
"I think we tend to get wrapped up in the debate about GMOs and how multinational companies are forcing GMOs down the throats of local farmers. I think we ought to be focused on helping farmers do the best job they can do today by using hybrid seed and let us not let those priorities get lost in the big philosophical debate about GMOs."
AfricaBio, a biotechnology stakeholder association formed in 1999, says a vast majority of the South African population are struggling to meet their daily needs and GM products offer a proven solution.
"For 14 consecutive seasons, South Africans have planted and consumed foods and food products derived from approved GM crops as part of their diet and no confirmed cases of harm to consumers of GM foods have been reported," AfricaBio chief executive officer Nompumelelo Obokoh told IPS.
Meanwhile, Musi remained unhappy about the call to ban GM maize. "Africans should come to a realisation that all this is happening in the name of contraceptive imperialism. Africa missed out during the Green Revolution - we must not miss the Gene Revolution. Let Africans decide for Africa," he said.
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" WHAT IS AMAZING IS THE FACT THAT WE HEAR AFRICANS CRYING FOR WHAT THE WHITES ARE PUTTING DOWN AND THROWING OUT THE WINDOW!!!1??? THESE GENEITCALLY MODIFIED PRODUCTS ARE MOST TIME DESIGNED FOR MONETARY GAINS' NOT ;FOOD SECURITY; AS WAS MENTIONED, NOR FOR ITS NUTRITIOUS VALUES". "EVERYTHING THAT WE SEE MODIFIED IN THE WEST TURNS OUT TO BE A CTASTROPHE !! ALWAYS ,WITH DAMAGING REPERCUSIONS."THE USE OF THESE MODIFIED GENES IN ANY PRODUCT, IS UNDERMINING NATURE". "LET US THINK CAREFULLY NATURE IS ;'THE MOST SUPREME OF ALL POWERS" ON THE PLANET. "WHEN NATURES SES THEY SEE THAT MANKIND IS CUASING CLIMATES AND NATURAL PATTERNS TO DEVIATE ,THEY WILL ADJUST AND COUNTER ANYTHING THAT MAN DOES !!!!." "WHAT AFRICA DOES HAVE IS FERTILE LANDS; THAT CAN PRODUCE SOME OF THE EARTHS MOST PERFECT PRODUCES ; ANY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE FRUIS VEGETABLES EARTH FODS EVEN THE ANIMALS GRAZE ON SOME F THE MOST PERFECT GRASS ON THE PLANET!!!! WE ARE SPEAKING OF AFRICA THE MOST GLORIOUS OF ALL CONTINENTS THE FIRTS OF THE ERATHS CRAETION THE EXCEPTIONAL SOIL THAT IS AFRICA MUST BE BELOVED BTRAESURED RESPECTED; WE MUST LOVE THE EARTH IT IS WHERE WE FOUND LIFGE THIS IS WHERE ASIDE PROCREATION FROM MAN THE EARTH BRINGS FORTH LIFE IT IS EVER REPRODUCING IT IS EVER RESOURCED IT IS FOREVER NUTRITIOUS;" AFRICA GREAT AND GLORIOUS AFRICA" 'THE BELOVED LAND OF MILK AND HONEY". "AFRICA HAS ITS PLUS, ITS NUMBER 1 STATUS '; TO USE THESE UNHOLY SCIENCES TO UNDERMINE THESE VALUABLE ASSETS WHICH IS AFRICA ; "WITH THIS CORRUPTION FROM SO CALLED WESTERN SCIENCE INOVATIONS! WHICH IS A MOST GREVIOUS SIN'. "THIS AND ALL WE SEE 'IS THE PRODUCT OF WHITE SUPREMACY' MAN CAN NOT INTERFERS WITH SCIENCE IN THE NAME OF SAVING HUMANITY. THESE THINGS ARE UNNATURAL NOT INTHE GREAT PERGECTION OF THE CREATION OF" THE MOST SUPREME GOD" WHO AS MAN CAN IMITATE OR COCEIVE HIM OR HERSELF TO BE ABLE TO DESIGN WHAT WAS ALREADY IN ITS MOST PERFECT STATE????? WHY AND WHOM HAS DEVELOPED THIS MENTALITY THAT CHALLENGING THE PERFECTION OF THE "SALLMIGHTY GOD" WILL ASSURE THEM A GREAT REWARD???? THESE CORRUPTIONS OF NATURE WILL NOT BE SUSTAINED THE LANDS WILL BECOME COPRRUPTED THE PEOPLE WILL HAVE DEFECTS AWAY FROM THE PATTRENS OF THE PERFECTION OF THE "ALMIGHTY GOD"EVERY P[LANT EVERY CREATED THING WE SEE ON THE PLANET HAS A COURSE TO FOLLOW THE4Y ARE ALL HERE FOR A REASON THE SAME REASON THAT YOU ARE HERE THEY ALSO HAVE A CYCLE THAT SHOULD NOT BE INTERFERED WITH. THIS SUP[REMACIST IDEOLOGY THAT LEAVES MAN WITH THIS IDEA THAT THESE WHO ARE THE DESIGNERS ORF MANS WOES THEY WHOM ARE THE CORRUPTORS OF THIS PLANET ARE OM HOW AT THE SAME TIME THE SAVIOURS OF MANKIND???? THIS SI ABSOLOUTELY MADNESS THEY ARE NOT RIGHTEOUSS NOR ARE THEY HOUNERABLE:: YOU MAY FROWN ON THESE WORDS BUT I SAY TO YOU THEY MURDERED A100 MILLION AFRICANS INTHE PURSUIT OF THIER GREED COVETIOUSNESS THIER INIQUITIES THEY COMMITTED GENOCIDE IN THE MOST AGREIBIOUS WAYS THEY SENT HUMAMNITY TO THIER DEATH AND ARE STILL MURDERING OUR PEOPLE WITH BOMS PRISONS GFUNS LIES DECEPTIONS !!! HOW CAN THEY RPRODUCE GRETAER THAN THE "ALLMIGHTY GOD" WHEN THEY THEMSELVES ARE SO IMPERFECT??? LIFE DOES NOT COLLABERATE WITH THOSE LEANINMGS AS A MATTER OF FACT IT LEANS TWARDS THE NEGATIVE. "" OVERSTAND THIS THERE IS NONE GREATYER THAN "HE " WHO IS OUR CREATOR". WE WATCHED AS THE UISA ROSTED IN THE SUMMER NO CROPS WERE PRODUCED FROM THIER SOILS WE SQW MIRACULOUSLY THAT DURING THE DROUGHT IN SOMALAI THERE OUT OF NOWHER CAME RAINS AND THE LANDS WERE FLOWERED WITH PRODUCTIVE VALUES!!!! WE ARE NOT CLEBRATORY OF THIS WHAT WE SEE . THE WESTERN MEDIA DOES NOT WANT US TO BELIEVE THAT ANY "SUPREME BEING "CAN DO WHAT THEY CAN NOT" 'THEY ARE PRETENTOUS CONCEITED NARCICISTIC INGLORIOUS DECEIVERS ,'WHO WILL NEVER BE GERATER THAN NATURE 'THEY DELUDE THEMSELVES INTO THINKING THY CAN DO WHAT NATURE CAN NOT??!!!!!!. WE NEED MEDICINE TO COMBAT ALL THE DISEASES THEY HAVE INTRODUCED INTO THE PLANET THESE MODIFICATIONS ARE ALSO PART OF THIS TRIAL AND FAILURE!!!. "AFRICA NEEDS TO LOOK TO REMEDY THIER NEEDS? ITS A DIFFERNT TYPE OF SCIENCE WE NEED ; MORE WATER INOVATION NOT SEED MANIPULATION!!!!!!!!!!! "AFRICA AT TIMES GOES INTO THESE COMAS' WHERE THEY THINK THAT THEY HAVE NOT INVENTED ANYTHING AND THEY FALL SHORT OF THIER GLORY !!!THE STEREOTYPES STILL RING IN THE EARS OF THOSE ; WHO REINFORCES THE NOTIONS THAT THE WHITE MAN WAS THIER SAVIOUR THIER GOD THIER DELIVERER???/ THAT MEANS EVERYTHING THEY DO IS GREAT!!!!!!!! WOW!!! WHAT A FANATASY; THIS WAS WHY HE GAVE YOU JESUS ??? "AFRICANS BELIEVED IN PRAISING " THE ALLMIGHTY GOD" THEY HAVE TOOK ""ALLMIGHTY GOD THE ONE GOD" FROM AFRICANS AND GAVE THEM A WHITE GUY WITH BLUE EYES AND BLONDE HAIR' AND TOLD THEM 'HE WAS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD!!!!!!! "WHAT A MENTAL TRANSFER FROM THE SUPERNATURAL THE DEPPEST OF THOUGHST TO THE WORSHIP OF HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS NEEDS TO BE ABANDONED , AFRICA NEEDS TO START TO FEED THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS THAT WERE BEING FED BEFORE THE MENTAL TRANSFER AND THE COLONIALIST ADVENTURE THAT OVERRAN AFRICA" YES THERE IS WEATHER PATTERNS THAT ARE INSECURE THAT MEANS THAT WE MUST USE WATER WITH MORE EFFICIENT MEANS THAT WE CAN NOT WASTE WATER IN SEEKING MATERIAL WEALTH OR WE MUST BUILD MORE ENGINEERING FEATS THAT WILL ENABLE US TO BRING WATER TO THE STARVED FIELDS THAT WILL LACK WATER WHEN THE RAINS DO NOT FALL!!!!!!!! WHY ARENT YOU LOOKING AT THE LIBYAN MODEL WHERE GADAFFI WAS SELF SUSTAINED WITH AGRICULTURE THEY DID NOT IMPORT THEY FED THEMSELVES !!! HOW DOES A MAJOUR DESERT NATION ACCOMPLISH SUCH A FEAT????? "WE NEED TO STOP LISTENING TO PROPOGANDA AND LOOK AT THE REST OF THE EARTH AND THE MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LIVING IN THIS WHITE BUBBLE!!