caption: Nnimmo Bassey

Nature has the right responses to changing climate and holds the ace to the survival of species on the planet. Humans simply have to be humble enough to accept that we do not understand everything about the intricacies of natural processes. The time has indeed come when the world has to accept that working with nature is immeasurably more beneficial than working against her. Agricultural genetic engineering (GE) over the past few decades has strived to upturn nature and box her for profit, but as it has consistently turned out, nature continues to trump the manipulators.

The power of the biotech industry has been more successful in restraining and constraining governments to do their bidding than in overcoming the power of nature. Their grip on governments has worked to the extent that when they commit crimes like genetic contamination all governments do is to legalise the misdeed so that it may become entrenched and so that the polluter profits from their crimes. And nature pays. And humans and other species pay.

Those who plead caution with regard to the planting and eating of genetically engineered (GE) crops are vilified as anti-science, whereas a close scrutiny shows that it is actually the biotech industries who are anti-science and who pretend that their approximate experimentations are precise in any serious way. Usually speaking from the position of power, proponents discount calls for reason and pleas that we have just one planet and that it is the diversity in nature that is the bedrock of resilience to variable climatic and other conditions.

The Financial Times in an editorial titled Seeds of Doubt and published on 21 July 2013 raises very deep issues. It's subtitle, "Europe is right to be cautious over GM crops" captures the essence of the timely warning. The editorial informs that most GE crops are engineered to resist harmful insects or pests and to withstand glysophate, a type of herbicide. These engineering feats are expected to protect crops from target insects and to relief the farmer of the need to weed - a task that places a lot of stress on small-scale farmers. However, the application of the technology requires that farmers adopt monoculture as the norm and avoid mixed cropping and crop rotation as well.

The editorial notes the truth that critical farmers and scientists have long said, that target pests develop ways of overcoming the engineered defences while weeds have simply become super weeds, tough to hold down and tough to kill. Consequent upon these realities the biotech industry has had to continue to produce more toxic defences and chemicals in bids to overcome the resistance. Unfortunately for the industry, it has turned out that "the harder they come, the harder they fall", as the reggae musicians sing. Those superbugs and super weeds would make even Spider Man jealous.

The FT editorial urges, "regulators should take a broad view of the ecological change triggered when new species are released." It adds that "Narrow fixation on the biochemical properties of a crop risks missing the wood for the trees." The editorial concludes that if Europe has saved her environment and forgone gains enjoyed for some time by farmers in the USA since the 1990s " it will have been a small price to pay."

One wonders why most African governments are not paying attention to the truth that natural resilience is the only way to secure our environment. We cannot afford to go the way of farmers who do not see their crops as food but as commodities to be processed into products for the market. This is the logic of the so-called value-added agricultural production mantra. While there is nothing wrong with value-addition, food crops need to be seen primarily as food crops to avoid needless and harmful tinkering by those who only see market shelves when they look at farms.

Coming on the same day as the FT editorial is another article, this time in the New York Times, that lays bare the tragic consequences of dependence on GE crops in a region of the USA. The article titled Our Coming Food Crisis and written by Gary Paul Nabhan, talks of the risks faced by farmers in a town in California as a metaphor for climate induced food crisis that could hit the USA and by extension impact the world through spiked food prices.

Nabhan draws attention to the higher temperatures being recorded in the area and stresses that when this persists it necessitates the use of more water for irrigation. This does not only place a demand on available surface and ground water, but also leads to higher energy need to pump the water over longer distances. Passing these costs to the consumer translates directly to increased food prices.

Continued here:
Standing Against GMOs By Nnimmo Bassey

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