Genetically modified (GM) cotton has been produced globally
for almost two decades, yet to date only three African countries have grown GM
cotton on a commercial basis – South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan. A number
of other African countries such as Malawi, Ghana, Swaziland and Cameroon appear
to be on the verge of allowing their first cultivation of GM cotton, with
Nigeria and Ethiopia planning to follow suit in the next two to three years.
Governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that
GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that
characterises the global cotton market. African cotton productivity is
declining – it now stands at only half the world average – while global
productivity is increasing. The promise of improving productivity and reducing
pesticide use through the adoption of GM cotton is thus compelling. Scrutiny of
actual experiences reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market
prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and
onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production. In
Burkina Faso, the tide turned against GM cotton after just five seasons as low
yields and low quality fibres persisted. In South Africa, GM cotton brought
devastating debts to smallholders and the local credit institution went bust.
Last season, smallholders contributed to less than three percent of South
Africa’s total production. In Malawi, where Monsanto has already applied to the
government for a permit to commercialise Bollgard II, its GM pest resistant
cotton, Malawi’s cotton industry, the Cotton Development Trust (CDT), has
publically voiced its concerns over a number of issues, including inadequate
field trials, the high cost of GM seed and related inputs, and blurred intellectual
property arrangements. In addition, CDT has expressed unease over the potential
development of pest resistance and the inevitable applications of herbicide
chemicals.
Experiments and open field trials with GM cotton have been
running for many years in a number of African countries and are increasingly at
a stage where applications for commercial release are imminent. However, there
are many obstacles to the birth of a new GM era in Africa, chief among them the
fact that this high-end technology is simply not appropriate to resource-poor
farmers operating on tiny pieces of land. Africa’s cotton farmers are operating
in a difficult global sector – prices are erratic and distorted by unfair
subsidies in the North, institutional support for their activities is often
lacking, and high input costs are already annihilating profit margins. Fighting
for the introduction of more expensive technologies that have already proven
themselves technologically unsound in a smallholder environment is deeply
irresponsible and short-sighted.
Regional economic communities (RECs), such as the Common
Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for
West African States (ECOWAS), are also key players in readying their member
states for the commercialisation of and trade in GM cotton, through harmonised
biosafety policies. Attempts by the biotech industry to impose policies that
pander to investors’ desires at the expense of environmental and human safety
may be easier to realise at the regional level, through the trade-friendly
RECs. This is where many biotech industry resources and efforts are currently
being channelled.
A farmer during a Malian public consultation on GMOs
explained “What’s the point of encouraging us to increase yields with GMOs when
we can’t get a decent price for what we already produce?”
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