Is GM Africa’s best bet to end food shortage?
A professional examines GMO corn cob on a field. GM products take years to produce and undergo rigorous regulatory processes before being allowed on the market.
What you need to know:
- The spread of GM products in Africa will remain limited in the near term, as only six countries on the continent have passed regulations allowing their use. Just three of these countries - Egypt, South Africa, and Burkina Faso - commercialise GM crops.
Africa, and Kenya in particular, need to rely on non-transgenic crop breeding to boost food output and feed its rapidly growing population in the coming decades. However, they also need genetically modified (GM) products.
The United Nations estimates that the world must increase cereal output by a billion tonnes and produce 200 million extra tonnes of livestock products annually by 2052 to feed a population projected to rise to 10 billion from the current eight billion people.
The population of Africa is expected to double to two billion people by 2050, and the continent will definitely require an increase in food production by that time, with some countries needing to triple their food production.
The future growth of Africa will be driven through conventional breeding approaches and the use of biotechnologies, which can produce high yields but are not transgenic.
The continent needs its own unique “green revolution,” with interventions in several areas, including crops and livestock. Africa must also learn from the mistakes of India.
In the famous green revolution of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, crop yields soared in India, China, and Latin America, enabling them to break free from extreme hunger and recurrent famine.
These developing countries boosted farm production through intensive practices and new seed varieties, which were praised for reducing the number of hungry people but also criticised for making farmers dependent on GM seeds.
Indeed, these agricultural changes helped countries like China and India become the emerging markets they are today.
It is time for African countries to embrace the best results of conventional breeding and “modest” biotechnologies to boost crop yields and make plants resistant to increasing heat and dryness due to climate change.Africa cannot rule out GM organisms (GMOs) as a means to resolve hunger. Genetically modified products and/or food should not be excluded from Africa’s menu.
If they can help increase yields and ensure stable yields, why not GMOs, especially while people are dying of hunger?
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that even if developing countries double food output by 2050, one person in 20, or approximately 390 million people, would still be at risk of malnutrition, most of whom would be in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. GM crops are widely used in major agricultural producers, such as the United States and Brazil, but face staunch opposition in Europe, where they are largely seen as potentially risky for human health and the environment.
While Africans are also concerned about the health problems that GM crops could trigger, so far, there has been no evidence of such problems.
The spread of GM products in Africa will remain limited in the near term, as only six countries on the continent have passed regulations allowing their use. Just three of these countries - Egypt, South Africa, and Burkina Faso - commercialise GM crops.
Mr Mandu is the National Organising Secretary of Ford-Kenya
