Dr. Florence Wambugu's Statement on Biotechnology in Africa

Printer Friendly

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for the opportunity to submit testimony to the Agriculture Committee on critical issues in biotechnology, foreign food aid, and African agriculture.

I am a passionate believer in the power of biotechnology to boost food production and fight hunger and poverty in the developing world. As one of nine children growing up on a small farm in Kenya, I know that African farmers need more tools for fighting plant diseases and overcoming other barriers to increased crop production. I do not believe that biotechnology is a silver bullet for African agriculture, but it is an indispensable tool that can have dramatic benefits.

The African continent, more than any other, urgently needs agricultural biotechnology, including transgenic crops, to improve food production. This is why the debate over providing genetically modified (GM) corn in food aid shipments is so troubling. The primary accomplishment of the mainly European anti-biotech lobby, through gross misinformation and political maneuvering, was only to keep safe and nutritious food out of the hands of starving people.

However, these cynical organizations also used famine as an opportunity to promote an anti-biotech message that not only undermines the most promising developments in African agriculture, but also further distorts the global debate over biotechnology. African scientists, who overwhelmingly support the development of biotechnology for African agriculture, have a common interest with you in fighting for open minds and markets around the world.

It is a paradox that one of the most controversial sciences-biotechnology-has become a unifying factor for African scientists. Given the controversies surrounding the science, arriving at a consensus position has not been easy. But biotechnology has gained acceptance because there is consensus that it is a global opportunity. Both multinational companies and small-holder farmers stand to benefit as confirmed by experiences in China and Africa. While the focus has been on benefits to the private sector, programs such as the tissue culture banana project in some East African countries have demonstrated that biotechnology can have a positive impact on hunger, malnutrition and poverty. In some cases, rural farm incomes have tripled as a result of biotech techniques.

The question then arises: Should the agricultural sector remain unchanged while every other aspect of life on the continent is changing? The anti-biotech lobby asserts that the continent needs to be protected from big multinational biotech companies. This often Euro-centric view is founded on two premises: that Africa has no expertise to make an informed decision and that the continent should focus on organic farming. These perspectives, even if well intended, do not represent the African scientists' view.

Throughout my career I have been dedicated to realizing the promise of biotechnology for small farmers and communities in Africa and other areas of the world where producing sufficient food is a constant struggle. I bring global experience and a global perspective to my work. I obtained a bachelors degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Nairobi in Kenya, a masters degree in Plant Pathology from the University of North Dakota, a PhD in Plant Virology and Biotechnology at the University of Bath. I also spent a three-year post doctoral fellowship in genetic engineering with Monsanto here in the United States, during which time I worked on developing a genetically modified, virus resistant sweet potato.

Most recently I was Director of the African Region Office of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, and earlier I was the Senior Research Officer and Coordinator of Plant Biotechnology Research with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. Among other international activities I serve on the Dupont Biotech Advisory Panel, the Board of Trustees of the International Plant Genetics Resource Institute, and the private sector committee of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

I founded and became President of A Harvest Biotech Foundation International in 2002 to improve the quality and impact of biotechnology communications and to help facilitate the development and adoption of biotech crops in Africa. A Harvest is focused on biotechnology education and facilitating the delivery of biotechnology benefits to farmers. I travel frequently around the world to speak about the crop production problems facing Africa and the solutions that biotechnology offers.

Did Zambia have any valid reasons for rejecting GM food? No. But Zambia did have valid reasons for asking questions about trade and food safety issues. First, brushing aside the issue of trade with the European Union (EU) is simplistic. But total rejection of GM food is equally simplistic. For historical, political and economic reasons, Africa's main trading partner is Europe. In view of the EU moratorium on GM food, African countries that favor the use of GM crops must put on their thinking caps and decide how best to deal with the trade issue. My country, Kenya, has discovered that in the last five years, neighboring Uganda has become our largest trading partner, overtaking Britain. Regionally, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has recently surpassed the EU as Kenya's main trading bloc. These are relevant lessons for Zambia.

The second issue is one of safety. As a scientist, who has been in the lab and have been involved in biotechnology for over 10 years, I can confirm that rigorous testing takes place to ensure GM foods are safe. Indeed, a number of the foods that we eat would fail miserably if passed through the rigor of GM food testing. There are no proven dangers from GM foods, although even pro-GM scientists would agree there are always potential dangers. Mobile phone technology is spreading like wild fire in Africa, despite the alleged danger of cancer-causing effects. Should we stop using cell phones? The simple answer is that the benefits far outweigh any potential dangers.

The needs of Africa and Europe are different. Europe has surplus food and does not experience hunger, mass starvation and death on the scale we frequently and sadly witness in Africa. The priority of Africa is to feed her people with safe foods and to sustain agricultural production and the environment. Based on what is happening on the continent, it is a foregone conclusion that biotechnology is causing a silent revolution in Africa. Farmers have embraced the new technology because it makes them more efficient, protecting-or increasing-yields and reducing their reliance on chemicals.

The debate on biotechnology and its impact on Africa has already moved to a higher level. The issue is not whether to adopt biotechnology, but how to adopt it. The challenge now surrounds substantive matters related to the technology and specific policies and institutions required to enable Africans maximize the benefits and minimize potential risks associated with biotechnology.

Most African countries lack the necessary expertise and information to engage in the formulation and implementation of long-term biotechnology policies and laws. At the moment they are merely reacting to political and ethical issues being raised by anti-biotechnology lobbies around the world. Africa needs a critical mass of African expertise in biotechnology policy analysis in order to enlarge the region's ability to participate effectively in the international negotiations, such as the Protocol on Biosafety.

However, it must also be emphasized that Africa has comparative advantages in biotechnology. We can participate in this global opportunity as equal partners. While the industrialized countries bring technology to the table, Africa is bringing its enormous genetic diversity, indigenous knowledge, local field ecosystems for product development, capacities and infrastructure required by foreign multinational companies. Africa has local germplasm, some of it already well-characterized and clean, being held in gene banks in trust by centers run by the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research.

Our interest is in unpacking the emerging opportunities with a view to transforming rural agriculture without undermining local ecologies and socio-economic landscapes. Instead of knee-jerk reactions to biotechnology, African governments must now move aggressively to establish technology policies that enlarge their-and the continent's-comparative advantages and competitiveness in the technology.

Critics of biotechnology claim that Africa has no chance to benefit from biotechnology, and that Africa will only be exploited by multinationals. On the contrary, small-scale farmers in Africa have benefited by using hybrid seeds from local and multinational companies, and transgenic seeds in effect are simply an added-value improvement to these hybrids. Local farmers are benefiting from tissue-culture technologies for banana, sugar cane, pyrethrum, cassava and other crops. There is every reason to believe they will also benefit from the crop-protection transgenic technologies in the pipeline for banana, such as sigatoka, the disease-resistant transgenic variety now ready for field trials. Virus- and pest-resistant transgenic sugar cane technologies are being developed in countries such as Mauritius, South Africa and Egypt.

Kenya - which is currently drafting laws to govern GM foods - has opted to build capacity in every area necessary to adopt biotechnology, while moving with care. We appreciate that there could be potential dangers, but we also know very well the benefits. For example, let's look at the effect of GM technology on three important crops in Africa.

As is clearly evident, with GM technology Africa can quadruple its maize output, more than triple sweet potato output and increase banana output by eight times. Anybody who cares about hunger should be interested in this technology. It is my considered opinion that biotechnology is already having a major impact on agricultural and public policies in Africa from a continental level.

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) recently adopted biotechnology as one of its three main goals. FARA is important in the current GM debate because it brings together Africa's key decision makers in agriculture. It is also through FARA that the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad) will shape a continental agricultural strategy. Both FARA and Nepad share the common goal of achieving a continent-wide 6% per annum growth in agricultural sector over the next 20 to 25 years. There is no doubt at the continental level that biotechnology will play a critical role in shaping the future of Africa.

In my view, African policy-makers and scientists need to urgently identify specific areas of biotechnology in which their countries should invest. Debate must shift to the nature of innovative policies and laws to regulate the application of genetic engineering to ensure that potential risks are reduced or altogether eliminated. Other important areas of focus include mapping global trends in biotechnology, the socio-economic benefits of biotechnology to African countries, and the role of intellectual property protection in promoting the transfer of safe biotechnology techniques and products to Africa.

Needless to say, Africa has many problems-a shortage of skilled people (especially in biotechnology), poor research funding, lack of governing policies, and civil strife. Nevertheless, countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Kenya are taking practical steps to ensure that they can use biotechnology for sustainable development.

African countries need the right policies and agencies, such as operational biosafety regulatory agencies and an effective local public and private sector, to interface with multinational companies that already have the technologies. Consumers need to be informed of the pros and cons of various agricultural biotechnology packages, the dangers of using unsuitable foreign germplasm, and how to avoid the loss of local germplasm and to maintain local diversity.

Other checks and balances are required to avoid patenting local germplasm and innovations by multinationals; to ensure policies on intellectual property rights and to avoid unfair competition; to prevent the monopoly buying of local seed companies; and to prevent the exploitation of local consumers and companies by foreign multinationals. Field trials need to be done locally, in Africa, to establish environmental safety under tropical conditions.

The main goal is to find a balanced formula for how local institutions can participate in transgenic product development and share the benefits, risks and profits of the technology, as they own the local germplasm needed by the multinationals for sustainable commercialization. New varieties must not simply replace local ones. The removal of genes that were in the public domain into the private sector raises concern in Africa.

All these issues mean that Africa must strengthen its capacity to deal with various aspects of biotechnology, including issues of biosafety, creating and sustaining gene banks, and encouraging the emergence of a local biotechnology private sector.

We may have missed the green revolution, which helped Asia and Latin America achieve self-sufficiency in food production, but we cannot afford to be excluded or to miss another major global technological revolution. The people of Africa cannot wait for others to debate the merits of biotechnology-and we look to America and other developed nations to help us allocate technologies that can prevent suffering and starvation.

About advertising opportunities