GMW: Chutzpah Science/Africa missing out on GM crops

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GMW: Chutzpah Science/Africa missing out on GM crops

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 15:51:43 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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QUOTE: " Wambugu has created a network of allies in Africa that will

develop new crops as well as coax governments to okay the use of

bioengineered seeds. "

 

1.Africa missing out on GM crops, researchers say

2.Danforth Center Researchers Will Receive $3.3M

3.Chutzpah Science

 

COMMENT

 

You might have thought that the US government via multilateral and

bilateral free trade agreements and high-level diplomatic pressure was

doing a brilliant job of pushing African countries to adopt

corporate-friendly regulations for GM crops. Not least, when this

external pressure

has been effectively complimented by lobbying and funding from USAID's

networks and other corporate-friendly groups and scientists. (see, for

instance, USAID: Making the World Hungry for GM Crops)

http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=191

 

But the first article below reports how " a team of international food

scientists " are complaining that " regulatory hurdles are preventing

African farmers from reaping the benefits of genetically modified foods " .

The article does not say who exactly this " team " is. However, the main

scientist quoted is the former USAID man, Joel Cohen, who is a keen

supporter of the recently formed Public Research and Regulation

Initiative

(PRRI).

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=316

 

Cohen knows all about Africa reaping the benfits of GM crops. While

with USAID he worked with Monsanto to select and provide the funding for

Florence Wambugu to head their GM sweet potato project - a project which

over more than a decade generated fantastic PR for GM crops while

producing absolutely nothing useful for farmers in Africa (at a cost of

millions!)

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

 

The other 2 items below also connect to PRRI. Item 3 refers to another

keen PRRI supporter, Florence Wambugu. Interestingly, Wambugu has

claimed the failed GM sweet potato project as a success. Why?

Principally,

because it helped Kenya ready itself for the introduction of GM crops!

 

This article relates to the Gates' grant that Wambugu's consortium has

just won to genetically modify sorghum for Africa, with the help of

Pioneer Hi-bred. Tellingly, the article says, " Wambugu has created a

network of allies in Africa that will develop new crops as well as coax

governments to okay the use of bioengineered seeds. " (item 3)

 

That larger goal is also relevant to another Gates' grant-recipient

featured in item 2 - the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=200

 

It was at a meeting at this Monsanto-backed Center that PRRI launched

itself. Interestestingly, in USAID's biotech configuration, the Danforth

Center is responsible for " assistance with regulatory packages " .

http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=191

 

The Center's founding president Dr Roger Beachy was recently at the

Biotechnology Industry Organisation's annual get together in Philadelphia

singing the praises of PRRI to the industry delegates, who were

doubtless very grateful to know that " public researchers " had found yet

another way of assisting them with " regulatory packages " to overcome

their

" regulatory hurdles " .

 

Monsanto's Robert Horsch who with Joel Cohen helped select Wambugu for

the GM sweet potato project has openly said that his role at Monsanto

is to " create goodwill and help open future markets " . Wambugu reinforces

the point: " it [the GM sweet potato] has no commercial value to

Monsanto, except as PR. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

 

Unfortunely, the project also had no value for poor African farmers.

This illustrates a point that Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of

Development Studies is not alone in making, " the excitement over certain

genetic engineering procedures can divert financial, human, and

intellectual

resources from focusing on productive research that meets the needs of

poor farmers. "

 

In fact, exploiting poor farmers and taking risks with their

livelihoods for reasons of PR and self-interest, particularly when

it's done so

brazenly and without any sense of guilt, does qualify as " Chutzpah

Science " .

 

For more on PRRI:

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=316

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1.WASHINGTON

Africa missing out on biotech crops, researchers say

By LANCE GAY

Scripps News Service, July 13, 2005

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=BIOTECH-07-13-05 & cat=WW

 

WASHINGTON - Regulatory hurdles are preventing African farmers from

reaping the benefits of genetically modified foods that could relieve

hunger and lessen the need for outside food assistance, a team of

international food scientists said Wednesday.

 

Joel Cohen, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research

Institute, said many African countries are conducting aggressive research

into using biotechnology to develop disease and insect-resistant plants,

but the seeds they are developing aren't reaching farmers because

government regulatory institutions in those countries aren't familiar

with

how biotechnology works.

 

" The resistance is not with the farmers, " said Cohen, who looked at

biotech research in Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. " Farmers

have been adopting this technology rapidly. "

 

Cohen said researchers in Africa are studying how to genetically modify

20 different crops, including maize, sugar cane and bananas. Approval

of genetically modified cotton plants has taken Africa 10 years, even

though the same insect-resistant cotton already is grown in Argentina,

China, India and Mexico.

 

Idah Sithole-Niang, a biochemist at the University of Zimbabwe, said

the major and unanticipated bottleneck is that regulatory agencies in

African countries aren't familiar with the technology and getting the new

seeds approved for use is taking too much time. " The difficulty is

moving from the laboratory to the farmer's field, " she said.

 

The researchers released a report on their findings Wednesday and urged

more funds to bolster the expertise of African regulatory agencies.

International agencies contend genetic modification is one method of

making Africa more self-sufficient in producing food by reducing crop

losses

due to disease and insect infestation.

 

Genetic modification also provides other benefits to farmers, who don't

have to rely on costly pesticides and agro-chemicals for their crops,

and can grow drought-resistant crops. One goal of grant programs to

Africa is to increase food production. Economists predict a 10 percent

increase in African agricultural productivity would result in a 7.2

percent

reduction in the continent's poverty rates.

 

Although genetic modification of plants has sparked a controversy over

the last decade, the researchers noted that more than 1 billion acres

of crops from genetically modified seeds were planted this year. Nearly

all the crops are grown in developed countries like the United States,

Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and China

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2.Danforth Center Researchers Will Receive $3.3 Million for a Five-Year

Project

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=6076 & mode=thread & order=0 & thold=0

 

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will work with scientists at

nine other institutions to enhance the nutritional value of cassava. The

team of scientists, led by Dr. Richard Sayre of Ohio State University,

secured a $7.5 million Grand Challenges in Global Health grant from the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund the research to

improve cassava - the most important food crop in Africa. This grant

was one of 43 selected from more than 1,500 applications involving 10,000

scientists from 75 countries.

 

The Danforth Center will receive $3.3 million for its portion of the

research, and will provide expertise on the best methods to genetically

improve cassava. In particular, the Danforth Center team will be

responsible for enhancing disease resistance and increasing the

nutritional

content of this important food crop.

 

The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is supported by a $450

million commitment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as

two new funding commitments: $27.1 million from the Wellcome Trust, and

$4.5 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

The initiative is managed by global health experts at the Foundation for

the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), the Gates Foundation, the

Wellcome Trust, and CIHR.

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3.Chutzpah Science

by: Elizabeth Corcoran

http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=4115

 

When Florence Wambugu, founder of A Harvest Biotech Foundation

International in Kenya, heard about the Gates grants, she immediately

thought

about three packages of sorghum seeds sitting in cold storage in Des

Moines, Iowa. A cousin of corn, sorghum is a staple for half a billion

people worldwide, even though it lacks much nutritional value. Five years

ago Pioneer Hi-Bred International (a subsidiary of DuPont) figured out

how to slide a critical gene from corn into sorghum to make a variant

with more

lysine--an essential amino acid. The researchers published their work,

then filed the details (along with 200 seeds) in cold storage. The

sorghum market simply wasn't big enough for Pioneer, says Paul Anderson,

research director of DuPont crop genetics.

 

But Wambugu, who remembered the project from past discussions with

Anderson, wanted those seeds. She called Anderson and asked if Pioneer

would help her foundation develop better sorghum for African farmers.

Wambugu and Anderson worked on their joint proposal for 20 months,

ultimately winning $16.9 million from the Gates Foundation. Pioneer

agreed to

further nutritional enhancements to the sorghum

strain, to train African scientists, and to donate the know-how (and

seeds) from its earlier work. Wambugu has created a network of allies in

Africa that will develop new crops as well as coax governments to okay

the use of bioengineered seeds.

 

 

 

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