Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa
http://www.twnafrica.org/docs/GMCropsAfrica.pdf
GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa Damning report concludes GM crops do not address the real causes of poverty and hunger in Africa. Jonathan Matthews writes. .. The report shows how the industry's PR spin is often farcically inexact. Here's just one example in relation to GM cotton in South Africa: "ISAAA implies that small farmers have been using the technology on a hundred thousand hectares. Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe - an industry coalition - suggests 5,000 ha of "smallholder cotton". The survey team suggests 3,000 ha. "In addition to conflicting data on the area and numbers of farmers, the profits gained by switching to Bt cotton are unclear." DeGrassi writes. "CropGen says farmers gain $113 per hectare. Monsanto says farmers gain an extra $90. ISAAA argues that switching to Bt allows farmers make an extra $50 per hectare. University researchers calculate $35, whilst the survey team found farmers gained only $18 in the second year, but in the first year, "Bt cotton nonadopters were actually $1 per hectare better off"." Meanwhile, the very crop that has been reported to be giving small farmers an easier and more affluent life, turns out to have not only failed to solve Makhathini farmers' existing problems with debt, but to have actually deepened and widened indebtedness. The expensive crop have helped to saddle them with debts of $1.2 million! Despite that, CropGen claimed GM cotton has turned the area from one that wasn't viable for agriculture into "a thriving agricultural community". Monsanto says, "The region has become an example to the world of how plant biotechnology can help the smallholder farmers of Africa". Not to be outdone, Steven Smith, Chairman of the UK's Agricultural Biotechnology Council, has said of the project, that "small farmers are realizing huge economic benefits". A group of academics in South Africa have even claimed that projecting the results across the entire continent shows that "it could generate additional incomes of about six billion Rand, or US$600 million, for some of the world's poorest farmers." ISAAA's claims, according to deGrassi who details the various claims in his carefully referenced report, are apparently even more fantastical. The report shows that GM cotton is, in truth, at best irrelevant to poverty in the area, and at worst is "lowering wages and job prospects for agricultural laborers, who are some of the most impoverished people in South Africa." The other showcase project that deGrassi looks at in detail centers on GM sweet potatoes in Kenya. Again deGrassi demonstrates the total gap between the supposed 'evidence' and hyperbole - "Transgenic Sweet Potato Could End Kenyan Famine" - and the wholly unimpressive reality. "The [GM] sweet potato project [which may increase production by as much as 18%] is now nearing its twelfth year, and involves over 19 scientists (16 with PhDs) and an estimated $6 million. In contrast, conventional sweet potato breeding in Uganda was able in just a few years to develop with a small budget a well-liked virus-resistant variety with yield gains of nearly 100%." Yet it has been claimed that the virus in question "is a classic example of a problem that cannot be solved through conventional breeding," and that "the time and money spent actually developing GM varieties are less than for conventional varieties." DeGrassi also notes: "Another surprising example of advocacy trumping facts is C.S. Prakash, the influential biotechnology advocate who has advised the US Trade Representative. Prakash has repeatedly cited sweet potatoes as a positive example of the benefits of GM for African countries, but has confessed to having no knowledge of the results of scientific trials in Kenya." Prakash issued a press release ahead of the Sacramento ministerial meeting in June demanding that international leaders ignore the protesters and "let sound science determine the future of agricultural technologies in developing countries". DeGrassi mercilessly exposes the kind of 'sound science' that has been used to lobby leaders around the world and to mislead the rest of us. Read deGrassi's report. The truth is out! Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub- Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence by Aaron diGrassi, published by Third World Network, Africa http://www.twnafrica.org/docs/GMCropsAfrica.pdf |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
"U.S. farm policy sows ire in Africa" | sci.agriculture | |||
Sign petition to USDA to protect crops from being fertilized by pollen from GMO pharm. crops | Edible Gardening | |||
Cactus in Africa | Plant Science | |||
GM Cotton a big success in Africa | sci.agriculture | |||
GM Cotton a big success in Africa | sci.agriculture |