with Johnson Ekpere - Agricultural Research in Africa

There is a tremendous push for Africa to apply genetic engineering to solve its food production problem. What is your opinion on this?

There is a lot of pressure to accept biotechnology from the countries with big biotechnology interests. This is manifested in a number of different ways – political, economic, and scientific. Political pressure is the biggest – accepting biotech is now often a condition for qualifying for other aid money. But most African countries have enough technology to deal with the food production problems they face. If such technologies were put into practice by only half the farmers in those countries, it would resolve their food security problems. If countries would put their money into agricultural science research and extension services instead of armaments, they would not be in the food deficit situation they are in now. It is all a matter of focus and intent. The International Agricultural Research Institutes are replete with high-yielding varieties of crops like maize, cassava, rice, yams, and potatoes. In Liberia, the Africa Rice Centre (WARDA) has just developed a new variety of rice (Nerica) [1] that has the potential to revolutionise production if only it could be extended to and adapted by farmers. But few people are talking about WARDA's rice, they are promoting existing technologies as effectively as GM crops are being promoted, a lot more could be achieved.

What are the implications of the global push to shift the funding of agricultural research and development from the public to the private sector in Africa?

For almost all sub-Saharan Africa, it would be suicidal to shift from public sector funding of agricultural R&D to the private sector. Because private sector R&D is profit-motivated and development is secondary, corporations couldn't care less about the small farmer. Corporate agriculture will just exacerbate the poor situation of these farmers, many of whom are already resorting to gutter-digging in the cities for a livelihood, and contribute to the existing problems of unrest, theft and displacement. Household food security has to be the goal for working with small farmers. Once you take their food from them and the private sector controls not only their seeds, but their land, then the whole system will break down.

I was trained in the US. I still remember the courses I took at the undergraduate level at Madison State University in the 1960s. I can still recall a few years after I graduated how many farmers in the US were rendered bankrupt by the shift towards corporate agriculture. That was in a country where less than 20% of the farmers were small farmers. You can imagine what will happen in African countries where 70-80% are small farmers. If they lose their livelihoods, there is nothing to replace them. If there is to be a shift towards private sector funding of research, then let the countries that have the capacity do it, and not do it hook, line and sinker, but do it for specific crops in which they have comparative advantage. To come with a blanket statement that the best thing that African countries can do is to privatise research is to create the greatest problem that sub-Saharan Africa will face in the years to come.

I don't actually worry too much about the corporations introducing GM products if Africa has appropriate biosafety regulations and their products are labelled. I know they will go bankrupt. Let them come and sell their transgenic fruits, trees and crops, and see what happens. But don't use government funds to do this, don't use government money to create policies to support transgenic products.

But what about the strength of the biotech lobby's propaganda and the fact that farmers desperately want to believe that these new technologies will work?

This is the danger. Some of these companies have budgets for promotion that far exceed national budgets of many African countries. But the Green Revolution failed to solve Africa's food problem because it was ill-conceived. As a graduate in agronomy, I knew that monocropping would not work on this continent, but few people would listen, not even our own ministers of agriculture. In the same way, the concept of GM will die a natural death, because it is not predicated on the needs of small African farmers. If anything can be done, it has to be done with those who have the technical capabilities to help the African farmer.

People are saying that all it takes is genetically modified crops to feed the world. But the transgenic seed is just one component of a complex production system. We need to address all the other components. The CG system, partially predicated on the Green Revolution, created some problems for farmers. But it did help to develop technologies that the National Agricultural Research Systems took up for adaptive research to tailor the seeds to local environments. If we follow on that process – properly – and work with the farmers, a lot can be done. The CG centres have developed technologies that will better serve farmers needs than GM crops.

What is your vision for the future?

When we finished the Model Law, we started on the need to create a better understanding of the document and what it would achieve. That was necessary because at every step in the process I was told that I had embarked on coordinating an effort in futility, and what I was getting all the lawyers and scientists to do would not see the light of day. But it did. What is required now beyond adoption of the model law is needed a popularisation programme to ensure that as many politicians, scientists, social scientists, agriculturalists, etc. would read and process it. But this period coincided with a time when the OAU was restructuring – perfect timing to destroy a piece of good work. And so none of that follow-up promotion has happened – except in an individual, ad hoc way. I would prefer to see this document discussed at national levels and at The New Partnership for Africa's Development [2] . The two model laws need to be looked at side by side with what they are being told by the life science industries, which will exert the same kind of extraneous pressures that African countries faced in the 1950s and 1960s, which created the debt burden that is their biggest problem today. Corporations want to add on to that a technology burden predicated on lack of food, which would be a disaster. People here need to know what food aid is, what the WFP is, the advantages of growing their own food, figuring out what to do with drought and so on. The African continent needs to search inward to address these problems. This document can help in poverty alleviation and food security.

Education, higher education and research are on the decline on this continent. Very few Africans are discussing this problem. One supposed solution is privatising agricultural research, but it is not really a solution.

This continent needs to sit down and look very critically at itself, and ask, “Where did we go wrong, and what do we need to do?” The young scientists here are going into the new emerging sciences. I don't blame them – if I was young I might do the same thing. But there are other scientists who are not emigrating yet, who are knowledgeable and who know what happened 15-20 years ago with the Green Revolution. Governments need to get these people together, give them proper funding and challenge them to come up with solutions in a set period of time. I bet they will succeed. And some of the young scientists may realise that they are heading down a dead end and will return to help reinvigorate agricultural research on this continent. We are all too busy theorising, and too few are practising. The key to success is building on what is here, not bringing in exotic science to solve predominantly local problems. I am optimistic that it can be done.