Curiosity, caution and criticisms: Lessons for Africa on GMOs

CONTROVERSIES TRAILING FOOD and agriculture research involving genetically modified foods (GMOs) have remained unrelenting since the turn of the last century and the beginning of the new millennium. These controversies do not show any sign of abating or going away soon as many people continue to react with fears, suspicion, cynicism or doubt about safety to human health and environment on production, distribution, consumption and sales of products originating from the use of genetic engineering. Continued and equally unrelenting efforts of the scientists and other stakeholders to allay the fears of the public have not yielded the much desired consensus of opinion and wide acceptance of GMOs. Instead, the strident and growing opposition tends to overshadow any positive effort or message aimed at presenting the benefits of such products.

Globally, our embrace of science has come with enormous price. Every major breakthrough in science and technology has come with an initial resistance by people as anything new seems puny at best or threatening at worst. But such resistance, real or imagined, has some justifications as almost all products – despite all the touted benefits – come with some disadvantages, the degrees of which may vary depending on use. Where the side effects – often undesirable – could be minimal or transient, the risk-benefit analyses serve as parts of considerations for determining their approval for the consumers and the eventual rollout to the market. Thousands of products of scientific research works that fail such parameters have ended up as stillborn. And many more will continue to fall by the wayside for obvious reasons.

But the controversy around GMOs generally – or genetically modified foods in a narrower sense of application – would have been considered as unwarranted if not for the fundamental mistake that came with the initial efforts to introduce the scientific findings to the public. The scientists who came up with the terms “genetic engineering” and “genetically modified organisms” made this fundamental mistake by being too presumptuous and usurping the role of communication and public perception while christening their findings. They were not informed about possible fallout from the word “engineering” or “modification” when applied to products of life sciences. They thus missed the idea of human sensibility as they failed to reckon with the question raised a long time ago in the Bible, in Job 12:11, that “Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?” That initial failure or omission to get science communication right when releasing the products of their works has created a lot of unease within the scientific community as well as the industry having to do with the GMOs. Those terms in use are scary, ordinarily. But the scientists and the public will have to live with them, albeit controversial.

Innovations and breakthroughs in scientific research have changed the world, increased prosperity, solved many nagging age-long human problems and given rise to greater productivity. Perceived necessity brought about the need for genetically modified organisms, applicable in food, health and industrial products. The fears expressed by many, though understandable, are less warranted. Four years ago, at the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, many people scared of death willingly surrendered themselves for those vaccines, unaware that mRNA technology used by some of the notable vaccine makers is actually a form of GMO. But they asked for and took the vaccines in the health emergency without asking questions.

Globally, there is a consensus on the grim foreboding of potential food insecurity and the challenge of feeding the world in the future on a universal scale, arising from an array of causes, so much so that the Malthusian doomsday theory on population has been revisited and validated among some thinkers and pundits. Chief among those causes are climate change, hotter weathers, perennial droughts, floods, pests, diseases, diminishing soil nutrients, losses of farm yields, many of which have defied conventional remedies, thus requiring cutting edge scientific and technological innovations. In this case, many have thought that conventional cropping might not provide all the desperately needed solution for ensuring food sufficiency. Thus, scientists, social thinkers, leaders, politicians and industry have had to find solutions, one of which is the GMO application.

However, a universal consensus is lacking on the GMO solution as the world is sharply divided between those exercising caution and those driven by sheer curiosity. The sustained and lingering transatlantic divide between Europe and North America is quite remarkable as the European countries tend to duck or drag feet where the US and Canada have moved long way ahead. Between both sides of the divide, the differences are associated with their separate approaches to risk perception, communication and handling all the way down from policy making to the level of consumers. These manifest in their distinct regulatory responses as well as the scope and level of private and public investments in GMO research products and market products. While many American investments have sprung up on GMOs, less progress has been made on commercialisation of such products in the European Union.

Although the fears and misgivings mostly voiced out against GMOs revolve around the long term impacts on environment and human health, the less often emphasised but potentially more worrisome is that of monopoly and consumer’s vulnerability. The real threat, as opposed to what is generally emphasised in the public domain, is less about much of the fears people are currently experiencing on health and environment but more about control. The industry players’ aggressive approach to marketing and their tendencies to overreaching their legal boundaries by PATENTING crops and embarking on litigation over genetic characteristics are indeed worrisome. The omen is scary, particularly when one imagines farmers may have to perennially depend on the GMOs seed companies for planting. To imagine a world in which fewer producers of seeds will dominate, determine and dictate to the farmers what to plant is certainly not a desirable reality. That was where the industry – driven by profit and competitive motive – was leading to when they got it all wrong.

But, it will be a great mistake to focus only on GMOs while shifting attention away from equally worrisome tendencies in other areas of technology that the world has come to embrace rather gleefully and readily. The world seems adrift towards those technologies through which a few companies control your daily lives. That is already happening in communication as in cable TV, emails, social media and even in gadgets and devices. The concept of planned obsolescence just got all the more applicable under the fourth industrial revolution as new versions of many products tend to render old ones useless within short periods. In this case, users can only work with current versions driven by algorithms or programmes that were hitherto not applicable to older versions. Without viable alternatives, those ahead of the curve in technologies generally, and in genetic research in particular, might hold the key to the future of products. Without vigilance, fervent and strict policies of public institutions at national and global levels, food security could gradually slip into the hands of few private operators. That is where a greater concern on GMOs needs to be addressed.

Today, people take pleasure and pride in using mobile phones. When mobile telephony was first introduced, a number of health and safety issues were raised, which ought to have scared users away. But, within just a few years of introduction and rollout into the market, the use of cell phones experienced an unprecedented explosion. Now, more than ever before, the use has risen exponentially. They have clearly chosen to ignore and play down those fears. By contrast, the scientific products known as GMOs have continued to generate fears, pushbacks, concerns and scaremongering as there is hardly any product of scientific research that has polarised the world like the GMO has done. The “Green Revolution” spearheaded by Dr. Norman Borlaug turned the tide in favour of India and China as they embarked on massive production of grains that saved the countries from famine and halted the deaths arising from it. Those vehemently opposed to GM foods need to understand the challenge of feeding the world’s teeming population through an increase in food production.

Feeding the world in the future will require far more than just advocacy against particular innovation for fear of untoward effects. Those kicking against GMOs need to recognise that the interests of multinational GMO seed companies are interested more in staple crops that can be produced on commercial scale under mechanised agriculture, either for direct consumption or for use as industrial raw materials. This is one area that should engage the attention of governments, technocrats, policy advocates and activists who should therefore focus more attention on alternative crops of indigenous origin rather than crops of foreign origin or those that are already developed and adapted for cultivation on a large scale. It is now time to lay emphasis on practical ways of producing local crops in large volumes to meet the food needs of the teeming population.

From a purely commercial standpoint, funding GMO research on local crops by multinationals is unattractive, particularly when meant for small scale farming in a restricted, small area, especially when the cost-benefit consideration is involved. That could explain why the spectrum of crops so far covered by the GMO research and the new products has remained narrow for the past two decades. Recognising the benefits of transgenic crops among the local varieties will require minimising the fears and getting realistic with the peculiar needs of the people in developing countries. This will require the support of the public sector, particularly the national governments, in which case enabling policies will be needed. Governments need to fund research and extension into farmer-friendly GM crops free from restriction to farmers’ access. The small farmers need an assurance that their traditional practice of saving seeds for replanting will not be jeopardised. They need to know and be assured that the key to their future livelihoods will not be in the hands of some private seed companies. 

In summary, the controversies around GM crops will not go away. What needs to be done is to take the good science but embrace developing countries’ strategy and approach to its adoption and use. The world needs to be fed. But scaremongering and GMO rejection will not do it. Only a bold and pragmatic approach will. Africa must learn from this and move forward.

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