BIOTECHNOLOGY - The Food Solution

Biotechnology Only Solution to Feed the World

Biotechnology holds tremendous promise for the developing world. The use of high-yielding, disease and pest resistant crops will have a direct bearing on improved food security, poverty alleviation and environmental conservation in Africa.

By developing crops that more efficiently absorb nutrients from the soil, biotechnology can help farmers produce more on land already under cultivation, and may reduce the need for costly inputs such as fertilisers and nonrenewable resources such as oil and natural gas.

According to a Mexican scientist Luis Herrera Estrella, the use of tropical biotech crops can be modified to tolerate aluminum and acid soils to significantly increase the productivity of corn, rice and papaya.

Biotech crops that require less tilling may help to decrease soil erosion and development of plants that can grow in tough conditions such as drought, or dry or poor soils may make it easier to farm marginal lands hence helping to keep fragile soils such as wetlands and rain forests out of food production.

In many African countries, subsistence farmers eke out meager livings, and the ability to provide enough food for survival is often less than assured and the vital importance of staple crops such as rice, sweet potatoes and cassava can’t be overstated. Over 650 million of the world’s poorest people live in the rural areas and without sustainable agriculture; they will have neither the resources nor employment they require for a better life.

Burgeoning population especially in the developing world will soon outstrip food production since the rate of food production globally has dropped from 3 percent per annum in the 1970s to 1 percent per annum today.

Biotechnology is working to solve these problems by producing plants that resist pests and diseases which is a major cause of crop damage in the developing world.

According to Jonathan Swift (1727), the king of Brobdingnag in Gulliver’s Travels, whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

Biotechnology also offers hope of improving the nutritional benefits to food varieties and it is poised to bring direct health benefits to consumers through enhanced nutritive qualities that include more and higher quality protein, lower level of saturated fats and increased vitamins and minerals.

The technology can also reduce the level of natural toxins (such as in cassava and kidney beans) and eliminate certain allergens like peanuts, wheat and milk

In many countries, from Africa to Indonesia to South America, cassava plant is an important source of starch, carbohydrates, protein, calcium, and vitamins A and C, and plays a vital role in the diet and income of some 500 million people worldwide. Sweet potato on the other hand is a staple that provides vital source of calories and essential minerals to millions in the developing world.

In 1998, African farmers lost 60 percent of the cassava crop to mosaic virus and sweet potato yields were laid dangerously low, loosing in some cases up to 80 percent of expected yields due to sweet potato weevil and the feathery mottle virus (SPFMV).

Towards developing more nutritious staple crops, researchers are using biotechnology to develop cassava that more efficiently absorb trace metal and micronutrients from the soil, have enhanced starch quality and more beta-carotene.

A strain of “golden rice” that packs more iron and beta carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, could be in the market in the near future. This will help more than 100 million children who suffer from vitamin A deficiency, the global leading cause of blindness as well as some 400 million women of childbearing age who are iron-deficient, placing their babies at risk of physical and mental retardation, premature births and natal motility.

Science and technology can contribute positively towards alleviation of hunger and that is why Americans overwhelmingly support initiatives aimed at increasing agricultural productivity and the use of biotechnology in addressing concerns of global food and nutritional security.

Biotechnology represents a frontier advance in agricultural science, and has far-reaching potential in advancing global food production in an environmentally sustainable manner. While the world population continues to grow in the developing countries where food is already a problem, biotechnology represents a powerful tool that can be employed in concert with many other traditional approaches in increasing food production in the face of diminishing land and water resources.

“To still have hunger in our world of abundance is not only unacceptable but unforgivable”, Ronald Cantrell of the International Rice Research institute, in the Philippines said. World hunger is a complex issue, one for which there is no answer yet, while biotechnology may not be the only solution, it can be a valuable tool in the struggle to feed a hungry world.

Kenya Inches Close to Food Sustainability

Kenya has begun a countdown to commercializing genetically modified maize (corn). Scientists at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) have already developed a new maize seed, resistant to the stem borer. Stem borer destroys 400,000 tonnes of Maize in Kenya, alone. In Sub-Saharan Africa, chronic cases of stem borer infestation account for 10-70 per cent of yield losses. This has had devastating effects on Africa's efforts to feed its ever soaring population. Maize is the primary staple food and an occasional cash crop in many parts of Africa.

The first case of stem borer was discovered in Malawi in 1932. Since then, a raft of methods, pointedly, biological control, habitat management and use of natural pesticides, have been used to deal with the stem borer menace. Unfortunately, very little has been achieved. Bounty yields, a common occurrence in countries such as US, Canada, Argentina, India and China, which have embraced biotechnology, have not been forthcoming. For instance, Niger, one of the poorest countries in Africa is currently facing acute food shortage due to crop failure and drought. About 3.6 million people are on the verge of death due to hunger. Horrifying is news that 800,000 children are chronically malnourished.

Niger is a semi-desert country where lack of rain can result to massive crop failures. This situation and others in Africa can be avoided. Dishing emergency food aid, as is happening at the moment, will help in the short run. But long-term measures need to be explored.

The development of seeds with tolerance to drought and low soil fertility through modern biotechnology could benefit Niger and other countries in similar situations. Maize varieties with improved nutritional content will be a boon to malnourished children who strand the African continent.

It is worth noting that the development of maize seed resistant to pests such as stem borer not only heralds a new chapter in Kenya but Africa as a whole. Other African countries should now borrow a leaf from these two countries. They should swim by the waves rest they continue to be perpetual beneficiaries of relief food. Kenyan scientists have demonstrated determination to seek homegrown solutions to Africa's food problems.

It would be interesting to hear the views of critics of modern biotechnology about this latest development.In the past, they have accused rich countries of foisting novel technologies such as biotechnology on "hapless" Africa, in total disregard of their environmental impact or health complications associated with consumption of genetically modified food.

The jury is now out. To quote Dr Stephen Mugo, a plant breeder with CIMMYT, "The converted seeds have been studied, multiplied and tested in laboratories and greenhouse conditions."

The Cowdung Deception

Modern agriculture has been marred by controversy, not only related to biotechnology, but also to chemicals and hybrid seeds coming out of the green revolution. These debates have stunned developers, scientists and engineers, especially those without a farming background. Among the major points of arguments related to modern agricultural systems is that they are not environmentally sustainable and are socially unacceptable.

The latter argument is justified by some need to “protect heritage” (which happens to have been changing for thousands of years). There have been arguments that the “good old days” when people used to fertilize their fields with cow dung should be the standard upon which we build. Radical groups have advocated a return to these systems, and a preservation of that status in areas where they are still practiced. There exists a fantasy, especially amongst the urban elite, that rural life is exceedingly wonderful, cheap and sustainable; that traditional methods were essentially error-free, sustainable and beneficial to all. This misguided fantasy culminates in what I will call the cow dung deception – the endless attack by radical groups of modern technology in favor of a ‘good-old-days’ that never was.

The logical absurdity of this reason is not its greatest fault – it is the desire to fight progress under the guise of precaution that threatens us today.