THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 173, July 12, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
FARMING, BIOTECHNOLOGY, & FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA:
MORE BOULDERS IN AFRICA'S FARM PATH
By Dennis T. Avery
THE OBSTACLES TO MODERN AGRICULTURE & FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA: THE ROLE OF FIRST WORLD
ENVIRONMENTALISTS IN CREATING ROADBLOCKS TO IMPROVED METHODS OF AGRICULTURE & FOOD PRODUCTION IN
AFRICA -- THE ROADBLOCKS BEING PUT UP BY AFRICA'S POLITICALLY & ECONOMICALLY POWERFUL, EDUCATED ELITE --
THE HIGHLY PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF CREATING INSURMOUNTABLE HURDLES TO BIOTECH CROPS IN AFRICA
FULL STORY:
The African Biofortified Sorghum project, centered in South Africa, is striving to breed sorghum with extra lysine,
vitamin A, iron, and zinc to help millions of African small farmers meet their families’ nutritional needs. The project is
funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, collaborating with Du Pont and Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeds. Unfortunately, the
project has been unable to get South African regulatory approval for its field trials. The test planting will now have to
be done in the U.S.A., though African trials would be a better test.
Also in South Africa, researchers are working on insect-resistant biotech potatoes for Africa’s millions of small highland
farmers who can’t afford pesticides. USAID is collaborating with Michigan State University and the South African
Research Council. The project has foundered amidst regulatory disputes between South Africa’s agricultural researchers
and its environmental regulators.
The ultimate First World roadblock: Africa spends virtually no money on developing new high-yield seeds — but, thanks
to Europe, it already has a complete set of environmental regulatory hurdles ready to block biotech crops on the grounds
of unproven risks to “food and environmental safety.” The regulators seem to ignore the obvious potential benefits such
as food security and wildlands preservation.
The Green movement, or environmentalist movement, long ago convinced the First World of a huge global warming
threat, which has failed to occur. Similarly, they have convinced Africa’s educated elite that biotech seeds are a bigger
threat to Africa’s people and wild species than famine.
Let’s look at the concerns Africans raise about biotech:
Fear of large multinational companies. Are they also afraid
of Toyota cars and Boeing airplanes? Both companies
provide products in exchange for cash. If a farmer didn’t
want the biotech product, he needn’t buy it.
Loss of traditional landrace seed varieties. Landrace seeds
are already being maintained in seed banks worldwide —
permitting higher yields on scarce prime cropland.
Loss of European export markets for African flowers and
vegetables. This is a big stick wielded by the European
market that bans imports of biotech vegetables. However,
the earnings from bigger and more stable biotech crops
promise to dwarf the earnings from the few flowers and
vegetable imports the EU allows under their present
restrictions.
High costs of seed. If the farmer doesn’t make more from
the biotech seed than from saving his own seed, he won’t
buy it. If the seeds increase his food security and/or
profits, the cost will be covered.
Legal restrictions on farmers saving biotech seed for
replanting. Seed sales are the only way for biotech
companies to fund their research. More and more biotech
crops, moreover, are coming from non-profit organizations
such as the Bill Gates Foundation, universities, and the
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
Perceptions of “dumping” untested food on unsuspecting
Africans. We’ve “dumped” millions of tons of these
“untested” crops on willing consumers all over the
Western Hemisphere — but only after they were tested
for toxicity, digestibility, protein levels, pollen dispersal,
genetic stability, and many other characteristics. Not even
a sneeze has been triggered.
If Africa puts up insurmountable roadblocks to food security through modern agriculture, it risks starvation of its own
people and loss of wildlife habitat. It seems as if First World environmental activists and the politically and economically
powerful in Africa -- who aren’t going to starve in any case -- are in collusion to keep Africa unstable and hungry. This
will, ironically, also keep them burdened with high birth rates, driven by the parents’ famine fears.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Africa South of the Sahara -- Black Africa
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable
Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years.
Readers may write Avery at P.O. Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421; send him email at cgfi@hughes.net; or comment
on www.cgfi.org.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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