Biotech and hunger -- empty promises?

There is so much crap in this article, I don't know where to begin. The didn't even mention Dr. Wambugu whom they interviewed not more than a year and a half ago.

A Harvest Biotech Foundation International

Dr. Wambugu

A passionate believer in the power of biotechnology to boost food production in the developing world, AHBFI Executive Director, Dr Florence Wambugu, has nurtured a lifelong commitment to make agricultural science work to improve the lives of smallholder farmers and the global community.

She obtained her bachelors degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and later a Masters degree in Plant Pathology from the University of North Dakota, a PhD in Plant Virology and Biotechnology at the University of Bath and a three-year Post Doctoral Fellowship in Genetic Engineering in Life Sciences in the USA.

Her professional career includes working at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) where she successfully introduced many flower and strawberry varieties strengthening the Kenyan horticulture industry. She also worked with KARI/CIP on the introduction of potato varieties from Peru and other African countries. Dr. Wambugu initiated the pyrethrum project by developing the technology and commercialization strategy. Kenya is the No. 1 producer of pyrethrum in the world today.

Dr. Wambugu was involved in the development of the sweet potato, the first GM crop in sub-Saharan Africa, currently on field trial in Kenya. She facilitated the successful transfer of tissue culture banana biotechnology from South Africa to smallholder farmers in Kenya and Tanzania, winning the World Bank Global Development Network Award 2000.

Her leadership, foresight and strong negotiation qualities are evident in the private-public partnerships that led to (a) the TC banana and clonal tree biotechnology from South Africa to East Africa, (b) the development of the first maize streak virus resistant maize hybrids from Kenya and other African countries, and (c) training/mentoring over 26 Africa scientists in biotechnology skills.

Her Awards and Honors include: Best scientist award KARI, Exemplary PhD dissertation from the University of Bath, Kenya Pyrethrum Board Awards, GDN Award 2000, Woman of the Year 2001 by the American Biographical Institute, Nobel Prize of The Cultural Convention and The International Biographical Centre Lifelong Achievement Award.

Dr. Wambugu is a member of the Board of Directors at IPGRI, Private Sector Committee PSC/CGIAR, Dupont/Pioneer Biotechnology advisory panel, Executive Boards of African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and also member of the African Women in Science & Engineering.

She is the author of Modifying Africa and has written over 100 papers for various scientific journals, publications and presentations.

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.

Environmentalists to Africans: Drop Dead

October 10, 2002
http://www.americanoutlook.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=1997&pubtype=DailyArticles

by Dennis T. Avery
The administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios, says environmental groups are endangering the lives of millions of famine-threatened Africans to further their baseless campaign against genetically modified foods.

An estimated thirteen million people are at risk of severe hunger this year because of the southern African drought. Natsios just returned from Zambia, where more than two million people are threatened by drought-induced famine—but the Zambian government refuses to accept American corn because some of the grain is genetically modified to help it compete with insects and weeds.

Eco-groups, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, are intensively lobbying in Zambia and the other famine-stricken African countries against U.S. corn. Mozambique is also refusing the U.S. corn, but Malawi, Lesotho, and Swaziland have accepted it with no apparent concern.

Natsios says the eco-groups are “using big-time, very well-organized propaganda, the likes of which I have never seen before” in twelve years of American-led famine-relief efforts. The USAID administrator told the Washington Times that the eco-activists “can play these games with Europeans, who have full stomachs, but it is revolting and despicable to see them do so when the lives of Africans are at stake.”

About 17,000 tons of donated U.S. corn already arrived in Zambia. TV news clips show crowds of hungry Zambians trying to get the donated grain, but Zambian government officials fear that political opponents will demonize the corn among voters. They are more afraid of losing votes than of famine deaths (which have traditionally been all too common in the region).

The government refuses to distribute the corn despite pleas from United Nations officials, and assurances from the World Health Organization that there is no evidence of any danger from the corn. The biotech corn has been approved for safety by three U.S. government agencies—and Americans have been eating it in their corn flakes and snack foods for more than a decade with no ill effects.

The World Food Program’s director, James Morris, says there is no way he can feed Zambia’s hungry without using the biotech grain. The United States, the largest food donor in the world and the largest exporter of corn, doesn’t segregate its biotech corn from conventional corn.

The African famine effort marks a “nuclear escalation” of the activists’ effort to demonize agricultural biotechnology. (They have not dared to assault the popular use of biotechnology in human medicine, where it has contributed important new drugs, diagnostic tools and therapies.) Until now, the eco-groups’ “Frankenfood” campaign hasn’t caused any hardships because it has centered in well-fed, farm-surplus Europe.

The campaign against biotech foods has achieved major-league status even though such foods have yet to cause even a skin rash. A high proportion of U.S. foods contain at least traces of biotech corn or soybean oil, and our meat and milk animals are fed with biotech grain and oilseed meals. (Seventeen Americans claimed they suffered allergenic attacks from StarLink corn, but tests found that none of them had antibodies for the unique protein in the corn.)

Meanwhile, crop researchers have been genetically engineering breakthrough varieties for the Third World. These include “golden rice,” which contains beta-carotene to prevent the severe Vitamin A deficiencies that kill or blind millions of poor-country kids each year, and salt-removing crops that can protect the 40 percent of the world’s food now grown on irrigated soils. (Meaning that the salt-threatened farms of the arid Muslim Middle East can be sustainable for the first time in modern history.)

In the Philippines, where tropical pest pressures are intense, the pest-resistant Bt corn to which Zambia objects produced half again as much corn per acre in test plots as conventional corn varieties on farmers’ fields. That means biotech corn can sharply increase the islands’ food security and radically reduce the cost of meat and milk for its children. Kenya has test plots of virus-resistant sweet potatoes that could yield fifty percent more food per acre for that densely populated country.

Greenpeace doesn’t care. Their anti-biotech campaign has rescued the organization from a severe funding crisis. (People figured the whales were already saved.) Thanks to the “Frankenfoods” campaign, the eco-group’s donations are up, food companies are quivering in fear, and Greenpeace is once again a political force. What’s a few million famine deaths among people who are likely to die young anyway?

The eco-activists’ loathsome fear campaign in starving Africa proves once again that they don’t care about real people, and cannot be entrusted with the real world.

This article appeared in the Knight-Ridder Tribune on September 3, 2002, and is reprinted with permission.
Dennis T. Avery is based in Churchville, VA, and is director of Global Food Issues for Hudson Institute.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

Thanks for your addition.

BTTT!!!!!!

Self promoting bump.

>>The didn't even mention Dr. Wambugu whom they interviewed not more than a year and a half ago.<<

I agree with you entirely. I get so infuriated with the continuous onsluaght of poorly researched, biased journalism today. The article about Dr. Wambugu, on the other hand, was very inspiring and refreshing, too. Thanks for posting it.

The difference I see is that Dr. Wambugu bioengineers to enhance the properties of plant-foods that the African subsistence farmers want to plant. (I wonder if the farmers have to buy the new seeds each year.)

The corporate bioengineers have to make a profit, and the foods they chose to bioengineer reflect this need. Getting the Africans to grow foods they don't traditionally grow will require a sell.

With respect to introducing a bio-pesticide into a plant food, I would be reluctant to grow this particular food, because I am not certain how these plants would affect the health of the interdependent ecosystem in which they grow. Time will tell. I know they are safe to eat, though.

regards,
risa

I wonder if the farmers have to buy the new seeds each year

Acording to Dr. Wambugu, farmers share their seed and root crops. They don't have the money to buy clean seed every year now. That is why she wants the bio-tech seed. The resistance must be built into the seed so that when they save seed for next year or share seed with others, the disease resistance is already in the seed, increasing yields and helping their econonmy to grow beyond subsistance. Read some of the stuff on her web site or buy her book. It's short and easy to read but packed with information.

>>That is why she wants the bio-tech seed. The resistance must be built into the seed ...<<

Oh, cool.

I didn't know she had a Web site. Thanks for the info!

regards,
risa

The web site is linked in post number 1.