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By Vivian E. Asedri ---
As long as I can remember from my childhood years to this day, one of the
perennial sights that greets a visitor to my mother’s kitchen are heaps of
assortment of seeds hanging to the ceiling above the fire place.
The piles that include sorghum, maize combs, and pumpkin seeds usually lose
their original colour from the constant soot emitted from the fire place. When
the planting season starts, the seeds that have been well preserved from weevil
infestations are removed and planted.
Rudimental as this appears to be, it is a sustainable practice that has
benefited subsistence farming in West Nile region for generations. Every year,
my parents do not have to spend any money to buy these seeds because they have
their ‘seeds bank’. But today, when technocrats and politicians talk of
agricultural modernisation and boost productivity, my mother’s basic seed
preservation practice is a dichotomy to what has been termed as Genetically
Modified Organisms/Seeds (GMOs).
As Parliament works on a Bio-safety and Bio-technology Bill 2012, and indeed
as President Museveni recently okayed the importation of processed GMOs during
the opening of Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries GMOs
laboratory at Kawanda Research Centre, we must question the relevance of GMOs
to Ugandan farmers.
After virtually every initiative by the government to assist Ugandan farmers
and improve their productivity through such programmes as Naads have miserably
failed due to endemic corruption and mismanagement, what will be different this
time around with either locally generated or imported GMOs to Ugandan farmers?
I could be mistaken, but I presume Ugandan technocrats and politicians are
knowledgeable enough about the success of GMOs in developed countries.
For instance, in the United States, the Federal Government subsidies the
cost of farmers’ agricultural inputs to the tune of $25 billion annually,
according to US Department of Agriculture figures.
These subsidies help farmers to purchase agricultural machinery such as
tractors, combine harvesters, GMOs seeds, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers,
cover electricity and gas costs, and helps cushion the farmers from unfair
competition against cheaper agro-imports and crop failures from adverse weather
conditions.
The bigger portion of these subsidies go to producers of five crops – wheat,
corn (maize), soybeans, rice and cotton because the US government considers
food as a national security matter.
This is why GMOs company – Monsanto is so popular in most developed world
since farmers can afford to purchase new seeds every year from such a
multinational monopolist.
Ironically, it is for the same reason that a study by the New York University
School of Law found that every 30 minutes a farmer in India commits suicide
because the farmers could not repay their debts to Monsato for GMO seeds,
pesticides and herbicides supplied. Mind you, whether the harvest succeeds or
not, the farmers are obligated to repay Monsato for the previous season’s
inputs and get more new inputs from Monsato for the current season.
To modernise and boost agricultural production in Uganda, the farmers do not
need imported GMOs. The government must first invest heavily in a sustained
fashion to provide agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, tractors, reliable
road networks for farmers to market their produce and loans at preferential and
affordable interest rates to farmers to be able to purchase trucks, pick-ups
and other farm implements. GMO products are not the magic bullet to sustainable
and improved agricultural productivity.
Other factors such as opening up more farmlands with tractors instead of
traditional hand-held hoe plough, improving soil fertility rates with
fertilisers, controlling soil erosion and providing a mechanism for irrigation
are front and centre to boost agricultural productivity.
One aspect of genetically engineered products some farmers are unaware of is
the detrimental effect of Monsato’s pesticide glyphosate sold under trade name
Roundup. Canadian scientists have discovered that Roundup is not only
inherently too toxic to crops but also aids the spread of fusarium head blight
in cereal crops like wheat and maize.
Besides, a study by European Journal of Agronomy confirms that Roundup,
which Monsato often sells to farmers together with GMO seeds, renders soils
infertile, crops non-productive, and plants less nutritious.
At the current stage in Uganda’s agricultural economic development, the
government must admit that it is financially impotent to sustain the GMO seed
strategy through subsidy to farmers as a means to boost agricultural
productivity.
Does the government really want to condemn poor Ugandan farmers like my
parents to GMOs, which do not grow back again next season but every year
farmers must buy new seeds from monopolistic multinationals such as Monsato?
Ugandan farmers deserve better.
Mr Asedri is a medical information and substance abuse technologist based
in USA.
dikumvi@gmail.com
LINK: http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/Ugandan-farmers-do-not-need-GMOs/-/689364/1707578/-/item/0/-/s1a7uoz/-/index.html
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