Back in the dark days of apartheid, many South African farmers like myself were forced to drive our tractors through fields full of landmines as we worked hard to grow maize and other vegetables.
That’s now a part of history, thank goodness. Yet farmers in today’s Africa continue to face landmines of the metaphorical variety: As we try to obtain access to the latest agricultural technology, we see hazardous obstacles everywhere. They must be removed.
If our continent is ever going to feed itself, we’re going to have to beat the odds–and adopt the same tools that are taken for granted in so much of the developed world. That means we must have access to seeds improved with biotechnology.
I’ve seen the benefits of GM crops firsthand. Just south of Johannesburg, I own several acres of land and rent more. For the last eight years, I’ve grown genetically modified corn and soybeans. They are outstanding crops. My yields have improved by more than one-third, meaning that the economics of farming never have been better. Agriculture doesn’t have to be a subsistence occupation. It can be a sustainable profession.
Economics are only a part of it. GM crops are more sustainable for the environment and human health as well. The biotech variety I planted protects maize from stalk boring insects, so I don’t have to apply nearly as much chemical spray as in the past. That’s a huge benefit for field laborers, especially children.
The enemies of biotechnology sometimes claim that GM food is harmful to eat. This is sheer nonsense. Ever since I’ve grown it, I’ve eaten it. There are no bad side effects. This is perfectly good food.
Africans everywhere must come to this realization. We don’t grow nearly enough food. Our production is simply too low. And so we face a stark choice: Do we accept the bleak prospect of permanent dependence, in which we rely upon the wealthy nations of the world to feed us, out of pity? Or do we want to stand on our own and take care of ourselves?
The choice is between aid and trade, and this is no choice at all. We must embrace agricultural growth. We shouldn’t struggle to feed our fellow Africans, but should grow so much that we export our crops around the world.
GM technology is not a panacea. It won’t solve all of our problems. African farmers face a long series of challenges, from an inadequate infrastructure to political corruption. Yet access to the latest crop technologies will give us a fighting chance, especially as the climate changes and we try to adapt to new and possibly harder conditions. Drought-resistant plants represent an especially hopeful opportunity.
Too much of Africa missed out on the Green Revolution. We cannot afford to let Africa ignore the Gene Revolution. Unfortunately, many people, especially in Europe, don’t want us to benefit from these developments. It reminds me of the worst aspects of South African apartheid
In 1976, I quit high school to become an anti-apartheid activist, thinking that liberation was more important than education. They’re both essential, of course, and I’m proud to say that over time we saw Nelson Mandela go free and now many of us actually own the land we work. I’m no longer a second-class citizen, but a proud South African with my own passport.
But those were tough times. As a protestor, I was detained by authorities. My brother was beaten. He still has a dent in his skull from that experience. Just thinking about those times brings back memories of pain.
Now we face a new kind of imperialism–an international eco-imperialism that seems to think African farmers should remain poor and desperate, while the rest of the world flourishes. This new breed of activist seeks to keep GM crops away from African farmers and hamper the sale of our GM food to customers in other countries. Almost nothing could be more harmful.
I look forward to a different kind of future, when Africans refuse to let others push us around. We should demand nothing but the best. For those of us who produce the food, that means full access to biotechnology.
Mr. Motlatsi Musi grows maize, beans, potatoes, breeding pigs and cows on 21 hectares he acquired in 2004 through the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development Program (LRAD) in South Africa. Mr. Musi is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org)
Mr. Musi, this scientifically nonsensical drivel is one of the most pathetic PR exercises I have ever come across – from landmines in the dark days of apartheid to a brother who still has a dent in his skull – which is supposed to convey what message relevant to GMOs to this readership? Given the fact that you quit high school in 1976 because “liberation was more important than education”, am I assuming correctly that you don’t have a BSc degree in say genetics or health that could possibly justify you absurd statement that GM crops are more sustainable for the environment and human health, which in view of Prof. Seralini’s study endorsed by many eminent scientists is a blatant lie. Here is what a physician has to say Misinformed by “science”
John Day, MD
The Automatic Earth
September 2012
http://theautomaticearth.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=15&id=5389&Itemid=96
Your comrades in Russia already banned Monsanto’s carcinogenic maize, people all over the world call for a ban on GMOs, implemented just now by Kenya. You forgot to tell your readers that South Africa implemented mandatory labeling and that South Africans are now also demanding a ban on GMOs.
http://www.acbio.org.za/activist/index.php?m=u&f=dsp&petitionID=%20%201
Africa – Calling for a GMO-Free Continent
Busani Bafana
IPS, November 23 2012
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/africa-calling-for-a-gmo-free-continent/
When will you and the GM lobby get it in their head that the days of force-feeding the whole world with their toxic concoctions are over. South African consumers are exercising their constitutional right to a healthy environment and healthy food, not contaminated by Bt toxins, viral promoters, glyphosate and other carcinogens.
And stop playing the race card and the “poor exploited black farmers” card. Another TATT “smallholder” who recently spoke out in favour of GMOs turned out to farm 120 acres of irrigated land and to co-own a food processing factory!
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/51-2012/14349
Why do you demean the achievements made by others or their views? Mr. Musi from South Africa and Mr. Kumar from India, the other farmer you reference, have put an incredible amount of time and effort into their endeavors. They have risked much in order to achieve their success. They help feed their families and others. They are to be applauded for the what they have and will achieve.
Dear friends of everywhere. You don’t need a school degree neither a “several years spent in a fancy college” to talk with property. You just need emotional and social intelligence. You need to look around, see hunger, families with no school allowed children due to pests needed to be controlled (they need those children to kill insects with their hands, one by one!!!) to rethink in GMO crops. You need to see drougs and water use to agree that water efficient GMO crops are good for our future. You won’t discuss that if I loose millions of tons of food due to weeds, GMO Glyphosate resistant crops are excellent for mankind. Or are your stomachs already full? Maybe yes… Mr Molatsi Musi is a farmer. And that gives you more experience than a million days back desks. We must thank a farmer everyday says the phrase. And we should thank African farmers twice than that. I think criticize is not a good excercise. Proposals are welcomed all the time but the focus you are bringing is never helpful.
Thanks anyway. Gabriel Carballal. Farmer from Uruguay. South America
The German Government put a LOT of effort into a number of programs during the second world war, many with the assistance of Chemical and Pharmaceutical companies tied to the very efforts featured in this article. Yet, it’s credit I doubt they REALLY want to garner. Spreading the current spate of grotesquely out-dated Bio-Tech, which is overwhelmingly inefficient, ineffective and out of control is ludicrous. It’s much more like PLANTING “land-mines” than removing them.
The offensive nature of some of the comments above must be repudiated by thinking and informed people everywhere. Although it is apparent that the negative comments on Mr Musi’s editorial have come from anti-GM activists, that is no excuse for their nature. The weight of scientific evidience well and truely confirms the safety of GM foods that we have available. Referencing Seralini’s work doesn’t give any credibility to the anti-GM activist arguments. His ‘work’ has been roundly criticised for poor method and analysis by the scientific community at large. Yet another of Seralini’s ‘studies’ has failed to meet accepted standards of scientific investigation. Whatever people’s real reason for wishing to deny the validity of the findings of the WHO, EUSC, Academies of Science, University Research and regulatory authorities around the world about the safety of GM food, benefits to the enviroment & human health as well as the economic benefit to individual farmers and thus their communities, there is no justification for the type of personal attack made on Mr Musi that we see in the comments above.
This scientifically, geographically & Politically nonsensical point(BLANK)shooting without aiming,yet never miss?? For your information INGRIT,I’ve been to school but I did not PASS,I WON!!!.proof? AFRICA belongs to (ALL)who leave in it went to a. Urologist and PASSED my URINE test.Results? No trace of GMOs in it.Eminant professor Carolina and Dr Robert Anderson RAT study did not PASS but FAILED to meet the accepted method of scientific investigations..During 1979-80s S.AFRICA was under Economic sanction but JAPAN bought our Maize and sold it to the Rusheans:PROOF? Ask the then S Africa Forein Affairs Minister PIK BOTHA. Coming to Andrew Org he! ORGANIC FOOD and Ecoli bactiria killed 31 innocent people in Germany. Of the 29/GM countries there is not a single evidence of Amos harm to Mankind or the Environment,yet you talk of safer Organic? I think GMOs are safer!! I was there during his presentation: Eminent Prof Mark Von Montagu asked? Are GMOs UNNATURAL? NO THE LIVING WORLD IS ONE GENEPOOL OF FUNCTIONAL AND PSEUDOGENES.THIS GENEPOOL IS PERMANENTLY EVOLVING.NATURE IS ONE BIG GEnETIC LABORATORY.IT IS MISLEADING TO TALK ABOUT RAT-GENE, HUMAN-GENE ETC.SO WHY NOT GMOs