1.GM cotton farming in SA a success - GM Watch comment
2.GM cotton farming in SA a success: report - Business Day (South Africa)
3.Excerpt: 'GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa' - Jonathan Matthews (ISIS article)
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1.GM cotton farming in SA a success - GM Watch comment
Now here's a funny thing. Just as a report comes out showing that one of two Monsanto showcase projects in Africa (GM sweet poatoes in Kenya) has been a total disaster despite years of hype about its success, there appears another apparently independent report (or two) claiming success for Monsanto's other African showcase - this one in South Africa.
The reports of GM cotton farming being a success in South Africa are also extraordinrarily timely in terms of the current push to get Bt cotton accepted in West Africa. But there are reasons for treating the latest claims with a degree of caution.
The conclusions of the new South Afrcan reports actually follow in a long line of claims of remarkable success with the growing of Monsanto's GM cotton in the Makhathini Flats. However, Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, who first exposed the hype around the now discredited Monsanto project in Kenya, has raised just as many questions about what's been going on in South Africa.
The third item (below) is an excerpt from an article summarising some of what deGrassi has exposed about the Makhatini project in his report on the failure of GM crops in Africa. DeGrassi shows not only that many of the claims being made fail to correspond with the best available evidence, but that the claims of success are often extraordinarily inconsistent one with another.
Amongst much else, DeGrassi notes that the claims of significant financial benefits to the farmers growing GM cotton avoid mentioning, "Where it has been adopted, there is now evidence that the Bt cotton has not only failed to solve Makhathini farmers' problems with debt, it has actually deepened and widened indebtedness."
The second item (below), an article from the South African press, says that the researchers are pointing in one of the new reports to a high uptake of the crops as a sign of success. However, deGrassi notes, "The plans to grow cash crops [specifically Monsanto’s GM cotton] in the area have not come from the communities themselves. Rather, they have descended from the echelons of government in Durban and Pretoria, in collaboration with large multinational businesses."
This promotion of GM crops has included the extending of credit for the purchase of the more expensive seeds, which are twice as expensive as conventional seeds. This, of course, has added to the farmers' burden of debt.
Finally, even where benefits are being generated from growing Bt cotton deGrassi shows that that’s far from the whole story in terms of impact on the community as a whole: "because Bt cotton is a labor-saving technology, impoverished farmworkers face unemployment while the benefits of Bt cotton accrue to wealthy large commercial farmers who can cut labor costs."
Ironically, deGrassi draws that conclusion from examining the evidence available in an earlier study by two of the authors who've produced the new reports saying what a success Bt cotton is. (The relevant earlier report is Kirsten, J. and M. Gouse (2002) "Bt Cotton in South Africa: Adoption and Impact on Farm Incomes Amongst Small-and Large-Scale Farmers," ISB News Report October: 7-9)
DeGrassi's report on GM crops in Africa concludes, "Specifically, having shown that the three GM crops analyzed above are inappropriate for poverty alleviation, the large amount of publicity they have garnered is attributable to carefully crafted and well-financed media campaigns by GM advocates. Various people have participated in these campaigns, each for their own reasons. Politicians have latched on to biotechnology to illustrate their otherwise absent commitment to the poor. Academics have found another fad. Corporations try to sell their products. Scientists have projects that need funding. The result of this unjustified publicity is muted debate and diminished capacity to select and develop appropriate science and technologies for poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa." http://www.twnafrica.org/docs/GMCropsAfrica.pdf
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2.GM cotton farming in SA a success: report
Business Day, 2 February 2004
The findings of one of the first academic studies to map the growth of genetically modified (GM) farming in South Africa has pronounced GM cotton a success, a report by the United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) says.
However, South African environmental groups argue that the production of genetically modified (GM) cotton is not cost effective for the small local farmer.
Researchers in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Pretoria prepared the study, comprising two papers.
One of the papers, "The Adoption and Impact of Agricultural Biotechnology Innovation in South Africa", by Johann Kirsten and Marnus Grouse, outlines the pattern of GM farming in the country.
The other, "BT Cotton in South Africa: Adoption and the Impact on Farm Incomes amongst Small-scale and Large-scale Farmers", by Marnus Gouse, Johann Kirsten and L Jenkins, studies the effect of GM policies on the production of cotton.
South Africa is the only African country that has adopted GM crops for commercial production. Besides GM cotton, genetically altered maize, soyabean and oilseed rape are grown in the country.
International bio-safety protocol requires that bio-safety legislation be in place before GM crops can be planted in any country, and only South Africa and Zimbabwe qualify on the continent.
The cotton study by the University of Pretoria researchers claims that the percentage of small-scale farmers growing GM cotton rose from 7% in 1997/1998 to around 90% in the 2001/2002 season.
The authors of the paper report that of the 43 large-scale farmers interviewed, 39% indicated that the most important benefit of GM cotton was the saving on pesticides, with the second reason identified as the "peace of mind" about bollworms, a generic name for the various kinds of moth caterpillars that destroy cotton bolls.
The findings noted: "When asked to indicate all the benefits of insect-resistant cotton, 77% of farmers indicated 'peace of mind', and 72% indicated 'better crop and risk management' as a benefit."
Koot Louw of Cotton South Africa, an association of the key players in the cotton industry, confirmed the popularity of the GM variety of the crop, with 70% of the country's cotton production coming from genetically altered seeds.
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3.Excerpt from the article, ‘GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa’
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1431
The report [by Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex] shows how the industry's PR spin is often farcically inexact.
Here's just one example in relation to GM cotton in South Africa: "ISAAA implies that small farmers have been using the technology on a hundred thousand hectares. Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe - an industry coalition - suggests 5,000 ha of "smallholder cotton". The survey team suggests 3,000 ha.
"In addition to conflicting data on the area and numbers of farmers, the profits gained by switching to Bt cotton are unclear." DeGrassi writes. "CropGen says farmers gain $113 per hectare. Monsanto says farmers gain an extra $90. ISAAA argues that switching to Bt allows farmers make an extra $50 per hectare. University researchers calculate $35, whilst the survey team found farmers gained only $18 in the second year, but in the first year, "Bt cotton nonadopters were actually $1 per hectare better off". [emphasis added]"
Meanwhile, the very crop that has been reported to be giving small farmers an easier and more affluent life, turns out to have not only failed to solve Makhathini farmers' existing problems with debt, but to have actually deepened and widened indebtedness. The expensive crop have helped to saddle them with debts of $1.2 million!
Despite that, [pro-GM lobby group] CropGen claimed GM cotton has turned the area from one that wasn't viable for agriculture into "a thriving agricultural community". Monsanto says, "The region has become an example to the world of how plant biotechnology can help the smallholder farmers of Africa". Not to be outdone, Steven Smith, Chairman of the UK's Agricultural Biotechnology Council, has said of the project, that "small farmers are realizing huge economic benefits". A group of academics in South Africa have even claimed that projecting the results across the entire continent shows that "it could generate additional incomes of about six billion Rand, or US$600 million, for some of the world's poorest farmers." ISAAA's claims, according to deGrassi who details the various claims in his carefully referenced report, are apparently even more fantastical.
The report shows that GM cotton is, in truth, at best irrelevant to poverty in the area, and at worst is "lowering wages and job prospects for agricultural laborers, who are some of the most impoverished people in South Africa."
Sources
Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence by Aaron diGrassi, published by Third World Network, Africa http://www.twnafrica.org/docs/GMCropsAfrica.pdf
http://allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/00010161.html
http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0306/28/technology-204631.htm
For the section on the biotech industry's PR use of Africa: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1006