GMO's in South Africa

[mikevcdegroot]

Hi everyone. I am a first year university student from South Africa. As one of our assignments, we were asked to express our opinion on a topic of interest to us, so the following is merely my opinion on the topic of GM food, as a South African student. I recently attended a seminar on the topic of GMOs and both the positive and negative effects of them on public health as well as the local agricultural industries that was presented by a fellow student.

 

South Africa has an economy that depends greatly on agriculture. Much of the lower class population (making up greater than 60% of the 60 million population) consists of subsistence farmers or farm workers that are the sole bread winners of their households. South Africa also depends greatly on money brought in from exportation of crops and food products that come from local farms. The perception that many (of those people who are aware of GM food) share is that GMOs threaten the existence of local farmers as they offer quicker production with a greater yield. Most people in a first world country would view this as a positive, but when your population is widely made up of local farmers, the fact that only the big farmers would be able to afford to implement these GM crops to their farms poses the risk of eliminating the need for the poorer subsistence farmers and farm worker. In this regard, the poorer portion of the South African public view GM food in a negative manner.

 

The idea of GMOs in South Africa is still relatively new and as a result, does not feature in public discussion and opinion as often as it would in first world countries that are more health conscious and more developed with regards to genetic modification. One local media station decided to focus on the effects of GM chickens and their food products on the health of the public. While the growth in production size was positive compared to non GM chicken products, the side effects that could potentially effect the health of the public caused many to be opposed to the idea of GMOs.

The topic of GM food is still new however and as South Africa's knowledge on the subject develops, the public opinion of GM food may change. Until then however, we remain uncertain on the matter.

[chadn737]

On what basis does one assume that poor farmers would not have access to GMOs or that higher yields hurt small farmers? The former has not been the case where GMOs are made available to poor farmers (India for example) and the latter simply does not make sense. If poor farmers subsistence farmers are able to produce more, then that provides more income and food stability.

Edited May 5, 2014 by chadn737

[chadn737]

Interesting report on the environmental and economic benefits of GMOs...let me highlight one of the main points:

 

"Farmers in developing countries received $3.74 for each dollar invested in GM crop seeds in 2012"

 

http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/page/36/-gm-crop-use-continues-to-benefit-the-environment-and-farmers

 

For those farmers in developing countries with access to GMOs, this is a game changer, a way to increase profits, increase livelihood, and find your way out of poverty.

[overtone]

There are no general conclusions possible for GMOs or "derived food", in South Africa or anywhere, because the category includes such a wide variety of modifications and organisms as well as "derived" product.

 

The evaluations would need to be of specific GMOs, and (just as significant) specific deployment arrangements.

 

When you mentioned the GM chickens, for example, considered by the radio station - " One local media station decided to focus on the effects of GM chickens and their food products on the health of the public. While the growth in production size was positive compared to non GM chicken products, the side effects that could potentially effect the health of the public caused many to be opposed to the idea of GMOs" - it's unclear exactly what kind of GMOs, or comparison chickens, were being discussed.

 

It doesn't actually sound like you were hearing about a GM chicken, but rather a modern bred chicken variety being grown on GM feed. It's also unclear what they were being compared with. Could you clarify?

 

It matters. This one, for example: http://www.roslin.ed.ac.uk/public-interest/gm-chickens/ would carry much different (and much lesser) risks of all kinds than, say, one modified to make its own antibiotics in its liver (the way Bt maize and soy are modified to express insecticides in their tissue), or one deployed in such a way that farmers were locked into contractual and financial dependency on an international agribusiness concern, or one that required large and continuing sums of money be invested for infrastructure, disease and disorder management, and other fragilities.

 

Note that a great deal of misinformation exists even in generally "respectable" media

 

(the yield comparisons, for example, are almost always monetized market return comparisons between small scale and inefficient hand farming using local varieties, and modern methods with fertilizer and modern varieties and better irrigation and the like - this is deceptive in the extreme, but completely standard in the public discussion),

 

and the promoters of GMOs have very large marketing budgets aimed at the farmers of South Africa - including their relatively impoverished government officials.

 

Some things to watch out for:

 

Are there claims of medical safety testing having been performed in America or Europe or some prestigious scientific country? No GMO currently marketed has been studied for its overall or long term effects on the health of any mammal.

 

(Of course any claims of ecological safety can be dismissed out of hand - even what absurdly little has been done and is known in the Western world would have to be redone and reevaluated in South Africa.)

 

Is the apparent safety and benefit of one particular GMO being used to get approval for "GMOs" in general, including unrelated organisms modified in completely different ways?

 

Does the deployment of the GMO require difficult or large financial commitments or obligations to corporations, banks, etc, - especially foreign ones or those of such size as to put them beyond the easy reach of the farmers taking the risks? Are the promoters demanding that you go big immediately, or can you phase it in over a couple of decades at least?

 

Do they avoid discussion of alternative modernization, and direct comparison with other improvements? Granted the corporate GMO stuff has been swallowing what standard research was left after the hybrid boom and chemcial industry takeovers, but there are nevertheless alternative approaches to modernization or improvement of old methods, and the comparison should not be avoided.

 

The ordinary stuff you'd ask of any salesman, in other words.

[chadn737]

Hi everyone. I am a first year university student from South Africa. As one of our assignments, we were asked to express our opinion on a topic of interest to us, so the following is merely my opinion on the topic of GM food, as a South African student. I recently attended a seminar on the topic of GMOs and both the positive and negative effects of them on public health as well as the local agricultural industries that was presented by a fellow student.

 

South Africa has an economy that depends greatly on agriculture. Much of the lower class population (making up greater than 60% of the 60 million population) consists of subsistence farmers or farm workers that are the sole bread winners of their households. South Africa also depends greatly on money brought in from exportation of crops and food products that come from local farms. The perception that many (of those people who are aware of GM food) share is that GMOs threaten the existence of local farmers as they offer quicker production with a greater yield. Most people in a first world country would view this as a positive, but when your population is widely made up of local farmers, the fact that only the big farmers would be able to afford to implement these GM crops to their farms poses the risk of eliminating the need for the poorer subsistence farmers and farm worker. In this regard, the poorer portion of the South African public view GM food in a negative manner.

 

The idea of GMOs in South Africa is still relatively new and as a result, does not feature in public discussion and opinion as often as it would in first world countries that are more health conscious and more developed with regards to genetic modification. One local media station decided to focus on the effects of GM chickens and their food products on the health of the public. While the growth in production size was positive compared to non GM chicken products, the side effects that could potentially effect the health of the public caused many to be opposed to the idea of GMOs.

 

The topic of GM food is still new however and as South Africa's knowledge on the subject develops, the public opinion of GM food may change. Until then however, we remain uncertain on the matter.

 

Its also a bit ironic or rather coincidental that you should focus on South Africa. I spent some time working in South Africa's CSIR (a government research institute) making GMOs in maize and tobacco with the specific aim of producing cheap and storable antibodies and microbiocides for HIV. Which everyone should know is ravaging Africa. I was very close to other researchers there working on producing vitamin A enriched maize and sorghum. So the policies of that country, its research, and current status are near and dear to my heart.

 

Let me put in a promotion for this amazing woman, Dr. Rachel Chikwamba, whom I had the honor of working under. She is certainly one of South Africa's foremost (if not the foremost) expert on plant biotechnology.

 

So let it be known...especially to overtone, just how much GMOs are not simply a matter of large corporations or things like Bt or herbicide resistance, since that is all he seems familiar with. There are research efforts all across the world in government labs, in private charitable organizations (vitamin A research in maize and sorghum in those countries is funded by the Gates Foundation) and in in University labs. Unfortunately, fear mongering and anti-corporatism leads to universal opposition of GMOs and harms such research that focuses on alleviating the suffering of hundreds of millions. That is the dark underbelly of the GMO-fearmongering machine which ironically produces millions of dollars for large corporations and organizations that feed off such fearmongering.

Edited May 12, 2014 by chadn737

[overtone]

I spent some time working in South Africa's CSIR (a government research institute) making GMOs in maize and tobacco with the specific aim of producing cheap and storable antibodies and microbiocides for HIV.

 

Many worthy efforts have begun and potentially wonderful innovations made possible now, with the brand new and extraordinarliy powerful capabilities of genetic engineering. That is true in the academic/industrial partnership research setups such as South Africa's CSIR, where "national imperatives and the needs of industry" (Wiki) are first and foremost (example of an industry whose needs are being met by CSIR: http://www.monsanto.co.za/en/layout/resources/news/general/2012/05_18.asp http://www.monsanto.co.za/en/layout/resources/news/general/2011/08_25.asp )

 

That does not address the concerns of the OP.

 

When we read this

 

Unfortunately, fear mongering and anti-corporatism leads to universal opposition of GMOs and harms such research that focuses on alleviating the suffering of hundreds of millions.

we can ask this:

 

 

Is the apparent safety and benefit of one particular GMO, {or even the potential of such benefit not yet realized, shamelessly enough} being used to get approval for "GMOs" in general, including unrelated organisms modified in completely different ways?

 

And when reading this

 

So the policies of that country, its research, and current status are near and dear to my heart

we can look forward to interesting and informative posts about "the policies of that country, its research, and current status", rather than this:

 

 

So let it be known...especially to overtone, just how much GMOs are not simply a matter of large corporations or things like Bt or herbicide resistance, since that is all he seems familiar with

 

We could see informed commentary on South African events such as this one, for example: http://www.acbio.org.za/index.php/media/64-media-releases/454-monsanto-forced-to-withdraw-unsubstantiated-advertising-claims-on-benefits-of-gm-crops-advertising-standards-authority-of-south-africa

 

Note that the legal requirements for establishing the claims of Monsanto's advertising were not strict - nothing like what would be necessary to establish a scientific finding, merely amounting to finding an expert witness with a concurrent opinion - and the claims the court found "unsubstantiated" are quite similar to several of those made by the general run of GMO promulgators here and everywhere.

Edited May 19, 2014 by overtone

[chadn737]

 

Many worthy efforts have begun and potentially wonderful innovations made possible now, with the brand new and extraordinarliy powerful capabilities of genetic engineering. That is true in the academic/industrial partnership research setups such as South Africa's CSIR, where "national imperatives and the needs of industry" (Wiki) are first and foremost (example of an industry whose needs are being met by CSIR: http://www.monsanto.co.za/en/layout/resources/news/general/2012/05_18.asp http://www.monsanto.co.za/en/layout/resources/news/general/2011/08_25.asp )

 

You quote mine wikipedia's reference to the "needs of industry" but do not bother to understand what that means. In my time at the CSIR, much of the research there was "industrial", by which I mean things like materials science, mining operations, etc...i.e. trying to make South Africa into an advanced industrial nation.

 

There is only one major lab at the CSIR that works on GMOs and that is Dr. Chikwamba's lab, which at the time had no industry connections, but many philanthropic connections, such as the Gate's Foundation where they were improving vitamin A content in crops like sorghum and maize.

 

No mention of the CSIR is made in either one of those new reports...one of which is only reporting on a new guy taking over leadership of Monsanto in SA, the other actually about Monsanto's work in economic development primarily in Tanzania!

 

You can't go around making unsupported claims about non-existent connections.

When we read this

 

Unfortunately, fear mongering and anti-corporatism leads to universal opposition of GMOs and harms such research that focuses on alleviating the suffering of hundreds of millions.

 

 

we can ask this:

 

Is the apparent safety and benefit of one particular GMO, {or even the potential of such benefit not yet realized, shamelessly enough} being used to get approval for "GMOs" in general, including unrelated organisms modified in completely different ways?

 

 

 

 

 

And we can answer that with a very simple "No". Every transgenic product undergoes independent evaluation...in the US this is done by 3 different agencies. It is done independently in Europe, in Japan, and in South Africa where it also undergoes an extensive evaluation process.

 

This is done independently for each and every event....even those that contain the same transgene. So we can answer your skepticism with a "No". You could find this out for yourself with a simple google search of something like "south africa gmo approval process" rather than continually making these unsupported suggestions that are meant to instill fear.

 

 

And when reading this:

 

So the policies of that country, its research, and current status are near and dear to my heart

we can look forward to interesting and informative posts about "the policies of that country, its research, and current status", rather than this:

So let it be known...especially to overtone, just how much GMOs are not simply a matter of large corporations or things like Bt or herbicide resistance, since that is all he seems familiar with

We could see informed commentary on South African events such as this one, for example:http://www.acbio.org...of-south-africa

Note that the legal requirements for establishing the claims of Monsanto's advertising were not strict - nothing like what would be necessary to establish a scientific finding, merely amounting to finding an expert witness with a concurrent opinion - and the claims the court found "unsubstantiated" are quite similar to several of those made by the general run of GMO promulgators here and everywhere.

 

This is your response? To reference a case where an activist group got Monsanto's advertising silenced? This says nothing about the actual regulation, safety, or use of GMOs in South Africa. First off, the claims that GMOs are able to produce more on less and improve environmental conditions is documented and supported by independent experts and evaluations.

 

Secondly, you are using an obviously biased source, seeing as the African Center for Biosafety is an activist group whose sole purpose is to campaign against GMOs and other such technologies. Furthermore, after extensive google searching, including searching the Advertising Standards Authority own website I have found no mention of this case except in reference to The ACB's own claims. Furthermore, the more you search, you find similar vague references from many different years, all of it coming from one source with no independent verification.

 

So I challenge the fact that this actually happened or that Monsanto responded in this way.

Edited May 21, 2014 by chadn737

[overtone]

You can't go around making unsupported claims about non-existent connections.

Nothing you posted there has anything to do with the actual content of my posts. You might want to delete it, or remove the reference to my posting within it?

 

Wishful thinking. This at least is relevant:

 

There is only one major lab at the CSIR that works on GMOs and that is Dr. Chikwamba's lab, which at the time had no industry connections, but many philanthropic connections, such as the Gate's Foundation

Some Monsanto executives work for the Gates Foundation, specializing in GM biotech, and Monsanto often coordinates its research funding with them via third party institutions (the Danforth Center, say). CSIR South Africa lists a couple of key employees hired from Monsanto - any guesses which field they work in?

 

There is no free lunch in the shark waters of international agribusiness.

 

 

 

And we can answer that with a very simple "No". Every transgenic product undergoes independent evaluation.

For the minority that are "independently" evaluated, the evaluation isn't remotely adequate or capable of anwering basic questions

 

of medical and ecological safety, yield, economic risk, etc

 

as can be seen by the timeline alone, and verified by taking a look at your so often posted semi-comical examples of the kind of "evaluation" you find adequate. You have never (for example) posted a basic medical safety evaluation of a GMO consumed by humans capable of spotting the harms of, say, trans fats - even just that - and you can't, because there aren't any.

 

And that's the best case, the semi-independent research. Many of those have the saving grace of great potential humanitarian benefit - not realized yet, but getting closer. None of Monsanto's GMOs currently being promoted and pushed in South Africa have undergone independent evaluation by anyone, of course the prime motive there is not humanitarian - and they are not potential: they are in the field.

 

 

 

First off, the claims that GMOs are able to produce more on less and improve environmental conditions is documented and supported by independent experts and evaluations.

Compared with what?

 

That's the key question, after all. The choice debated here is not between GMOs and hoe farming low quality varietals without fertilizer, or GMOs and the current farming standards in the Ukraine of your link (visitors report seeing oxen pulling plows hornyoked in corners of that benighted part of the world, and farm water supplies consisting of a well with a bucket on a rope ) - and people who present the choice that way are attempting a deception.

 

Now there's probably nothing wrong with an industry consulting firm issuing press releases that promote its clients's agendas, but you keep talking about "bias" here and claiming to do all this Google searching - that's the best source you could find?

 

 

 

Secondly, you are using an obviously biased source, seeing as the African Center for Biosafety is an activist group whose sole purpose is to campaign against GMOs and other such technologies.

How do you know they are biased? You're the guy claiming all this testing is being done that isn't being done, Monsanto's GMOs have been independently tested, the risks and issues of GMOs in South Africa have nothing to do with predatory corporate agendas, and so forth.

 

Bias, on a science forum, is measured relative to physical reality - not political stance. One reveals bias not by taking a position on an issue, but by making consistently motivated claims contrary to physical reality.

Edited May 23, 2014 by overtone

[chadn737]

 

Some Monsanto executives work for the Gates Foundation, specializing in GM biotech, and Monsanto often coordinates its research funding with them via third party institutions (the Danforth Center, say). CSIR South Africa lists a couple of key employees hired from Monsanto - any guesses which field they work in?

 

Who are these "key employees hired from Monsanto"? Name them and provide evidence for it. Searching the CSIR's own website produces no such information and I am challenging you here and now to back up this claim or retract it. This is poisoning the well and unsupported at that.

Edited May 24, 2014 by chadn737

[CharonY]

One interesting bit that was cited is:

 

The Gates Foundation gave a $42 million grant to the African Agricultural Technology Foundation to develop new varieties of drought-tolerant maize in a partnership with Monsanto. The new varieties are expected to be available in about seven years and will be royalty-free for small-scale farmers in Africa, the Gates Foundation spokeswoman said.

 

One of the reservations that I have with powerful companies controlling food supplies (though is basically already the case for a long time and not specific to bioengineered food), is that normally small scale farmers see little benefit and/or they may become financially tied to a given corporation (and again, other companies are also already doing that). Due to the business models involved I am skeptical that under the given circumstances some of the benefits (such as alleviating hunger) is really going to fly.

The Gates Foundation backed model seems to specifically benefit those vulnerable farmers, which is quite a positive change.

[overtone]

 

 

Searching the CSIR's own website produces no such information and I am challenging you here and now to back up this claim or retract it.

All I did was type the keywords "CSIR" and "Monsanto" into Google, with the phrase "South Africa" - the first page had two hits that took me to a couple of featured employees of CSIR who listed Monsanto on their resume and agricultural development in their role, and I didn't bother to look further.

 

Here's your assertion:

 

There is only one major lab at the CSIR that works on GMOs and that is Dr. Chikwamba's lab, which at the time had no industry connections, but many philanthropic connections, such as the Gate's Foundation where they were improving vitamin A content in crops like sorghum and maize.

 

Your assertion that a Westernized nation, one with longstanding international rightwing political connections and a strong multinational agribusiness presence internally, would have set up a large, well funded, and and influential agribusiness R&D institution with no industry connections was in my opinion implausible (especially since you specifically mentioned the Gates Foundation as a backer, which I know to be strongly connected to industry), so I didn't put much effort into it and don't plan to.

 

 

 

powerful companies controlling food supplies (though is basically already the case for a long time and not specific to bioengineered food),

It's not been that long a time in the US and similar places that escaped the worst of colonial incorporation 1650 - 1950. (The prosperous and modern family farm was not a myth in the US). It's been a growing problem in the US especially since the encroachment of agribusiness concerns on the research programs of the big land grant universities, in particular the development of hybrid crops and certain advances in understanding of animal nutrition, disease, etc, that agribusiness found helpful in furthering its agenda.

 

The kind of profit potential available from patentable hybrids drew industry attention and influence just at the time of some serious advances in genetics (we have known the structure of DNA for less than sixty years) and biochemistry (isotope analysis is not an old science), and research into what is now dismissed as "organic" agriculture has been deprived of funding and expertise and effort ever since (Norman Borlaug's research program would have zero chance of implementation these days, for example). That's one of the problems with comparing especially potential benefits - one would hope to compare prospects of equivalent effort and advance toward common goals, but that is not possible with GMOs. They have a propaganda lock on "potential", private industry has a financial hold on them, and it's come to affect actual research and scientific effort.

 

The fact that this industry takeover began a few years before GM got rolling does not reduce the particularly acute hazards of the combination of multinational agribusiness domination and GM technology.

 

 

 

The Gates Foundation backed model seems to specifically benefit those vulnerable farmers, which is quite a positive change

It would indeed be a positive change, and like almost every other positive change and net public benefit from GMOs specifically it is scheduled to happen in the future.

 

Meanwhile - - -