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June 2015 COTTONING ON TO A LIE (PART 1) Genetically modified cotton will harm, not help, African smallholder farmers. (First of a 2-part article) By Haidee Swanby Cotton is cultivated on about 2.5% of the world’s arable land across 80 countries making it, after wheat, rice, maize and soybeans, one of the most important global crops in terms of land area. It is grown mainly for lint, which can be spun and woven to make cloth. The seeds also yield edible oil used in a variety of foodstuffs and industrial products. Once the oil is extracted the dry meal is used to produce animal feed. One hundred countries are involved with cotton imports and exports. China, India, the USA and Pakistan are the major global cotton producers, followed by Brazil and Uzbekistan. Together these countries account for 80% of the world’s cotton, while 28 African countries contribute about 5% to global production. The top five producers on the African continent, between 2007 and 2011, were Burkina Faso, Egypt, Mali, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, who together accounted for 54% of Africa’s total production. Most of Africa’s cotton is produced by smallholder farmers for whom the cotton sector is a vital source of employment and income. Genetically modified (GM) cotton has been produced globally for almost two decades, yet up to the present time only three African countries have grown GM cotton on a commercial basis — South Africa in 1997, Burkina Faso in 2008 and Sudan in 2012. According to unverified industry figures these three countries together grew GM cotton on about 616,000 hectares. African governments have been sceptical of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for decades and have played a key role historically in ensuring that international law — the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety — takes a precautionary stance towards genetic engineering in food and agriculture. They have also imposed various restrictions and bans on the cultivation and importation of GMOs, including on GM food aid. But now, almost two decades later, this resistance is crumbling as a number of African countries such as Ghana, Malawi, Swaziland and Cameroon seem set to allow the commercial cultivation of their first GM crop — cotton. Nigeria and Ethiopia are planning to follow suit in the next two to three years and further down the line.
Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes
that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog
world that characterises the global cotton market. At the moment African
cotton productivity is declining — it now stands at only half the
world average — while global productivity is increasing. The promise
of improving productivity and reducing pesticide use through the adoption
of GM cotton is compelling. However, our African leaders and cotton
producers need to take a close look at how GM cotton has fared in
South Africa and Burkina Faso to date, particularly its socio-economic
impact on smallholder farmers. Scrutiny of actual experiences reveals
a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology
prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management
techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production. As stated
by a farmer during a Malian public consultation on GMOs, "What's
the point of encouraging us to increase yields with GMOs when we can't
get a decent price for what we already produce?" REGIONAL TRADE BODIES TO OPEN THE WAY FOR GMOS Regional Economic Communities (RECs), such as the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), are also key players in readying their Member States for the commercialisation of and trade in GM cotton, through harmonised biosafety policies. The COMESA Policy on Biotechnology and Biosafety was adopted in February 2014 and Member States validated the implementation plan in March 2015. The ECOWAS Biosafety Policy has been through an arduous process for more than a decade now and pronounced conflicts between trade imperatives and safety checks have stalled agreement between stakeholders. However, recent reports indicate that agreement between the Member States and donor parties has been reached and a final draft of the Biosafety Policy will soon be published. Together COMESA and ECOWAS incorporate 34 countries in Africa.
These regional biosafety policies and laws have been primarily controlled
and funded by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID). USAID has financially supported an array of African legal
experts and scientific bodies, working in collaboration with American
experts to craft harmonised regional policies designed to maximise
market size and minimise biosafety regulations, such as case-by-case
risk assessments and ‘strict liability’ for producers if the technology
goes wrong. Within these policies investor profits are high on the
priority list while safeguards for human, environmental and socio-economic
wellbeing are relegated to mere afterthoughts. Burkina Faso began cultivating pest resistant cotton (known as ‘Bt’ cotton) in 2008 and the media has since been awash with reports of miraculous performance and increased yields. In reality, the cultivation of Bt cotton has been dogged by technical problems for the short time that it has been in production in that country and in June 2015, media reports announced that GM cotton will be gradually reduced over the next three years and then stopped altogether. After only two seasons of cultivation farmers were up in arms because their cotton harvest was downgraded due to short fibres, causing them to lose out on decent prices while having paid for the more expensive GM technology. Many farmers also reported low yields and, amongst other things, this was ascribed to the need to apply very precise doses of fertilisers and pesticides for good yields, a practice that farmers are not used to. In 2013/14 Burkina Faso’s largest cotton company, SOFITEX, responsible for the production of about 40% of the national cotton seed production in that country, discontinued the use of FK96, one of the two available Bt cotton seed varieties, due to the short fibres it was producing. This created a shortage of Bt seed in the country.
The year 2014 also saw the development in some areas of insect resistance
to the Bt toxin expressed in GM cotton. This is very surprising in
such a short period and is a serious problem because farmers are led
to believe that their crops will be protected against certain pests
— and they pay extra for that protection. It is not clear if any compensation
was given to farmers who experienced crop losses due to product failure.
The introduction of Bt crops, in the absence of a credible system
to manage the development of insect resistance, puts farmers at risk
of crop failures due to insect damage. In addition, this risk is accompanied
by higher seed costs and uncertain global prices.
The introduction of GM cotton in Burkina Faso has been made possible
by the closed value chain in that country where one parastatal cotton
company manages all aspects of production, including credit supply,
seed production and distribution, extension support, transport ginning,
etc. This arrangement assists farmers to access credit for the substantially
more expensive seed — because the institution that gives the farmer
credit is the same one to which he or she will sell the product, at
which time repayment of the loan can be deducted from the price received
for the harvested crop. In 2003 the entire system fell like a house of cards, with the local credit institution collapsing under the weight of unpaid debt to the tune of R22 million (approximately US$ 2 million). Without the certainty of using cotton harvests as collateral for loans, credit became unavailable in the area and cotton production dried up. Many farmers were left destitute and with their social relations in tatters due to these unpaid debts. GM cotton in Sudan is still very new and, for now, the information available on the performance of GM cotton there consists mostly of media reports trumpeting ‘world record breaking’ yield gains. These echo the media reports from South Africa and Burkina Faso over the years. The true story in Sudan has yet to be revealed. – Third World Network Features. -ends-
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