Okay then, Let’s Feed Africa

As we mentioned in our first post that, the people who are criticizing modern biotechnology are mostly people who are better off in life and more affluent. These people aren’t hungry for God sake; let’s start thinking about the hungry kid in Africa who doesn’t know where or when his next meal is going to come.

I’m glad that Swaziland is already holding debates on issues of biotechnology and food security; unfortunately debates do not get food on the table do they. There are people who are standing in the way, ‘copy cats.’ When a few in the first world started protesting against biotechnology, some in the mother land thought it was smart enough for them to do the same… Really?

Before we look at what biotechnology promises to do let’s look at these key facts:

• ·         Today, there are more than 826 million undernourished people in the developing world. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimate that 13 % of the world's population lacks access to adequate amounts of food.

• ·         The World Health Organization estimates that malnutrition causes more than half of all childhood deaths in the developing world. Each year, 10 % of all children die from starvation. Two out of five children in the developing world experience stunted growth and one in three is underweight.
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• ·         According to the Worldwatch Institute, 60 % of all new-borns in India would be in intensive care if they had been born in California.

Through gene manipulation, scientists have been able to alter many of the staple food crops that developing nations depend on, such as cassava, rice, maize and potatoes, to make them more resistant to disease, more nutritional and more productive. With the help of bioengineered seeds that "vaccinate" crops with their own herbicides and pesticides, crop losses to disease and insects can be minimized and farmers can produce more plentiful harvests. Also, crops can be grown on previously un-plantable lands using no-till farming, a type of farming that does not require heavy-duty farm machinery to till the soil but relies on the herbicides within the plant to destroy unwanted weeds.

Biotech researchers have already developed and are field-testing rice enhanced with beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, which is important because rice is a primary diet staple in the developing world. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently stated: "The potential to create rice with enhanced micronutrient content illustrates one way in which genetic engineering can contribute to reducing malnutrition. Vitamin A deficiency, which is widespread in the developing world, can lead to morbidity and blindness and contribute to child mortality." Similarly, researchers at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center are developing high protein and vitamin enhanced cassava, the primary source of food calories in tropical regions of the developing world.

The world has or will soon have the agricultural technology available to feed the 8.3 billion people anticipated in the next quarter of a century. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use that technology. Extremists in the environmental movement, largely from rich nations and/or the privileged strata of society in poor nations, seem to be doing everything they can to stop scientific progress in its tracks. It is sad that some scientists, many of whom should or do know better, have also jumped on the extremist environmental bandwagon in search of research funds.

Why should we let the so called ‘environmentalists stand in the way of progress. We are at a point where the world will soon be able to produce enough food for us all. This indeed is a turning point for many societies. Let us for a moment forget about the ‘spoilt brats’ making noise because their tummies are full and think about the hungry kid in Africa.