Ending African hunger: GM or agro-ecology?

Yet there is already cause for concern.

So far, farmers have been sidelined in debates and decisions about GM technology.

The African formal seed market is dominated by just three transnational biotechnology companies. GM crops have been grown illegally in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Swaziland.

Zambia was accused of crimes against humanity for refusing GM food aid from the US. South Africa embraced GM with almost no public consultation and no environmental impact studies.

This sounds like the market, rather than African people, making the decisions.

A global moratorium on further commercialisation would provide time to involve poor farmers and communities in debates and decisions about GM crops and their implications for food security.

At the same time, political leaders need to listen to popular concerns about the growing corporate monopoly of seed markets and the proliferation of intellectual property over seed and plant resources.

In conclusion, I would frame the essential question differently from Gordon Conway by asking: “what is the best way to tackle hunger?” This would lead us down a different path – away from the high-tech, high-risk, high-cost world of GM towards sustainable, farmer-friendly technologies.

A growing agro-ecology movement is showing how dramatic improvements in crop productivity (even on marginal land) can result from low-input technologies drawing heavily on local farmer skills and knowledge.

Such approaches offer much more to celebrate than GM by working with rather than against genetic diversity and farmers’ interests. What’s more they are safe, affordable and effective – all the things Gordon Conway is looking for in his search for solutions to world hunger.