Reflection

I arrived in Zambia in 1971 armed with a degree in agriculture and plenty of farm experience, having grown up on a cash crop farm in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. I had no doubt as to what was required to grow food and increase farmers’ incomes – remove all trees in the fields, mechanise with tractors and ploughs, use more fertilizers and pesticides, remove hedge rows, promote hybrid maize and monocrop. This farming system had worked in North America and we were producing a surplus of farm produce and the farmers were relatively well off. In fact the Zambian government was promoting the system through literature, training and its agricultural extension officers. Other NGOs involved in agricultural promotion were all doing the same. I pursued this approach for 15 years. At the beginning of every rainy season farmers would ask for credit to buy fertilizer. We would send the tractor out to the villages to do the ploughing on time (early planted maize has the highest yield). At field day demonstrations[1] we would show that hybrid maize with fertilizer out-yields open pollinated maize planted without fertilizer. Why couldn’t farmers adopt this new technology? It was so obvious to someone trained in science that this was the way to produce sufficient food. With higher production one thought one would also increase income. Finally in the mid 1980s it started to dawn on me that we were not getting anywhere. It was not only in Zambia where we were working, but across the African continent, Asia, South America and yes, even North America that the same problems were seen. Cracks were developing in this farming system. In Ontario farmers were working full-time in salaried jobs despite work on their farms which did not yield them enough. They would have to do their farm work at night upon returning from their city employment and on the weekends. Farmers are simply not making sufficient profit from farming to stay in the business of farming; many farmers are losing their farms; they are told they are not competitive. In fact these farmers are in many instances the early adopters of the new technologies being promoted.

So where are we? There is surplus food produced in the world, yet many people are hungry and farmers are not receiving a just return on their labour and investment. We are in a situation where food is being commodified. Food is being processed and packaged and sold as a commodity. Food is no longer seen as a right for every individual.

The industrialized type of agriculture promoted for the past half century has farmers on a treadmill. Farmers obtain large loans to purchase expensive inputs for their farms in order to harvest high yields – in order to pay back the loans. If the harvest fails they cannot repay their loans and are in danger of losing their farms. Even a good harvest does not rule out the need of yet another large loan the next planting season to buy all those expensive inputs again. It is the same story year after year – indebtedness to banks.

I must admit that when I started looking into organic agriculture in the mid 1980s I was very sceptical. I thought organic agriculture was for a fringe group in society. As we have grown in knowledge of organic agriculture at Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre I can say without any doubt that it is the only way we will ever grow sufficient food to feed the world, and especially the poor. The farmers who grew organically during the poor Zambian rainy season of 2001/2002 had a surplus of food, while those that followed the principles of the Green Revolution failed to produce sufficient food to feed their households. The Green Revolution has increased production in parts of the world but at the expense of the poor and the environment. The Green Revolution is not socially just nor environmentally friendly. The GMO revolution is more of the same way of thinking. In theory it has the potential to increase production, but in practice GM crops have not yet significantly increased production. In fact GM soyabeans have actually decreased yields. GMO proponents state that GM crops will grow in drought conditions, in soils with low nutrient levels or saline problems, and so forth, but this has not yet materialized. GMO farming is definitely not socially just as the patents are held by Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and their bottom line is profits for their shareholders.

What are the implications of GM crops for small-scale farmers, especially organic farmers?

There are ethical questions to be considered in this GMO debate. Food is about life. Agriculture is not simply a matter of business, of commerce, and of profit-making. To deal in a complete fashion with the controversial issue of the introduction of GM crops into Zambia, we must therefore raise some serious ethical considerations:

i. GM crops will lead to greater food insecurity. Genetically modified crops are patented by their owners under the provisions of the “Intellectual Property Rights” legislation. Farmers will have to buy GM seed every year and it will be an offence to replant your own GM seed; the farmer who does so may be prosecuted. But farmers have traditionally kept and traded their seed with neighbours for replanting for centuries. Why should Zambian farmers now lose this fundamental right as a consequence of the actions of profit-seeking companies? In Zambia, as in many parts of the world including North America, farmers do keep some of their seed for replanting, but not enough. Small-scale farmers do not have the financial resources to buy inputs every year. In fact, many people who lost their seed at the beginning of the poor rains in 2002 did not have the resources to buy more seed for a second planting. Is it correct for one person or one company to claim ownership of and patent a living organism? Until recently living organisms were never patented. Living organisms were in the public domain, with the benefits for everyone and not only for those with the resources to capture exclusive patents. This, of course, has a direct ethical bearing upon the development of poor people and poor countries like Zambia.

ii. GM crops will wipe out organic farming. As soon as a GM crop is released, it will contaminate, through cross-pollination, other non-GM plants with the modified genetic material and prevent the organic farmer from marketing her or his produce as organic. But there is a fundamental moral responsibility that one’s actions should not harm one’s neighbour. For example, maize landraces[2] in Mexico, the origin of new maize genetic material, is now contaminated by GM maize. Once released, a GM crop can never be recalled. In Canada organic canola growers have lost their markets because their crops are contaminated by GMOs. Those organic farmers cannot sell their canola as organic canola. It is irresponsible to contaminate species of crops with GM material. By what right is such damage done to a large number of Zambians? Should such contamination be allowed, given its impact on future sustainable agriculture in Zambia?

iii. The food system is being controlled more and more by a few TNCs based in the rich countries of the North. These TNCs own the seed and the pesticides, and in some cases even the grain elevators.[3] For Zambia, a fundamental set of ethical issues arises when we ask: Who benefits from this global food system? Who suffers? Most of the GM crops are modified for herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. Naturally the TNCs will sell the GM seed at a higher price, plus charge a royalty fee and then sell their brand of herbicide to match their seed.

iv. GM crops will favour an industrialized agriculture. An industrialized agriculture will favour large farms and mechanization at the expense of smaller family farms. This will further increase unemployment in Zambia and deepen the serious problem of widespread poverty. The ethical question that arises in fostering industrialized agriculture over small family farms is this: does Zambia want to increase unemployment among its population?

These and other ethical considerations must enter into the discussion of GMOs if we are to build a future that is respectful of human rights, community development, poverty eradication and protection of the environment. Government officials, political leaders, civil society, church leaders, private sector business people and ordinary citizens must be vigilant in putting these points rooted in ethics at the top of any agenda relating to GM crops.

Our concern here is clear: far from addressing the underlying structural causes of hunger, genetically modified crops will actually exacerbate these causes. Ensuring food security in Zambia requires an approach to agriculture that is, in almost every respect, the reverse of that being promoted by genetic engineering companies and their allies in this country.

The way forward is thus marked by the need to wait for more clarity concerning potential risks to, and long-term impacts on, human health, the environment and the agricultural infrastructure. There is an African Model Legislation developed by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) that could be very helpful for a country to follow as it writes its Biosafety Policy. The African Model protects the rights of local communities, farmers and breeders, and provides for regulation of access to biological resources.

So how do we get off this treadmill of industrialized agriculture? The only option I see is organic agriculture. GMOs are incompatible with organic agriculture. Organic farmers can grow their crops with minimum outside interventions, they don’t require the huge bank loans that conventional farmers do, they don’t require pesticides, and they are in general much more independent of TNCs. Organic agriculture is a system that is socially just, economically viable and environmentally friendly; it will feed the world, sustain the environment and help the poor.

[1] Field days are reserved for practical teaching in the field.

[2] A landrace is a cultivated plant population which is genetically diverse and genetically flexible. In the past century breeding has often been for pure lines, which means there is less genetic diversity. However, most subsistence crops in the non-industrial world are still landraces.

[3] Grain, especially in North America, is sold by farmers to a grain elevator, a term with a historical basis. The grain is elevated and fed by force of gravity to a storage silo or loaded on a train, boat or lorry.