Can GM crops prevent famine?

With growing populations and declines in yield growth of basic food crops in the post-Green
Revolution era, increasing yield growth is essential to avoid famine. New biotechnological applications, and in particular transgenics (GM crops), are an important part of the way forward. If technological development by-passes poor people, opportunities for reducing poverty, food insecurity, child malnutrition and natural resource degradation will be missed, and the productivity gap between developing and developed country agriculture will widen.

This article seeks to analyse the debate about technology, and GM crops in particular, in a wider understanding, looking at what types of technology are likely to be available, who will own and control them, and what consequences these will have for poor, marginal people, particularly in Africa. The author notes that, given the huge stakes at play, GM crops are far from a neutral technology. While in the right hands, used for the right purposes, and regulated through an effective, fair and transparent system, they may contribute to a multi-fronted response to famine and food insecurity in Africa. However, they are clearly only part of a more complex solution.

The author argues that Africa is faced with a variety of constraining factors which point towards enabling GM to be successful. Among these are the limited availability of public funds, the complications of intellectual property arrangements, the aggressive insistence of the private sector majors in holding on to their proprietary rights, and constraints associated with the way the agri-food industry is increasingly organised around a limited number of multinational companies.

The author concludes that, GM crops can help prevent famine depending on some specific places, for some particular people. The challenge is to find out more about these settings and contexts, and avoid the inappropriate grandstanding that has dominated the debate so far.