How safe is GMO technology?

Shortly before the last Parliament’s term ended, it passed a law to regulate the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms in Uganda. To be accurate, GMO lines have been active in Uganda for many years. What is left is massive propagation into the mainstream marketing and profitable licensing agreements.

GMO technology cures “defects” in most plants forever. It standardises most planting material purifying genetic material. In the case of coffee, for example, out of seven desirable robusta planting strands that populate most farms, the most desirable one is selected.

Probably the skinny plants that dominate dryer areas would be eliminated in favour of the bushier plant that produces more berries, but may not thrive in dry spells. During the dry spell earlier this year, coffee bushes performed very poorly in the southwest almost wilting in the heat. GMO technology promotes standardisation, promising higher yields, lower prevalence of diseases which thrive in plant culture, weeds, etc. GMO has “worked” wonders in grain producers like the United States (its banned in Canada and the European Union).

Many farmers in Uganda today rely on use of chemicals to fight more voracious weeds, invasive pests yet they can hardly afford inputs. This is because the liberalised farm gate policies have sucked liquidity out of the agricultural sector. Everyone can market directly to farmers in whatever portions, concentrations with minimal supervision.

Beautiful posters of thriving farms in GMO countries like Brazil, India, Central America and Vietnam display lushness. Most of these posters rarely display the mounting financial problems in commercial agriculture, rising levels of debt, absolute poverty and malnutrition. Farmers in India routinely commit suicide unable to shake off debts.

Closer to home, GMO technology is supposed to support commercialisation of agriculture, a code word for eliminating the poor from farming. GMO is supposed to make agriculture more organised, year round. Water deficiency is supposed to be solved by irrigation, as GMO plants don’t have a history of drought tolerance. In higher temperatures, water input must increase to keep the plants lush.

Introducing GMO technology prior to reforming markets is dangerous. Poor farmers will continue suffering with overproduction in the short-term and de-capitalisation in the long-run. Canned tomato seeds produce wonders for vegetable farmers in the short wet seasons leading to massive dumping of agricultural produce in areas like Bugisu, Busoga and Tooro when the market cannot consume excess tomatoes.

Earlier this year, maize farmers were stuck with maize, which price fell as low as Shs150 per kilogramme before climbing back to Shs600 per kilogramme after many farmers had sold their maize below cost of production. Low prices were such a concern that Kenya, a major grain producer and consumer, fixed prices for 2019 at Shs700 per kilogramme to avoid pushing middle scale farmers out of business. The Ugandan effort to support subsidised purchase of maize quickly panned out as most farmers never saw this money at all.

Most villagers, with impassable roads in the rainy season cannot afford storage. Energy from the sun to dry the produce is uneven exposing fresh produce to rotting, massive spoilage and rodents. Commercial agriculture like sugarcane plantations have doubled the habitat for dangerous rodents like rats whose body masses have increased due to heavy use of fertilisers.
It is rarely mentioned in public that Lake Victoria, the largest fresh water lake in Africa, is slowly dying, and while fishing stocks are recovering, fish from the lake could become poisonous to eat if the dumping of chemical effluents does not stop.
Last year, BBC in a wide ranging documentary exposed the scale of loss of life in the lake but attracted little response from government. GMO is probably good idea for vast plain lands where plants can grow with little competition from other land uses. In Uganda we don’t have these vast lands to support such a capital intensive and environmentally risky activity.

Mr Ssemogerere is an attorney-at-Law and an advocate. [email protected]