The good, the myths and the debate of GMO

Globally, the number of countries embracing and using genetically modified (GM) crops continues to rise. But although the debate has started in Africa — and in Malawi in particular — there is still silent resistance borne out of deep myths. EPHRAIM NYONDO writes:

What is it that you know about genetically modified (GM) crops? That was the question I posed to a focus group discussion (FGD) of 12 locals, eight men and four women, in Makwinja village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Chiwalo, Phalombe.

It is about chickens that are injected with chemicals and they mature in a week, says Dyton Mateyu, one of the locals, adding: “That is why I don’t eat hybrid chicken.”

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) is about oversize tomatoes and onions that are not planted but produced in factories using chemicals, says another member of the FGD, James Chilingu, a local tomato farmer.

Mateyu wanted to open his mouth again but was interrupted by a lady, Dorothy Kansungwi, another local maize farmer in the village.

“GMO, the way I know it, is about hybrid crops that are resistant to pests and they mature quickly. I think that even includes the maize that we buy in the shops. They are all GM,” she says, attracting nods from two other women from the group.

She adds: “The only challenge with GM crops is that they have serious health hazards. We hear that women fail to give birth, children fail to grow or sometimes grow extremely taller than others. So GM crops are really dangerous.”

Is that all you know about GM crops? I raised the question to the group.

“Yes,” returned Mateyu, adding: “we don’t know much about GM. What we know, from what we hear on the radio and other learned people, is only that. But I am sure we are right because we can see some of these chickens right in our shops at Phalombe boma. I don’t know why our government is not protecting us.”

My curiosity to understand how Malawians view GM crops took me even to urban areas. I conducted random interviews with some locals in Chilomoni, Ndirande and Chirimba Townships in Blantyre and Kawale, Area 18 and Area 36 in Lilongwe.

Among the 16 people I spoke with, responses from 14 were invariably the same as those in Phalombe. They all exhibited knowledge of GM crops from a negative prism. They keep reiterating that GM crops have serious health issues such as causing cancer, sterility and abnormal growth in human beings, among others. Others even added environmental issues. They said the land where a GM crop is grown dries up of every nutrient; hence, it becomes barren.

However, the other two took a rather middle position. Ernest Kwilimbe, a motor vehicle mechanic in Area 36, Lilongwe, said he knows little about GM crops and much of what he knows is negative.

“I am surprised and sceptical about what I have heard from other people about GM crops,” he adds.

“How come it is always negative? I hear GM crops are being grown in different countries in the world. If they were this bad, how come they are not stopped? I don’t see a government allowing bad things to be grown in their countries to destroy their people and their environment. Maybe I am naïve, but I am very sceptical,” he says.

The other, Thembi Mkandawire from Area 18 in Lilongwe, was realistic in her response. Thembi, 23, is a business lady who often travels to South Africa.

“I am a fan of cornflakes. Once, while in Durban, South Africa, a friend asked my thoughts on GM crops. She saw me eating cornflakes at the lodge I was putting up,” she says.

She adds: “I told her I wasn’t conversant with GM crops, but I just enjoyed the cornflakes. She explained to me that the cornflakes I enjoyed were made from GM maize.

“She explained to me what GM crops are and I did not find anything strange about them. In fact, I have been a fan of these cornflakes for the past 10 years.”

Thembi further says these cornflakes are not just in South Africa. They are all over in Malawian shops, she says, even in rural areas.

“If GM crops had these negative effects we often hear about, I am sure I could have been the first to be affected. Or generally speaking, the entire Malawi would have been affected, “she says.

Paradoxically, between 2000 and 2001 there was starvation in Malawi. Government, on its own, did not have enough in its strategic grain reserves to feed millions that had little or completely no food to eat. It had to ask for external assistance.

The international community duly responded quickly with the donation of foodstuffs, including GM maize. Unlike Zambia which was, just like Malawi, experiencing acute hunger, the Malawi Government accepted the GM maize and, interestingly, 10 of the people I randomly interviewed were beneficiaries.

“The taste of nsima was not as that we are used to but it was nsima anyway,” says Mateyu.

Asked if he experienced side effects, Mateyu only laughed while Kansungwi stood stunned.

“Was that GMO?” she asks.

“Yes,” I respond.

“Then there must be something wrong about the information on GM which we are told,” she says.

Kansungwi might indeed be right.

In a 2003 article titled Risks and Benefits of Genetically Modified Maize Donations to Southern Africa: Views from Malawi, College of Medicine professors of community health Adamson Muula and Joseph M. Mfutso-Bengo note the controversy surrounding GM crops.

“Famine has frequently occurred in many countries in southern Africa. The international community has responded with donations of foodstuffs, including genetically modified maize.

“The media has already reported concerns about the possibility of unwanted effects of the genetically modified maize on human health. While Malawi has accepted to receive genetically modified maize donations despite warnings about the unknown ecological and health effects of such a food, Zambia did not allow the import of genetically modified maize into their country.

“On the other hand, Zambia is being accused of political arrogance, allowing its own people to die from starvation when they could have benefited from the maize,” reads the article.

Almost a decade later, with some of the beneficiaries bearing the testimony of living without their feared effects, it is imperative that the debate on GM crops in Malawi take a more sober perspective than the bygone for and against prism.

In the 18 year period 1996 to 2013, millions of farmers in 30 countries worldwide have adopted biotech crops at unprecedented rates.

According to the 2015 report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)—a non-profit international organisation that shares the benefits of agricultural biotechnology, with a special focus on resource-poor farmers in developing countries—the most compelling and credible testimony to biotech crops is that during the 18 year period, millions of farmers in 30 countries worldwide elected to make more than 100 million independent decisions to cultivate an accumulated hectarage of more than 1.6 billion.