ABOUT |
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Kinyua M'Mbijjewe is Monsanto's Government and Public Affairs Lead in Africa responsible for liaison with government and various public constituencies to foster an environment conducive to the understanding and acceptance of Monsanto's products, particularly modern biotechnology crops, across key African countries.
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His focus is on building relationships with Governments, particularly in the departments of Agriculture, Environment, Science &Technology and Health that would encourage the development of appropriate biotechnology and biosafety policies and programs. He also works with scientific, media, farming, and consumer constituencies, to facilitate the dissemination of accurate information on modern biotechnology's potential role in Africa.
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Mr. M'Mbijjewe joined the Monsanto 5 years ago and is based in Nairobi Kenya, where he also runs Monsanto's commercial business in East Africa. Prior to joining Monsanto his academic and career background was in the food industry. He is passionate about the need to enhance agricultural productivity across Africa for food security and income generation, through the use of enabling technologies, including biotechnology.
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As a Kenyan, you are faced with a lot of people who you can see don't have enough to eat. You have a lot of people who you know are poor.
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You have a population where seventy-five percent of the people live on the land and in agriculture and so the only opportunities where people really have to improve their lives are in farming and in agriculture. I often go to the farms on the weekends and you can see people really struggling.
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The statistics are appalling. They say that an estimated one third of all the children in East Africa are malnourished and so are stunted physically and mentally.
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"People should not be going to bed hungry. Children should not be dying because of lack of food."
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In the 21st century - the age of cell phones and Internet, and all that - for people to die of hunger, it's just abominable, it's wrong. And I think it behooves all of us to do everything we can. Politicians with policy, technology providers with providing the technology, farmers with good organization and equipment, financial institutions, everyone needs to focus their attention on how to solve this problem, because it really should not be there. People should not be going to bed hungry. Children should not be dying because of lack of food.
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"You have to change the way you farm."
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Hunger is a complex situation. It has a lot to do with poverty and people not having the ability to buy food if they can't grow it. It has a lot to do with the environment-when there are floods, or as often in Africa, there are draughts, the insecurity of rain.
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It also has a lot to do with technology, the lack of it, largely. Farmers are still farming the way they did hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Now that was fine, when you had one ton per hectare and there was a population of a few hundred thousand. But when you have millions of people, and when Africa is expected to double in population in the next twenty years, it's just not good enough.
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You have to change the way you farm. If Europe or the U.S. farmed the way they did fifty years ago, they wouldn't be able to meet the needs of their population. Much the same has happened in Africa. So, technology is necessary. Policy is necessary.
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"You also need support from those countries which have gone through this and are really successful."
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You have infrastructure needs, too. We are in the rainy season in Kenya. Rural roads have been spoiled by the rains, and many farmers can't get their produce from the farms to market. There are also huge amounts of water going to waste that could have been dammed. So, roads and dams are needed. There is a need for basic healthcare systems.
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There is credit. A lot of farmers do not have any financial institution that they can go to get credit. You only have the banks which require you pay your interest back on a monthly basis. The seasons of the farming cycle do not allow that to be a viable alternative for farmers.
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Farmers also need information, particularly marketing information: What do I grow? How do I grow it? How do I get it to the market?
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So there's a whole range of things that are necessary. No single player can play that role. You need government. You need the private sector. You need research institutions bringing in the right sort of crop. You also need support from those countries which have gone through this and are really successful in farming.
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"I think the truth is somewhere in between those who say that biotechnology is the answer for feeding the world and those who say it has no role to play."
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It's unfortunate that the dialogue is so polarized. I think the truth is somewhere in between those who say that biotechnology is the answer for feeding the world and those who say it has no role to play.
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I think biotechnology is a tool, a powerful tool, at that. In Africa particularly, where food is so necessary, where agriculture so desperately needs to be transformed, we must look at biotechnology as an enabling tool. But it's not the only one. Policy is necessary, marketing systems are necessary, input supply delivery systems are necessary, extension of information is necessary.
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"I look at modern biotechnology as "smart seeds" - seeds with software in them."
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But you also need to have the tools in the farmer's hands so that he can be productive. He must have good soil, he needs fertilizer, he needs information on how to use pesticides, and the ability to use those pesticides.
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I look at modern biotechnology as "smart seeds" - seeds with software in them. That can help protect themselves against diseases. That can increase yield. That can produce lower inputs. Tomorrow there's promise of ones that can have nutritional benefits-increased vitamins. It's a tool we can't turn away from. It's a tool we should embrace, carefully.
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You need the policies in place to ensure that these products are safe. There are rational legal frameworks to have safe use of biotechnology. So the safe use of biotechnology is something which Africa needs to embrace, because Africa needs to do something revolutionary about its food and its agriculture.
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"Biotechnology can play a big role."
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Most of the farmers in Africa are women. Sixty percent of all agriculture is done by women. They grow the crops, collect the fuel wood and tend the children. Biotechnology can play a big role in saving them time.
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If you take for instance a traditional crop, like cotton, you are required to spray that eight to ten times in a season, if you are to get a yield. Modern biotechnology cotton requires spraying only once or twice. That's a huge saving in time.
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It is estimated that millions of farm workers will be incapacitated by HIV and not able to farm effectively. We really need to come up with technologies that will keep people, who are on the land, productive.
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What really irks me is a pest called stem borer. Twenty-five percent of Africa's maize is destroyed by this pest. If you had a Bollgard maize, it would not be lost.
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An estimated forty percent of Africa's maize is destroyed by storage pests. If we come up with a biotechnology solution, so that doesn't have to happen, you would have so much more harvest that is saved.
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"As long as our approach is 'let us not fight public sector versus private sector,' but 'let us work on this issue together,' I think we can find solutions."
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I work for Monsanto. The company has an obligation to our employees and shareholders to be profitable. We believe that there is a market in Africa, that farmers will be able to afford and use our improved crops and benefit from them.
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But then there are other farmers who are not in that bracket, who do not have the money to afford these crops. This is where we need to be creative.
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Patents are very important in that they keep the inventive process going. Better crops, smarter crops will be available to farmers. It is true that public access to some of these is restricted through multi-level patents. Companies need to be creative and say that we're ready to share these technologies either at the subsidized cost or royalty free.
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You have organizations, such as the Rockefeller Institute, who are now looking at the mechanisms of forming a technology bank, where companies donate technologies, which are then made available to national research institutes and, in turn, to the farmers.
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Different methods need to be looked at. I think that as long as our approach is 'let us not fight public sector versus private sector,' but 'let us work on this issue together,' I think we can find solutions.
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"The problem of hunger needs to be solved, and it's going to take creative ways of doing so."
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I think there's a growing sense around the world that the problem of hunger needs to be solved, and it is going to take creative ways of doing so. And I can see a growing sense with companies, I know certainly our company is looking at sharing technologies. In fact, there are technologies that we are ready to share.
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Sweet potato is an example of where we were able to have a royalty free arrangement with countries. And the technology basket that I mentioned, that Rockefeller has set up, called the Africa Technology Foundation, works on those principles, that companies donate patent free technologies. I think that is one of the ways that that will happen.
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The others will be individual arrangements and agreements between countries and institutions and companies. But the sense I have is that more and more companies are looking to say, how can we also participate? I think shareholders are expecting it, society is expecting it of them, and even the organizations themselves increasingly want to play a role in solving this hunger problem.
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"We will dialogue with all people who have concerns or issues with biotechnology."
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The pledge is something I'm particularly proud of. In 1999, the company issued what we call the New Monsanto Pledge. Our CEO committed the company to five initiatives that comprise the pledge.
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One is that we will dialogue with all people who have concerns or issues with biotechnology. We will sit down and have respectful dialogue. Not everyone will see it our way and we will be respectful of those opinions. We want the opportunity to share ours as well.
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Another initiative is that we believe in the sharing of the technology. There are countries and institutions that can't afford some of these technologies. We are ready to look at opportunities to share these technologies that we will bring benefits to the farmer. And we are a technology company that has been bringing good products to farmers for decades. So we will really make an effort to continue to bring benefits to farmers.
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The pledge really shapes the way we think and interact with other parties - countries, farmers, government bodies, donor institutions. We want to be respectful, we want to share, we want to give benefits, we want to be able to help build an understanding for biotechnology.
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I think it is because of misinformation and, perhaps, because of the way we originally presented our work that biotechnology has raised so much controversy. We feel that if people better understand the providers of this technology, they will be able to be more accepting of the technology.
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"We realize that it's not a panacea, not a silver bullet."
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Perhaps when we first came out with the messages about biotechnology, we were a bit arrogant in how we communicated biotechnology. We were so excited about its potential that perhaps we over claimed and overstated things.
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I think the pledge helps shape the way we now communicate about biotechnology. We realize that it's not a panacea, not a silver bullet. We recognize people's right to use it or not use it. We just ask for our fair opportunity to explain the benefits and also to give access. Farmers access to use the technology, so ultimately, they can make the decision as to whether they want to embrace this technology or not.
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"Africans have been using biotechnology for millennia in its simplest form."
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Biotechnology is very wide. Africans have been using biotechnology for millennia in its simplest form: food biotechnology, which includes the fermentation of beer and bread making. That's a biotechnology that Africans are familiar with. Five thousand years ago the Egyptians were making cheese and products like that. So, that is part of biotechnology.
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Modern biotechnology or genetic engineering is where you are able to find a particular gene which codes for a particular beneficial trait - insect resistance, herbicide resistance, improved nutrition - and move it into a crop that you like.
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Tomorrow, it's going to be proteomics. So, it's a moving technology, and I think we are really at the infant stages of modern biotechnology. I think we will see some wonderful things coming out in the next twenty to thirty years.
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"When you talk about the hunger problem, it's not just maize, it's not just beans, it is also cash crops."
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When you have a farmer who produces too little, one ton of maize when he has the potential of growing four or five tons of maize, that farmer won't have enough to feed himself, creating hunger within his family and community. When he doesn't grow enough, he doesn't have a surplus to sell and no way to earn money. If he doesn't have money, he can't invest in inputs like a tractor or pesticides or fertilizer. It's a vicious cycle of poverty, malnutrition, undercapitalization and investment.
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Seventy percent of our people live in rural areas on farms. My firm belief is that Africa will never be transformed until we transform our agriculture. When you talk about the hunger problem, it's not just maize, it's not just beans, it is also cash crops. If somebody can make money off his cotton, off his coffee, off his tea, he can buy food. And so we have to look at the whole spectrum of agriculture.
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"I don't think biotechnology or genetically improved crops should be taken in isolation."
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I don't think biotechnology or genetically improved crops should be taken in isolation. I think integrated crop management systems need to be embraced. We should give the farmer an array, a choice, various options, different models that they can use in different ecosystems. I think that modern biotechnology works very well with principle of reduced input and can integrate very well with all these other technologies.
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With regards to pesticides, I think there is very clear evidence now that you really reduce your pesticide load by using genetically improved crops. In southern Africa, in South Africa, where Bollgard (BT) cotton is grown, they have been able to reduce their sprays from an average of six to ten, to an average of two. You actually do not need to spray for the pest. The pest is totally controlled by the pesticide, BT, which is incorporated within the plant. This reduces the load on the environment, and reduces the cost to the farmer.
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The biggest threat of biodiversity in Africa is extensive agriculture, which is low input, low yielding agriculture. If a farmer only gets one ton of maize per acre/hectare, he will farm two, three, four or five more acre/hectare. He will go into the swamp and forest lands, and on to the hillsides. If you want to protect biodiversity, the best thing you can do is have high yield agriculture so people can have more intensive and less extensive agriculture.
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"In the end, people pay, sometimes with their lives."
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It is very unfortunate that the controversy around biotechnology has caused a lot of concern in African countries, and so much that it has made them make decisions that affect the ability to feed their people.
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There's a bit of a trade war between Europe and the U.S., and there is information that's coming from both ends. When this information is wrongly conveyed, the policy makers, the journalists, the scientists, who perhaps do not have access to firsthand information, make decisions that can adversely affect people.
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I think we need to be very responsible in the kind of communication that we make. To make claims that cannot be substantiated by any science, claims of lack of safety when there is not one shred of evidence that these products are unsafe, is immoral. In the end, people pay, sometimes with their lives.
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"There's no such thing as absolute safety."
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Every technology has concerns. What we need to do is manage it. Minimize your risks through improving your technology, improving your legislative systems, having good monetary and evaluation systems, which are all there in modern biotechnology. We would do nothing in life, including drive cars, if everything was absolutely safe. There's no such thing as absolute safety.
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But from the weight of evidence that is around, from the years of use, from the billions of people who have eaten these crops over the years, we should not let phantom fears determine our decisions.
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"I would like to think that when I'm an old man and I'm talking to my grandchild, and telling him that once upon a time in Africa people were hungry and dying of hunger, that he wouldn't believe it."
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Today, in southern Africa, thirteen million people are in critical famine situation. They say in eastern Africa, Ethiopia, southern Sudan and Somalia, there are even more.
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I would like to think that when I'm an old man and I'm talking to my grandchild, and telling him that once upon a time in Africa people were hungry and dying of hunger, that he wouldn't believe it. In many parts of the world, generations cannot remember that happening. My vision is that in another twenty, thirty years time, we can say that that is a thing of the past.
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Kinyua M'Mbijjewe can be reached at kinyua.mbijjewe@monsanto.com.
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