ABOUT |
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A leading African biotechnology expert, Dr. Florence Wambugu is an agricultural plant pathologist specializing in virology and genetic engineering for viral diseases crop protection. She has been awarded "Woman of the Year" recognition by the American Biographical Institute. Under her leadership, the Biotech Tissue Banana Project--which has positively impacted over 500,000 small-scale farmers in Kenya--won the World Bank Global Development Network Award.
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She is a member of both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Science Board of Global Health Challenges (GHC) and the UN Hunger Task Force, a committee focusing on one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Dr. Wambugu is also an Executive Committee member of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). She was a member of the Private Sector Committee (PSC) of CGIAR, DuPont Biotech Advisory Panel-USA, Board of Trustees IPGRI, and founder member and former Vice-chair of the African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF).
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Her three-year post-doctoral fellowship involved the initial development work on the genetically modified (GM) sweet potato; the project produced transgenic virus tolerant sweet potato currently being tested in Kenya.
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Dr. Wambugu is the author of Modifying Africa: How biotechnology can benefit the poor and the hungry: A case study from Kenya.
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| INTERVIEW |
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I come from a rural community of small-scale farmers. I had six brothers and three sisters. Our whole life was centered around farming. We produced sweet potatoes, potatoes, maize, and other crops to feed ourselves, and generated income for school fees and other needs for the family. Most of us did not have enough to eat. So my motivation was to increase food for myself and our family, as well as our community.
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When I went to high school and later university, I wanted to find ways to increase food for rural communities and I began to look at science as a way to do that. I looked at how insects and pests took almost half of our crop both while the crops were growing and after harvest. I started experimenting and mixing up all kinds of concoctions to fight the bugs. At home I was called the family pathologist.
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"Food insecurity in Africa is partly rooted in the lack of diseases control."
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Food insecurity in Africa is partly rooted in the lack of diseases control. Even when farmers are doing everything they can--using fertilizer, inorganic, as well as organic, using improved seeds, farmers face low productivity due to uncontrolled crop diseases. If you look at a crop like sweet potato, we are not even getting a third of the potential yield. I would say that half of that loss is due to insects and pests. I see the opportunity for genetic engineering, particularly for controlling insects and pests, as having a unique position, especially to small scale farmers, especially in developing countries and right here in Africa.
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"It is important to understand the farmers' cultural practices."
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It is important to understand the farmers' cultural practices. The farmers give each other cuttings that either appease or spread the disease. They also keep their own materials and grow it again and again. If it has the virus, the degeneration continues. On the other hand, farmers in developed countries buy certified seeds from clean supplies and that way they are able to break the disease cycle. The long-term solution is to provide materials that are resistant to insects and pests.
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"The technology is already packaged in the seed."
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The other big advantage of using genetic modifications to build resistance into the materials is the fact that most of the African farmers cannot read or write. They are not even able to comprehend messages of mixing chemicals. But when you give them the GM seed, the technology is already packaged in the seed. You actually transfer technology through the seed. And most of the farmers know very well how to cultivate the seed. Their grandmothers were doing it. So the whole indigenous knowledge about farming is there. What is lacking are seeds that can positively impact food security in Africa.
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Kenya has an IP-free (Intellectual Property) license for the genetically modified sweet potato through the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). When the GM sweet potato is finally in the market farmers will be free to keep their own material, they will be free to propagate them through time and there will be no question of control from multi-national companies.
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"The whole concept of buying seeds is nothing new, as the critics of this technology make it sound."
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For hybrid maize seeds in the market, farmers know that if you are going to have the income, the economic margin, or the value of the seed, you must buy the seeds every year. Because if you keep your own seed that you grow, it segregates, so you do not get the hybrid variety vigor anymore. So the whole concept of buying seeds is nothing new, as the critics of this technology make it sound.
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When the farmers see the value of the hybrid seeds, they do buy. The limitation is in the ability to purchase. We need to provide micro finance to farmers, and help them form cooperatives so they can purchase the seeds at a cheaper price. This cannot be seen independent of inputs such as fertilizers and water. So there is a holistic approach that needs to be put in place. But we cannot devalue the importance of improved seeds because they are becoming the engine that's driving the system into productivity.
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"There are some major opportunities."
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There are some major opportunities, especially in gene technology, to be catalytic to the "African Green Revolution". The gene technologies like BT, which control the major insects, pests' diseases, have demonstrated significant impact on the reduction of pesticides.
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Another issue is drought tolerance. Drought tolerance would be a major opportunity for Africa and many of the places where water is limited. Irrigation has not been realized. Creating crops that need less water to produce the same amount of crop that they produce would be a huge breakthrough. You can imagine what it would mean in Africa where most of the land is limited marginally by lack of water.
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Gene technology can improve nutrition and, in turn, have a huge impact on health. HIV is a major problem in Africa. When people are undernourished, their health is not good and they are more vulnerable to the negative effects of disease.
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"If there is one technology that would liberate African women, it is herbicide."
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Other major opportunities that are being realized are in herbicide farming. There are controversies regarding that, and I will say that for people to use intercropping, herbicide farming has limitations. However, there are places where, for example, maize is grown as a monoculture crop, and a lot of work is done by women and children.
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It is estimated that African women spend about sixty percent of their time hand weeding. This is not only hard on the body, it kind of enslaves them to the farm when they could be doing other productive things like be involved in politics or business. So if there is one technology that would liberate African women, it is herbicide farming. Herbicide farming would also increase productivity.
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"Africa is no longer in the 'dark continent.' We are part of a global community."
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On average, a family living in Nairobi is spending sixty percent of all their income on food, while people in America spend on average, about twelve to twenty-five percent of their income on food.
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Food is so expensive in Africa because of the way that it is produced. Most of the farm work is done manually and much of the harvest is lost to the insects and pests. And the cost of transport is very high. By the time the food reaches the African cities it is very expensive.
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Africa is no longer the 'dark continent.' We are part of the global community. As all these technologies and opportunities become available, and as the African countries develop, we must choose what is best for our people so they can grow and improve their lives like everybody else.
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"If a company is producing something that is good for the community, you should not just try to fight them; you should ask how you can work with them."
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We cannot kill the technology because "big" companies produce it. We should not try to create barriers about what they can produce. Even the tribe where I come from has a saying "if there is a rich person in the village, do not try to fight them because they bring development to the community". If a company is producing something that is good for the community, you should not just try to fight them; you should ask how you can work with them. We undertook the sweet potato research through USAID sponsorship in partnership with an American multinational company.
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"What we need is a balanced discussion to figure out how we can work together to be sure this technology is available to those who need it most."
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We cannot ask these companies to give all their technologies for free. If companies did not patent their technology, there would be no incentive to develop the technology, and then it would not even be available at all. New products are going to come, because people can see the opportunity. What we need is a balanced discussion to figure out how we can work together to be sure this technology is available to those who need it most.
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We do have to be concerned with the health and safety of using gene technologies and that is why we must follow both international Biosafety Protocol and national governments regulatory agencies. Whether it is by traditional breeding or whether it is GM come from the lab, there is continuous monitoring and changing to ensure that the bugs, the insects, or the pests do not develop resistance.
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One way to kill the science is to prevent commercialization. If you bar any products from ever leaving the lab, the companies will not be able to have money to continue the research.
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"The best way and the cheapest way to produce the food is near where it is being eaten."
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There cannot be one place producing food for everyone in the world. You cannot produce yellow maize in Canada and believe the whole world is going to feed on that yellow maize. People like to eat their own food for the taste, for cultural reasons or for traditional reasons.
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It's also an issue of human dignity. Who would want to wait until you receive food from another country to feed your family as a lifestyle? That destroys family. While Africans appreciate food assistance in time of need, there is value in cooking and feeding your family and that cannot be priced.
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Then there is the cost of distributing the food. And this I know because we currently have famine here in Kenya. Food produced in America comes by huge vessels to Mombasa, the Kenyan port. From there it has to be distributed to many, many small villages throughout the poverty stricken areas. In Kenya we had about three million families that needed food aid in 2004. It is a huge cost.
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The best way and the cheapest way to produce the food in rural Africa is near where it is being eaten.
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"What needs to be done? First and foremost, it has to start with good governance."
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I am involved in United Nations Hunger Task Force for MDGs holding crucial discussions on several global initiatives on how to solve world hunger. And I go there with experience: Hunger is not a concept to me. There are many people who treat hunger as a concept, as a business to be discussed in big meetings. To me it is a life experience. I live around people who are hungry. So, hunger is people I know, not just a concept.
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What needs to be done? First and foremost, it has to start with good governance. The government has to have policies that improve overall productivity in the country.
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Number two, there has to be infrastructure to support good research that is related to what farmers are doing. There has to be research and development that is focused and delivers products, which improves things for the farmer and the community.
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Most importantly, for sustainable livelihoods communities need the ability to produce food and to generate income from cash crops giving them ability to purchase. For this to happen, there have to be trade negotiations at the international level to improve commodity prices. African countries should get better access to the global market and negotiate better prices for commodities such as coffee, cocoa and tea. This is crucial because developing countries get far much less value out of their agricultural products.
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Additional income is what gives people the ability to purchase not only food but material goods. It is what can be invested in urban areas to start new businesses. It is what helps a country to move from subsistence level to a country that has an industrial base, a stable income, and more important a stable government.
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"The link between the good ideas, good intentions, and the realities is very wide and it needs to be bridged."
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One of the major problems Africa faces is global initiatives that have no local anchorage. Many of these initiatives do not use the local expertise or indigenous people who actually know the problems. The real experts to African problems are the local people who live with the people and know their needs. Development is not purely technical, there are social and cultural issues to be addressed. The link between the good ideas, good intentions, and the realities is very wide and it needs to be bridged. If the 200 million hungry Africans including children and women are to be helped, then we must doe everything to achieve the UN-MDGs by year 2015.
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Florence Wambugu can be reached at fwambugu@ahbfi.or.ke
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