Prime
As high food prices bite
Michael Ssali
What you need to know:
- Biotechnology has been proven to increase crop production and to boost industrialisation.
Most Sub-Saharan countries today are faced with a rapidly growing population, climate change, declining agricultural productivity, high food prices, and poorly facilitated healthcare facilities.
One of the main reasons for the recent demonstrations in Kenya was the high cost of “unga” (maize flour). Food shortage can lead to violent political uprisings. It is also a cause of under nutrition and a big health burden since underfed people are prone to ill health.
Policy makers in the countries that have sufficiently invested in agricultural research and have actually understood the benefits of adopting new technologies in crop and animal production are reluctant to take them up because of widely published negative perceptions and misinformation about those technologies.
Their capacity to pronounce their readiness to adopt modern technology is immobilized by the unending debate between those opposed to it and those that support it. In lots of cases what ought to be a debate on agricultural scientific facts turns out to include international aid, diplomatic relations as well as political, religious, and social considerations.
In the meantime the population increases, climate change effects continue to bite, with prolonged droughts taking their toll --- crops drying up in the fields as pests multiply and spread.
Only very few policy makers in Africa have been able to make bold and informed decisions on modern biotechnology despite its glaring benefits to agriculture and poverty alleviation efforts. In many cases, modern biotechnology has been unfairly linked to health and environmental hazards.
But as Andrew Porterfield has pointed out in his article, titled: “Anti-biotech activists claim biotech crops promote “unsustainable” monoculture? Let us separate facts from ideology” modern biotechnology reduces the random usage of pesticides on crops and makes food safer to eat.
Biotechnology makes crops drought tolerant and resilient to the ravages of climate change.
It preserves biodiversity more than the farming systems which include usage of pesticides and herbicides. The chemicals are poisons intended to kill pests and weeds but often they also kill useful insects such as bees and lots of edible vegetable species and medicinal plants.
Modern biotechnology adoption makes crops more tolerant to drought conditions and resistant to pests and diseases. Biotechnology can be used to increase nutrition densities of many food crops and to support health.
Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,
