Module IV: Biotechnology and Biosafety

Biotechnology has the potential to improve African food security, depending on a variety of factors, including what crops and particular traits are modified, how GM crops fit into the overall agricultural management system and complement traditional techniques, and whether GM seeds are affordable to small farmers. The number of undernourished people in the world may increase by as much as 50 percent by the year 2015 according to some estimates, and many people are looking to biotechnology as a tool that can mitigate that trend.

Faculty emphasized that absolute quantity of food supply is only one factor, and not the most important one, in determining the extent of hunger in the world. In all, there are three essential considerations:

• Availability, i.e., the amount of food that physically exists;
• Access, mainly meaning sufficient income to buy food or the ability to produce one’s own food; and
• Utilization, which includes:
  a) allocation within the household, i.e., cultural and personal patterns of control over income and food that determine who eats what, especially in times of scarcity; and
  b) health, i.e., physical ability to utilize food, which can be impaired by illnesses such as diarrhea.
  Therefore socioeconomic considerations such as sanitation, availability of clean water, and the role and status of women all play key roles in food utilization.

Availability is not generally considered to be the biggest problem; most people concede that there is probably enough food in the world to feed everybody, if distribution was equitable and income was not a factor. The most important issue is access to food, i.e., the ability to buy or produce food. Social, economic, and political considerations are therefore paramount. Inequities in Africa resulting in poverty, war, and civil strife are in this sense food access issues. Low agricultural productivity, a collapsing natural resource base, and natural climate variability aggravated by global warming, e.g., floods and droughts, also contribute to hunger in Africa. Ultimately, there are fundamental questions about national and international political economies that need to be addressed, e.g., how to reduce or eliminate poverty, if these issues are truly to be resolved. The question in this context is whether in the shorter term biotechnology can ameliorate some of these difficulties and improve access to food by the poor.

What kinds of agricultural biotechnology might address the particular needs of African farmers and the poor? Several areas were highlighted as useful target traits for genetic modification:

• Drought resistance;
• Shorter growth cycles;
• Low input requirements (fertilizers, labor);
• Low use and maximum retention of soil nutrients (i.e., crops that are good in fragile soils);
• Avoidance of need for complex seed distribution systems (i.e., easy planting);
• Improved storability;
• Hardiness, even at the expense of higher yields.

Essentially, these suggestions point to the need to help "the little guy." Most private research is currently focused on pest and herbicide resistance, which are not the most important concerns of small farmers. Faculty noted that it is relatively easy (and more profitable) to develop new technologies to help big commercial farmers with extensive fertile land and intensive inputs. On the other hand, large farms can also have positive ripple effects, creating employment, raising incomes, and stimulating demand for other types of services that help the economy overall. Research needs to find an appropriate balance between the needs of large and small farmers if biotechnology is going to make a difference in African food security.

The share of biotechnology research as a proportion of total agricultural research in Africa is currently marginal--less than three percent--and is heavily dependent upon donor funding. The public sector predominates, with very little participation by the African private sector. Yet publicly funded agricultural research in Africa has been declining in real dollars since 1981, with an increasing number of researchers, so that the per-researcher funding level is fairly dismal. Either public funding will have to be increased, or private investment in biotechnology to benefit poor farmers will have to be stimulated somehow. Creative approaches to public-private collaboration may also be useful in this regard.

Traditionally, agricultural research has been considered a classic public good, with all the hallmarks that justify public spending: long-term, high-risk research; benefits accruing to people who do not pay; lack of competition in basic research; difficulty of obtaining full IPR protection; and association with other public goals related to food security and environmental protection. Most of the growth in private sector research has been in non-farm areas, avoiding conflict with the public research paradigm. Agricultural biotechnology falls somewhere in between these two areas, on the border between private and public good, raising some key questions:

• How can biotechnology firms be induced to invest in crops that are important to poor people, such as yams, cowpeas, and plantains?
• How can biotechnology firms recoup huge investment costs from poor farmers, especially if they replant their own seed stock?
• What innovations can legitimately be privately appropriated under patent law?
• How can environmental and health protection be assured?
• How can we ensure absence of abuse by monopolist powers in a market dominated by a small handful of huge seed companies?

Faculty suggested that the answer is that the private sector cannot by itself guarantee research that will benefit the poor and that will protect health and the environment. Some degree of public subsidization will remain necessary on global and national levels, both to support research directly and to stimulate private investment in key areas.

On the global level, public funds are required to assure adequate research on crops and livestock that are most important to the poor. These funds can support international agricultural research centers, or can subsidize private involvement by covering fixed research costs. Nationally, public subsidization can encourage biotechnology firms to transfer technology where they are unlikely to recapture variable costs and to avoid complicated seed distribution systems. The public sector also has the responsibility to ensure biosafety and to set appropriate IPR guidelines.