GMO Myths and Truths

the problem of hunger. This is because the root
cause of hunger is not a lack of food, but a lack
of access to food. According to the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation, we already produce
more than enough food to feed the world’s
population and could produce enough with
existing agricultural methods to feed 12 billion
people. 1 The problem is that the poor have no
money to buy food and increasingly, no access
to land on which to grow it. Hunger is a social,
political, and economic problem, which GM
technology cannot address. GM is a dangerous
distraction from real solutions and claims that
GM can help feed the world can be viewed as
exploitation of the suffering of the hungry.
7.1.2. GM crops for Africa: Catalogue
of failure
A handful of GM crops have been promoted as
helping small-scale and poor farmers in Africa.
However, the results were the opposite of what
was promised.
GM sweet potato yielded poorly, lost virus
resistance
The virus-resistant sweet potato has been a
GM showcase project for Africa, generating
global media coverage. Florence Wambugu, the
Monsanto-trained scientist fronting the project,
has been proclaimed an African heroine and the
saviour of millions, based on her claims that the
GM sweet potato doubled output in Kenya. Forbes
magazine even declared her one of a tiny handful
of people around the globe who would “reinvent
the future”. 2
But it eventually emerged that the claims being
made for the GM sweet potato were untrue, with
field trial results showing it to be a failure. The
GM sweet potato was out-yielded by the non-
GM control and succumbed to the virus it was
designed to resist. 3,4
In contrast, a conventional breeding
programme in Uganda produced a new highyielding
variety that was virus-resistant and raised
yields by roughly 100%. The Ugandan project
achieved its goal in a fraction of the time and cost
of the GM project. The GM sweet potato project,
over 12 years, consumed funding from Monsanto,
the World Bank, and USAID to the tune of $6
million. 5
GM cassava lost virus resistance
The potential of genetic engineering to boost
the production of cassava – one of Africa’s staple
foods – by defeating a devastating virus has been
heavily promoted since the mid-1990s. It was even
claimed that GM cassava could solve hunger in
Africa by increasing yields as much as tenfold. 6
But almost nothing appears to have been
achieved. Even after it became clear that the GM
cassava had suffered a major technical failure,
losing resistance to the virus, 7 media stories
continued to appear about its curing hunger in
Africa. 8,9
Meanwhile, conventional (non-GM) plant
breeding has quietly produced a virus resistant
cassava that is already proving successful in
farmers’ field, even under drought conditions. 10
Bt cotton failed in Makhatini
“The [GM cotton] seed itself is doing
poorly. Without irrigation, and with
increasingly unpredictable rain, it has
been impossible to plant the cotton. In
2005 T. J. Buthelezi, the man whose
progress was hymned by Monsanto’s
vice-president not three years before,
had this to say: ‘My head is full – I don’t
know what I’m going to do. I haven’t
planted a single seed this season. I have
paid Rand 6,000 (USD 820, GBP 420)
for ploughing, and I’m now in deep debt.’
T. J. is one of the faces trucked around
the world by Monsanto to prove that
African farmers are benefiting from GM
technology.”
– Raj Patel, “Making up Makhatini”, in Stuffed
and Starved 11
Makhatini in South Africa was home to a showcase
GM Bt cotton project for small-scale farmers.
The project began with 3000 smallholder farmers
cultivating Monsanto’s Bt cotton between 1998
and 2001, 12 with over 100,000 hectares planted.
By 2002, the area planted had crashed to 22,500
hectares, an 80% reduction in four years. 13,11
GMO Myths and Truths 108