Planting the future: opportunities and challenges for using ... - EASAC

3.3.2 What was the previous EU impact on
agricultural biotechnology in Africa?
Bringing together information shared in the NASAC–
EASAC–ATPS workshop with written responses to the
questions received from the academy-nominated experts,
various conclusions about previous EU/Member State
influences can be drawn.
• European Commission funding and organisation of
research and training workshops – for example in
the laboratories of the Joint Research Centre – and
support for research projects in molecular biosciences
has been useful.
• International R&D partnerships are important for
African countries but it is increasingly uncommon for
these partners now to come from the EU, compared
with North America and Asia. There may be a growing
risk that EU skills attrition will magnify the difficulty
of the EU competing for a place in international R&D
partnerships. It is also important to understand that
previous international linkages may have contributed
to the brain drain of scientists from African countries
and a loss of national expertise.
• In several African countries where there has been
an active debate about biotechnology, European
influences have not necessarily been helpful and
some have hindered the introduction of GM
crops. Negative political sentiment in the EU has
influenced the political acceptance process in
Africa (ASSAf, 2012), and this impact has been
compounded by the perceived loss of trade when
EU countries did not accept GM products from
abroad. Even, if the EU did accept such imports,
they would need to be labelled as GM whereas such
labelling would not necessarily have been required
for local or other international markets. This creates
problems for separate handling of GM and non-GM
products in African countries.
• Active involvement of some European-based or
European-influenced NGOs, operating in the area of
agriculture and consumer rights, often presenting
an anti-GMO view, has led to public confusion and
controversy at the political level.
Despite the problems, there was continuing
enthusiasm by African countries to work with EU
institutions and Member States in partnership to
derive mutual benefit.
3.3.3 How might the EU help African countries in
the future?
Various recommendations were made and there was
agreement about the importance of EASAC bringing
these issues to the attention of the EU policy-makers,
emphasising the potential for benefit to Europe as well
as Africa. Among the proposed priorities recommended
for EU institutions and Member States are the
following.
• Sharing expertise from lessons learnt to expand
the knowledge base for innovation and use, and to
monitor the impact of agricultural biotechnology.
• Sharing ways to engage with consumers and
smallholder farmers, to support improved
understanding of applications of biotechnology.
In this regard, Europe can learn from African
participatory experience in defining local needs and
opportunities.
• Helping to incorporate understanding of the issues
for benefit–risk assessment to progress options for
creating enabling regulation for resilient agriculture.
However, EU support for capacity strengthening to
build critical mass for innovation must acknowledge
sovereignty of African decisions for innovation, based
on local needs and opportunities. The EU cannot
prescribe solutions for others.
• Addressing misperceptions about GMOs by politicians
and the public in the EU to avoid exporting these
misperceptions to developing countries.
• Providing technical support and training in the tools
of biotechnology, including tissue culture, integrated
breeding, diagnostics, genomics and other ‘omics’
sciences, genetic engineering and stewardship of
GM products. Supporting collaborative R&D projects
to build the experience to address priorities within
local agronomic systems. It is vital that the locus of
these collaborations progressively moves from
EU universities and other research laboratories to
African ones.
There are also major opportunities for engagement
between the academies of science in the EU and
Africa. Workshop participants encouraged NASAC
and EASAC to continue to work together to share
good practice on what works in the science policy
dialogue. European academies of science were invited
to support academy colleagues in Africa in taking
forward their key roles (Table 3.2), informed by African
priorities and according to the fundamental principle
of strengthening African systems. This might include
support for an African inter-academies programme
on agricultural biotechnology (ASSAf, 2012) for
networking, training of scientists in the molecular
biosciences, monitoring global trends, informing
the public and policy-makers of advances in science
and technology, and interpreting the integrity and
implications of published research.
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