» WELCOME
» AN INTRODUCTION
» PROFILES
» LM WATCH
» CONTACT
» LOBBYWATCH LINKS
»


Pioneer modifies sorghum to boost GM in Africa (6/1/2008)

1.Pioneer modifies sorghum to boost nutrition in Africa
2.GM-for-Africa project homegrown in Des Moines, Iowa

NOTE: This article contains the suggestion that 'anti-biotechnology groups are trying to influence African governments' over issues like the GM sorghum project targeted at South Africa. According to one of those behind this project, 'Europeans are foisting such views on Africans'.

The only 'anti-biotechnology group' the article specifically refers to is an 'organization called GM Watch, which grew out of a news and research service in the United Kingdom'. It makes absolutely no reference to the groups and campaigns within South Africa that have led the resistance to this project - those like the Africa Centre for Biosafety, Biowatch South Africa, SAFeAGE - the South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering, Earthlife Africa or GM-free Africa.

By contrast, even though Pioneer is the key player behind the GM sorghum project, we're told that it is an 'African - Florence Wambugu - who proposed the sorghum partnership with Pioneer, a unit of DuPont.' No mention of the fact that Wambugu - quite apart from her longstanding relationship with Dupont - was trained by Monsanto and has been accurately dubbed 'Monsanto's apostle in Africa.'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

As with Wambugu's GM sweet potato project for Monsanto, the project's backers understand the importance of training up African scientists to stand in the foreground to brand such projects as 'African'. And Wambugu has even stood centre stage in South Africa and described the project without any reference at all to its main (corporate) backer (see item 2).

For more on what's really happening in Africa
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8582

---

---

1.Pioneer modifies sorghum to boost nutrition in Africa By JERRY PERKINS, REGISTER FARM EDITOR Des Moines Register, January 6 2008 http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080106/BUSINESS01/801060308/1001/NEWS

Researchers at Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. are helping develop transgenic sorghum that will be more nutritious for the 300 million Africans who eat the grain as a staple in their diets.

Genetic modification of crops is controversial in Africa, where some say the technology is unsuited for developing countries and potentially dangerous.

But the payoff, project sponsors say, will be better nutrition and improved health for many poor, subsistent African farmers and their families who grow sorghum in small food plots.

Pioneer is building better sorghum as part of the Africa Biofortified Sorghum Project, a nine-member consortium that won a five-year, $18.6 million grant, one of four funded by the Gates Foundation.

The project has developed its second generation of transgenic sorghum seeds, known as 'ABS#2.' The second-generation transgenic sorghum plants have more essential amino acids that are easily digestible, especially lysine, and more of vitamins A and E, along with more available iron and zinc.

Pioneer also is training African scientists from South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Kenya Agricultural Institute to work on the project in Johnston and back home in Africa.

Two of the African scientists - Kenneth Mburu of Kenya and Getu Beyene, an Ethiopia native working in South Africa - are now working on the project at Pioneer's laboratories in Johnston. Three African scientists preceded them.

Paul Anderson, research director for grain end-use improvement at Pioneer and the project's principal investigator, said the breakthrough in the second-generation sorghum was made possible by biotechnology, which uses technologies such as gene splicing to transfer traits from one plant to another.

'There is no way this could be done by (conventional) plant breeding alone,' said Anderson.

Using Pioneer's biotechnology techniques, genes that boosted protein quality and digestibility and mineral availability were transferred to sorghum, Anderson said.

'They all seem to work as expected,' he said. 'This is a great success within a very short period of time.'

Because the project involves a genetically modified plant, it is controversial in Africa.

An organization called GM Watch, which grew out of a news and research service in the United Kingdom, says it opposes biotechnology because corporations are using biotechnology and genetically modified plants to take advantage of poor farmers in developing countries.

Other organizations say biotechnology threatens Africa's biodiversity, traditional food crops, production systems and native cultures.

Anderson says Europeans are foisting such views on Africans.

In fact, Anderson said, it was an African - Florence Wambugu - who proposed the sorghum partnership with Pioneer, a unit of DuPont.

'This is a very heavily African-influenced project,' Anderson said. 'It was designed by Africans, in Africa, for Africa.'

Wambugu was a member of the DuPont Biotech Advisory Panel and visited Pioneer's Johnston headquarters about six years ago, when Anderson told her about Pioneer's sorghum research.

When the call for proposals came from the Gates Foundation, Wambugu remembered Pioneer's work and suggested to Anderson that they seek a grant.

Anderson went to Pioneer's president, Paul Schickler, who was then vice president of international operations.

'He said I could do it if I had the time. At the time, I wondered,' Anderson recalled. 'It meant a lot of 4 a.m. phone calls to Nairobi, Kenya, setting up the proposal over a year and a half. I've spent a lot of personal time on the project, probably 200 hours.'

Pioneer has donated about $5 million in patented sorghum genetics, seeds and know-how to the project, Anderson said.

Pioneer's Anderson said the consortium is working with other African countries that are interested in growing the modified sorghum. He declined to say which countries are interested because he doesn't want to tip off opposition groups.

Opposition in Africa to genetically modified crops like ABS#2 has made it more difficult to secure permits needed to test genetically modified sorghum.

Anderson said that the South African regulatory body that governs experimental crop trials rejected an application for greenhouse tests of the genetically modified sorghum. The consortium has appealed the rejection.

Field tests of the genetically modif

Go to a Print friendly Page


Email this Article to a Friend


Back to the Archive