| text : | Taken from New Scientist Interview 27/May/2000
NS = Newscientist, Fw = F. Wambugu.
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Introduction : If you live in Europe or the US, GM food might
sound like a luxury. Bur for people in poor countries
, it's the differernce between square meal
and starvation, according to Florence Wambugu, of the
Africa' leading plant geneticists. Would you expect
anything else from someone who's been on the payroll
of Monsanto? Perhaps not. Yet Wambugu is no puppet
of agribusiness. She's the daughter of a subsistence
farmer from kenya who went into agricultural research to
help farmers like her mother. "A hugry person is not a
myth" She told New Scientist. "It's a person I know."NS: Campaingners against GM good partray you as a apostle
of Monsanto in Africa. Are you? FW: Some people say I am fighting for the company. But
I say I am a stakeholder in this technology. It's twenty
years of my life. I believe in the benefits it has for
our people. So I fight for the credibility of the technology.
NS How can GM technology benefit the poor when it's an alien
,expensive technology controlled by rich countries and large
multinationals?
FW : GM may be better for Africa than older technologies, like
those of the Green revolution. In fact the Green Revolution
which failed in Africa, was alien because it came from the west.
Africa's farmers had to be educated in the use of fertilisers,
for example. But transgenic crops can get round that because of
the technology-to control insects,for instance- is packaged in
the seed. GM also means higher yields. Right now maize yield in
Africa is 1.7 tonnes per hectare; the global average is 4. But
if you insert the BT Gene as a genetic insecticide, 20 per cent
of that shortfall comes back. I'm not saying that transgenics alone
will solve all the problems. But it will lead to millions of tonnes
more gain. |