Does Africa Need Political Will to Overcome Impediments to GM Crop Biotechnology Applications for Agricultural Economic Growth and Development, as in the Case of Brazil, Argentina, and India?

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a chronically food-insecure region, exacerbated by increasing population and the resulting decline in the size of arable land holdings, declining soil fertility, intractable pests and diseases, climate change phenomena (drought and floods), social conflicts, and the lack of a generally enabling policy environment for agriculture.

Modern biotechnology breakthroughs can be harnessed to address many of the intractable biotic (pests and diseases) and abiotic stresses (soil fertility declines) of modern agriculture.

Genetically modified (GM) crop production has seen a phenomenal 94-fold increase from 1.7 M ha in 1996 to 160 M ha in 2011. In 2011, Brazil (30.3 M ha), Argentina (23.7 M ha), and India (10.6 M ha), in that order, are the largest GM crop-producing countries next to USA (69.0 M ha) in the world. These countries have reaped immense financial and environmental benefits from the adoption of GM technologies in their agriculture.

This paper examines the status of GM product deployment and its impact on the economies of these countries, and in Burkina Faso, Egypt, and South Africa. The nature of political will demonstrated by these countries could serve as lessons for African countries, and spur the development and application of modern biotechnology in their agriculture on a need basis.