THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
GM Cotton’s Future in Africa on Shaky Ground
Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) insect-resistant (Bt) cotton is grown in South Africa and Burkina Faso. A recently published journal paper explains how within 10 years of its introduction, most growers had abandoned Bt cotton altogether in Makhathini, South Africa, and why Burkina Faso has begun a complete phase out of GM cotton, in spite of being Africa’s top cotton producer.
Burkina Faso’s conventional cotton traditionally had a stellar international reputation and commanded a premium price based on its high quality, namely, its high ginning ratio and long staple length. Both qualities have seriously declined with the GM cotton, seriously undermining the reputation and value of Burkinabè cotton on the international market and compromising the profits of Burkinabè cotton companies. The companies are reportedly demanding that Monsanto compensate them to the tune of USD 280 million for losses incurred due to declines in quality since 2010.
The Burkina Faso case points to the risks of unintended effects in GM crops, in this instance, the insertion of the Bt trait into the local variety appears to have interfered unexpectedly with some of its most important characteristics, affecting commercial value. Also the exclusive focus on pest mitigation contrasts sharply with the Francophone West African breeding programmes, which have spent decades successfully integrating a broad spectrum of adaptability (to local growing conditions) and fibre quality characteristics. While yields were high, the experience of Burkina Faso demonstrate that focus on yield is not the defining factor of a crop’s success.
One possible implication of this phase out is that other Francophone African countries may be reluctant to adopt Bt cotton given the risks to their own highly valued reputations. It may also discourage other African countries that are considering the adoption of Bt cotton in the next few years. According to the paper, a key determinant will be the extent to which African governments and citizens are reassured that the transplantation of GM traits into their own cultivars will leave their most valued characteristics unchanged.
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Item 1
BRIEFING: BURKINA FASO’S REVERSAL ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED COTTON AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR AFRICA
Brian Dowd-Uribe and Matthew A. Schnurr
African Affairs
http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/01/04/afraf.adv063.extract
[EXCERPTS ONLY]
Introduction
CAN GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) CROPS help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa? To date, only two GM crops – insect-resistant forms of cotton and maize – have made it into the hands of African farmers. Of these, GM cotton has the longest empirical track record, having been the first GM crop ever introduced in Africa, and the only one that has been grown in multiple countries – first South Africa, then Burkina Faso. The performance of this crop has received intense scrutiny, as it offers the best indication of how the suite of other GM crops slated for commercial approval may perform across the continent.
This briefing reviews the experiences of South African farmers with GM cotton, which has emerged as the crucial precedent highlighting the value of GM crops for poor farmers. It then turns to the case of Burkina Faso, which became the showcase for how GM crops can benefit smallholder African farmers. However, as shown here, Burkina Faso has begun a complete phase out of GM cotton, citing the inferior lint quality of the GM cultivars as the reason for abandoning its cultivation. Burkina Faso’s phase-out could stall or even end negotiations to adopt GM cotton in other Francophone African countries with similar concerns over cotton quality. More generally, Burkina Faso’s reversal could undermine public trust in GM crops across the continent at a time when many African countries are grappling with the politicized and polarized debate over whether to adopt these new breeding technologies.
We argue that the retreat of Burkina Faso, one of the most prominent and vocal supporters of GM crops on the continent, could have significant implications for the future of GM crops in Africa.
….
Implications for GM crop adoption across Africa
The story of Bt cotton in Burkina Faso raises important questions about the commercial production and dissemination of GM crops in Africa. The first concerns the narrow scope of the GM insect-resistance breeding programme. Bt cotton was originally bred in the United States with the sole aim of conferring the Bt trait into a cultivar that would express the toxin consistently. This exclusive focus on pest mitigation contrasts sharply with the Francophone West African breeding programmes, which spent decades integrating a broad spectrum of adaptability to growing conditions alongside multiple characteristics of fibre quality. The Burkinabè cotton industry astutely tried to remedy the undesirable characteristics of the American cultivar by backcrossing it into its own cultivars. But quality suffered. This failed breeding programme calls into question the potential for combining GM technology and local cotton cultivars to produce new technologies that offer desired performance across multiple criteria, as well as focusing on the GM trait rather than the suite of characteristics of the germplasm into which it is conferred.
The second question concerns the role private ownership played in Bt cotton’s decline in Burkina Faso. Three generations of backcrossing were undertaken, which is standard practice in the United States where quality issues are much less pronounced given the heavy reliance on mechanized pickers. But in Burkina Faso, where quality concerns are paramount, some breeders advise a minimum of five generations of backcrossing to ensure the carry-over of the desired beneficial traits. As a result, the desire for stability and quality clashed with the desire to get to market, as each backcrossed generation takes a year of careful breeding and selection. Monsanto officials acknowledged that they ‘wanted to go faster’, and were confident that three generations of backcrossing were sufficient to maintain these quality characteristics. The process of introgression is complex and time consuming, and potential conflicts can emerge when the priorities of private patent holders clash with those of other actors.
A third set of questions revolves around the nature of Burkina Faso’s pull-back from Bt cotton. In Burkina Faso, the decision to phase out Bt cotton was made by the cotton companies, not cotton farmers. Burkinabè cotton companies were frustrated by the declining profits associated with the poorer lint quality of Bt cultivars. The position of the cotton companies contrasts with most of the farmers we have spoken to over the past few years, who tended to be enthusiastic adopters of Bt. Both farmers and cotton companies benefit from a vibrant and profitable cotton sector; the cotton price paid to farmers is ultimately a function of the price at which the cotton company sells it on the world market. In this particular case, though, the interests of the companies and the farmers diverged: the higher yield of Bt cotton meant more income for farmers while the lower ginning ratio and shorter staple length meant less fibre, and of a lower quality, for cotton companies to sell. The case of Bt cotton in Burkina Faso exposes the conflicting interests within the cotton value chain, underlining how GM crops can produce different outcomes for different stakeholders.
It remains to be seen how the news of the phase-out in Burkina Faso will influence the positions taken by other African countries in their deliberations over whether to adopt Bt cotton. Unless these quality characteristics are fixed, other Francophone African countries such as Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Benin are unlikely to adopt Bt cotton given the implications for their own highly valued reputations. By contrast, some Anglophone African countries, whose ginning ratios and staple lengths do not achieve the heights of their Francophone African counterparts, might be less concerned, and move forward with adoption regardless of this latest controversy.
Perhaps a more enduring legacy of the Burkina Faso case will be its effect on the polarized debate over GM crops across Africa. As occurred with the example of Makhathini, the representation of Burkina Faso’s experiences with Bt cotton may end up straying far from the reality. Actors on both sides of this debate will work hard to shape the narrative that emerges. GM crop opponents are likely to use this case to raise questions about public trust: will GM crops perform as intended or will they have unknown impacts and risks? Can the institutions charged with the creation and regulation of GM crops be trusted to ensure the proper development and regulation of these crops? On the other side, supporters are likely to stress the yield and profit gains achieved in Burkina Faso, asserting that concerns with germplasm expression are isolated to this particular case and do not signal a broader issue with GM crops in general.
A number of African countries – including Uganda, Kenya, and Ghana – are poised to make decisions about whether to adopt Bt cotton in the next few years. The version of Burkina Faso’s experience with Bt cotton that filters down to key decision makers will play an important role in deciding whether these countries move forward with this technology. A key determinant in these debates will be the extent to which African governments and citizens are reassured that the transplantation of GM traits into their own cultivars will leave their most valued characteristics unchanged.
Item 2
BURKINA FASO ABANDONS GM BT COTTON
Claire Robinson
GM Watch
www.gmwatch.org/2016…/16677-burkina-faso-abandons-gm-bt-cotton
In a move that could help decide the future of GM crops in Africa, Burkina Faso has abandoned GM Bt cotton. The country has begun a complete phaseout of the crop, citing the inferior lint quality of GM cultivars.
This story of a major GMO failure is documented in a new briefing by Brian Dowd-Uribe, Assistant Professor in the International Studies Department at the University of San Francisco and Matthew A. Schnurr, Associate Professor in the Department of International Development Studies at Dalhousie University. The briefing appears in the journal African Affairs, which is published by Oxford University Press.
The briefing traces the rapid decline of Burkina Faso’s cotton crop following the introduction of GM Bt cotton. At the time, Burkinabè cotton was renowned for its high quality, the product of a highly successful non-GM breeding programme founded by the French government and spanning 70 years.
The main goal of the breeding programme was to create cultivars that were well adapted to the growing conditions in West Africa and had the desired quality characteristics, such as a high ginning ratio (the percentage of the desired cotton fibre per unit weight of cotton delivered to the factory) and long staple length.
GM Bt cotton adoption prompts decline in quality
When Burkina Faso first grew GM Bt cotton in field trials, officials were initially satisfied with the quality of the cotton, the briefing states. The quality characteristics for which Burkinabè cotton was famous were maintained.
GM Bt cotton was commercialised in Burkina Faso in 2009. But during the first years of commercial release, Burkinabè officials noticed declines in staple lengths and ginning ratios. Monsanto employees blamed water stress and other weather problems. However, the quality problems persisted and by the 2013/14 season over two-thirds of the nation’s crop was classified as lower-quality medium staple length, with only a third retaining its previous classification as medium to high staple length. The ginning ratio remains well below the 42% achieved by non-GMO cultivars.
The authors of the new paper conclude that the decline in staple length “has undermined the reputation of Burkinabè cotton and cut into its value on the international market. When coupled with the decline in overall lint due to the lower ginning ratio, the inferior quality characteristics of the Bt cultivars have compromised the economic position of Burkinabè cotton companies.”
The experience of Burkina Faso makes clear that focus on yield is not the defining factor of a crop’s success. The yield in Burkina Faso was high – in the most recent growing season, it produced over 700,000 MT of cotton, while neighbouring Mali produced only 500,000 MT. Yet within a few months Mali’s entire product had been sold on the international market, while most of Burkina Faso’s languished awaiting export. One high-ranking official lamented, “What is the point in being the top producer if you can’t even sell your cotton?”
Unexpected effects of the GM transformation
The story of the decline of Burkina Faso’s cotton points to a problem with the GM process in general – that of pleiotropic effects, which means that the inserted GM gene influences other seemingly unrelated genes.
In theory, as the new briefing notes, inserting the Bt gene into the Burkinabè germplasm should have left the resulting GM crop identical to its parent in every way except for the inserted trait conferring insect resistance. But in reality, the process of inserting the Bt trait into the local variety appears to have interfered with some of its most important characteristics. Monsanto scientists “are at a loss to explain the precise mechanism that has created these problems”.
Cotton companies lose patience with Monsanto
Monsanto is still trying to reach a solution to the problem, including backcrossing its Bt varieties into a new local cultivar. Meanwhile Burkina Faso’s cotton companies have lost patience and have taken matters into their own hands. Dowd-Uribe and Schnurr explain in their briefing: “Frustrated with Monsanto’s inability to identify and correct these declines in quality, the companies set a timeline for abandoning Bt cotton and returning to conventional Burkinabè cultivars.”
The companies plan on reducing the amount of Bt cottonseed on the market from 53% in 2015/16 to 30% in the 2016/17 growing season, with the goal of a complete return to non-GM cotton in time for the 2017/18 season. They are also demanding USD 280 million from Monsanto in compensation for losses incurred due to declines in quality since 2010.
Will Africa turn its back on GM?
Dowd-Uribe and Schnurr conclude that Burkina Faso’s phase-out could stall or even end negotiations to adopt GM cotton in other African countries with similar concerns over cotton quality.
They go further, adding that the reversal on GM cotton could undermine public trust in GM crops in general across the continent, at a time when many African countries are grappling with the choice of whether to adopt the technology.