Over the past few years, the ACB has produced and shared several briefing papers concerning new genetic engineering technologies for food and agriculture. Building on this work, and in light of the major deregulation push globally concerning genome editing, including in several countries in Africa, we have produced two updated factsheets on this dangerous distraction from real agricultural and food systems solutions for Africa.
The first factsheet, New genetic engineering technologies in food and agriculture in Africa: Hype and realities of genome editing, unpacks the hype and realities of genome editing, including why we cannot call it plant breeding, and brings into sharp relief the need in Africa for a counterbalance to this patent-heavy technology, driven by the biotech industry, by way of public sector-driven plant breeding in the public interest.
Africa urgently needs an approach that responds to the needs of Africa and Africans, including the dynamism and importance of smallholder seed systems in maintaining agricultural biodiversity, sustaining food supply and sovereignty, and responding to climate change. We are particularly alarmed by the call for African governments to actively financially support genome editing research and commit to engaging in public-private partnerships and co-finance genome editing projects. This includes a push for African governments to provide tax incentives and enable regulatory frameworks to attract venture capital investments into genome editing startups.
In the second factsheet, Deregulation of genome editing and products must be overturned in Africa – why stringent regulation is imperative, we provide cogent arguments, built around the ethos of, inter alia, transparency, accountability, and social justice, on why regulation is imperative, especially in the light of the synchronised push to deregulate gene editing in Africa. Already, four African countries – Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, and Ghana – have adopted guidelines that exclude both the application of genome editing techniques, and the resultant genetically modified organism (GMO) and products, from regulation, unless detectable foreign DNA is present in the final product. Eswatini and Burkina Faso are also said to be following suit.
It is becoming increasingly urgent to push back strongly against this onslaught. African civil society must continue in its valiant efforts to strongly advocate for crop diversity and the re-establishment of local autonomy and practices, and systems that foster the ongoing evolution of agricultural diversity as integral parts of a just transition in food and agriculture on the continent.