Drought-resistant maize trials to start soon in South Africa
Check Biotech
By Hans Pienaar
October 22, 2007
Trials for a new drought-resistant gene to be used in genetically modified crops will start next month in various locations in South Africa, according to seed producers Monsanto. The news comes as Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk warned in parliament that climate change would lead to a 20 percent reduction in the maize crop over the next 25 years.
Kobus Steenkamp, biotechnology manager of Monsanto in South Africa, said during a visit arranged for the media to Monsanto's experimental farm near Malelane in Mpumalangaa that the company had been granted permission to locally start testing the "drought-gene" developed in United States laboratories.
According to Monsanto's calculations, 30 percent of maize in SA is at risk of failing because of drought - by far the most important factor in crop failures.
The "drought tolerance product" causes maize plants to make more efficient use of the water they get, as well as to "tolerate" the absence of water.
At first, the gene will be bred into maize lines, but drought-tolerant soybeans and cotton are expected to be on the market "early in the next decade".
Proud Monsanto managers said over 55 percent of all maize planted for the next harvest will be genetically modified (GM). Their projections show that this will soon shoot up to 75 percent.
"This is the single technology that is reshaping agriculture and industry and revolutionising medicine," said a press release.
Steenkamp rejected claims that GM foods were harmful to human health.
"I have been eating GM 'mieliepap' for years, and there is nothing wrong with me," he said.
Hundreds of millions of consumers in the United States have so far not reported a single side effect from eating GM foods.
He also dismissed claims that Monsanto's gene manipulations would create "Frankenfood" by transplanting genes from one species to another, saying that Monsanto's ethical code prohibited this.
He pointed out that gene manipulations do not add any foreign materials to foods, since they work with the same amino acids that human stomachs break down during metabolysis - no new amino acids ones are added to the food chain. Neither are any new allergens added, which might be the case with products flown in from different areas.
Future products that might be introduced into SA agriculture include "omega-3 soybeans", which would bring the heart-healthy fatty acid, common to fish like salmon, into consumer diets.
"As the global climate changes, the need for rapid adaptation of our current cultivated crops will become increasingly important," the press release said.
In the past two years Monsanto's market share has skyrocketed, on top of its introduction of RoundupReady herbicides. The seeds and herbicides are sold to farmers in a marketing operation that has recently been integrated.
RoundupReady kills all plant life in a field sprayed by hand from a backpack.
Monsanto maize seeds with a gene that resists the herbicide are then planted. The company markets the combination of chemical and seed as drastically reducing labour costs for weeding and the use of pesticides.
Some environmental activists claim RoundupReady is toxic.
But Steenkamp said GM maize, which also includes hybrids that resist worms and insects, obviates the use of pesticides that are sometimes sprayed on to homes in the vicinity of traditional fields.
Dave Kleyn of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, of which Monsanto is a sponsor, agreed, and said his organisation would soon start with with assessments of reduced usage of pesticides on farms near Winterton, KwaZulu Natal.
Monsanto is also intimately involved in a project to help emerging farmers learn to farm. The RoundupReady and GM maize combination is well suited to new farmers who cannot afford the labour to weed fields or the pesticides for traditional crops.
Background information
More than half of all maize sold to South African consumers is the product of genetic engineering, according to new statistics released by Monsanto.
GM foods have become controversial for their alleged harmful effects on human health.
GM maize has been produced for 12 years already in South Africa, and GM patents have been passed by European Union bodies, where consumer resistance to GM foods is the greatest, Steenkamp added.
Bright Breytenbach, Monsanto's maize and sunflower manager in SA, said that 55 percent of all new seeds sold to farmers for the next season had been genetically modified.
He said it was impossible for consumers to distinguish between GM maize and non-GM maize, since grain silos are no longer able to store them separately. In addition, cross-pollination from GM fields to non-GM fields occurs regularly.
"If you buy a bag of maize meal at a supermarket, you can be assured that more than half of it will have been genetically modified," he added.
The GM seeds are prepared in US laboratories and brought to Malelane, where they are introduced to hybrid lines of maize in a process that takes at least two years. They are then given to "pivot farmers", who breed more seeds that are then taken to a dryer plant near Lichtenburg.
Monsanto has invested R120-million in upgrading the plant.
Source: Check Biotech
