Modifying Africa

‘A book that will change minds. Biotechnologists have been their own worst enemies when it comes to public relations. The little press coverage biotechnology has had in Africa has been mainly from a “Green” or European perspective. Florence Wambugu articulates a refreshingly different vision, one that sweeps away the misconceptions that surround this much-maligned science to reveal its true value. She has done a magnificent job for Kenya and for Africa.’ – Daniel Kamanga, former Associate Business Editor, Nation Marketing and Publishing, Kenya

Modifying Africa

‘For all concerned with rural development, there are tremendous lessons in this book. Florence Wambugu argues clearly and compellingly for biotechnology as a means of benefiting Africa’s poor and hungry.

As a prominent scientist who began her life on a small farm in Kenya, she is uniquely qualified to do so.

Florence is no ordinary combatant in the biotechnology arena but someone who has experienced deprivation personally. Her commitment to the search for solutions is absolute—and a shining example to those who masquerade as representatives for Africa but lack a grasp of the real issues. Isn’t it time Africa had a few more like her?’ – Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute

Modifying Africa How biotechnology can benefit the poor and hungry, a case study from Kenya

Florence Wambugu

Florence Wambugu

About the author A passionate believer in the power of biotechnology to boost food production in Africa, Florence Wambugu was born one of nine brothers and sisters on a small farm in Kenya’s highlands, where her family faced a constant struggle to grow enough to eat. Her childhood memories of going hungry have nurtured a lifelong commitment to making agricultural science work to improve the lives of the poor.

Florence owes her career as a scientist to the wisdom of her mother, who sold the family’s cow to raise the cash to send her away to secondary school—a far-sighted action in those days, when women were considered unworthy of education. From school, Florence gained a place at the University of Nairobi, where she read zoology and botany. On leaving university she got a job at the Muguga research station of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). Here she came into contact with scientists from the Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), who gave her an opportunity to work on the crop she remembers as the mainstay of her mother’s farm, sweetpotato. During this period she also learned about tissue culture and became interested in its potential to improve the supply of high-quality planting materials to farmers.

In 1982, Florence went to North Dakota State University in the USA, where she took a 2-year master’s degree in plant pathology, specializing in the control of potato viruses. Throughout the 1980s she continued her work with KARI and CIP, forming strong professional ties at home in Kenya while broadening her knowledge through trips abroad. Between 1988 and 1991 she conducted thesis research on sweetpotato diseases in a joint PhD programme between the University of Bath, UK and KARI. The field research for this degree brought her once again into close contact with Kenyan farming communities, where she learned that a complex of viruses, including the feathery mottle virus, was devastating farmers’ yields. Conventional breeding research had proved powerless to develop varieties resistant to these viruses.

Providentially, Florence was soon provided with an opportunity to do something to break the impasse. Under a scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), she became the first African scientist to take up a fellowship in biotechnology at Monsanto’s Life Sciences Research Centre, in Missouri, USA. Here she worked with Kenyan colleagues and Monsanto counterparts to develop Kenya’s first ever genetically modified sweetpotato plants, which carry the gene for resistance to feathery mottle virus. The plants are now being field tested in Kenya.

In 1994 Florence returned to Kenya to take up the post of Director of the Afri Center of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications (ISAAA). A prominent scientist in her own home country and region, Florence has also become well known internationally for her expertise and advocacy in the field of biotechnology.

She has combined her career with a family life, raising three children at her home in Nairobi. Her belief in the value of science is balanced by an equally strong faith in the power of God to guide all human endeavour.

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Credits Text written by: Simon Chater/Green Ink Ltd, UK Design and layout by: Christel Blank/Green Ink Ltd, UK Photographs by: Trygve Bolstad/Panos Pictures: p. 67; Simon Chater: p. 2 above, p. 3, p. 5, p. 6, p. 7, p. 8 above and below, p. 9, p. 10, p. 16, p. 22, p. 23, p. 27 below, p. 31, p. 34, p. 37, p. 39, p. 40, p. 41, p. 42, p. 43, p. 44, p. 45, p. 46, p. 48 below, p. 53, p. 59, back cover; Crispin Hughes/Panos Pictures: p. 68; ISAAA-KARI photolibrary: front cover, p. 2 below, p. 4, p. 15, p. 25, p. 26, p. 27 above, p. 30, p. 32, p. 33, p. 48 above, p. 49, p. 51, p. 66; Francis Shikhubari: p. 19, p. 20, p. 21, p. 50, p. 55, p. 56, p. 60 above and below, p. 62, p. 64 above and below, p. 70; Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures: p. 11, p. 13, p. 63, p. 65 Printed by: Pragati Offset Pvt.Ltd., India (www.pragati.com) in collaboration with Sue Hainsworth

Modifying Africa How biotechnology can benefit the poor and hungry, a case study from Kenya

Florence M. Wambugu

Š Copyright Florence M. Wambugu 2001 All rights reserved. The author encourages fair use of this material, provided proper citation is made. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission from the publisher.

First published 2001 by: Florence Muringi Wambugu

Correct citation: Wambugu, F. M. 2001. Modifying Africa: how biotechnology can benefit the poor and hungry, a case study from Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya.

ISBN 9966-879-38-2

The opinions expressed in this book, the spellings of proper names and the representations of territorial boundaries are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent those of any institution.

For copies of this book and permission to use material in it write to: Florence Muringi Wambugu P.O.Box 25556 Nairobi Kenya email: fwambugu@modifyingafrica.com or visit this website: http://www.modifyingafrica.com

Part of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the farmers’ micro-credit fund described on pages 27-31.

Dedication To my mother, Elizabeth Wangui Kanduthu, for her loving kindness and guidance, without which I could not have become a scientist

Acknowledgements Many people have contributed to this book. They range from close friends and colleagues to acquaintances with whom I have had no more than passing contact. I cannot mention everyone by name here, but that omission should not imply my lack of gratitude for their support.

First, a big thank you to my three children, Marybeth, James and Benson, who have been a source of encouragement, inspiration, ideas, love and friendship, and also to my dear family friend, Pamela Bryant, for her prayers and moral support. Without these people, this book could not have been written.

Next, let me pay special tribute to the many small-scale farmers I and others have interviewed over the years.

Their views on biotechnology, which they shared freely with us, are reflected in this book, sometimes verbatim.

I would also like to express my warm thanks to all colleagues at our collaborating institutions, particularly the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (KARI). Many of KARI’s researchers have worked tirelessly among and for resource-poor farmers over many years. Their testimony is based on empirical evidence gathered throughout that time. Special thanks are due to Drs Cyrus Ndiritu, John Wafula and Romano Kiome, who made invaluable contributions by reading the first draft and making suggestions that have enriched the final product. Dr Romano Kiome, KARI’s Director, kindly agreed to write the Foreword.

My colleagues at the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications (ISAAA) Afri Center deserve special mention for their dedication in facilitating projects that have provided compelling evidence of the potential of biotechnology to improve the lives of resource-poor farmers. Their painstaking efforts have brought to fruition several of the exciting projects featured in this book. The tissue culture banana project, in particular, enjoyed special distinction in 2000, when it was awarded the coveted first place in the Medal Prize Award by the Global Development Network (GDN), in recognition of its outstanding contributions to research and development. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the ISAAA Board, which gave me the confidence to pursue the idea of this book.

I am very grateful to Daniel Kamanga for reviewing the first draft. This was a considerable task, undertaken with dedication and insight. My thanks also go to Gavin Manning, who designed the book’s website; to Clare Robinson, who gave useful comments on Chapter 1; to Francis Shikhubari, who took many of the photographs; and to Sue Hainsworth and colleagues at Pragati, in Hyderabad, India, who gave this book its high-quality finish. I also want to note the outstanding contribution of Simon Chater, my writer/editor, and of Christel Blank and other colleagues at Green Ink, who designed, laid out and proofread the book. A vote of special thanks and appreciation goes to friends who have contributed financially towards the costs of publication.

Statements in the margins of this book are by Florence Wambugu if not otherwise attributed.

Contents Foreword

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1.

New Weapons in the War on Poverty and Hunger

2.

A National Commitment

15

3.

The Power of Tissue Culture

22

4.

The Potential of Genetic Markers and Genetic Modification

45

5.

Biosafety and Food Safety

55

6.

From Confrontation to Collaboration

61

7.

Lessons for Africa

67

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Sources

73

Acronyms

75

Captions to Photographs

76

‘All public and private parties concerned must openly debate the application of food biotechnology and its consequences in society.’

— Jasper E. Van Zanten, Vice-Chair, ISAAA Board of Directors

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Foreword Every Kenyan schoolchild knows the story. When the railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi was being laid in the early 1900s, the Chief of the Maasai, whose land the line crossed, declared war on the British. According to the Chief, the white man had brought a giant snake to the land of his fathers, spelling doomsday for its people.

People often reject new technology at first because they fear the unknown. But once this fear has been dispelled, their attitudes change. Those same Maasai tribesmen who had taken up arms when the railway first came, were, a few years later, buying their tickets and boarding the train. They may still not have understood exactly how the steam engine worked—but work it did, effortlessly connecting them with distant family and friends, with the markets where they bought and sold, with the big city where they sought employment. In short, they accepted the technology once they realized it could improve their lives.

What can those introducing new technology do to ease its passage towards acceptance? They can, and should, explain it to its future users. That is, explain not merely how it works but what it is for and how it can benefit them, in addition to any drawbacks or risks it carries. That is the purpose of this book, which tells the story of Kenya’s growing use of modern biotechnology to solve the problems that beset its agriculture.

We believe that agribiotechnology can bring immense benefits to Kenya, as to other African countries.

It can help us increase the production of food and other commodities, lowering their prices to consumers while raising the incomes of poor farmers. It can create jobs and stimulate overall economic development. And it can protect the environment and conserve biodiversity.

To date these benefits have gone largely unsung in our country. We agricultural researchers have no doubt about them, because our research has clearly demonstrated them, not only to us but also to the farmers and others with whom we work directly. But we have failed to get our message across to the broader public, who are stakeholders in our research even though they are not directly involved in it. Instead we have left the floor to other speakers, some of whom question or dispute the contribution biotechnology can make. Recently, public uncertainty about biotechnology has deepened in response to negative publicity from Europe, where a campaign of disinformation by environmental pressure groups has led to a consumer backlash against genetically modified foods.

The Europeans who reject biotechnology do so on full stomachs. In contrast, recent surveys in Kenya have shown that malnutrition is still widespread in our country, especially among women and children. A few in Kenya argue that traditional technologies can cope with the demand for food and that our farmers know best.

But that is not what the farmers themselves say. They tell us they need all the help they can get in combating the continuous onslaught of drought, pests and diseases on their crops and livestock. Our scientists are doing their best to provide them with this help, reaching out to embrace biotechnology wherever this seems likely to shed new light or to offer a way forward.

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Kenya’s investment in biotechnology research is thus not some optional extra but a vital contribution to the country’s future. That is why one of our leading scientists, Florence Wambugu, has decided to speak out in its favour. I believe her book, which introduces some of our research, will convince you of its value and of the need to continue and build on it. I also believe that Florence’s account of Kenya’s experiences will be useful to other African countries setting out to tap the potential of biotechnology to combat the poverty and hunger that continue to afflict our continent.

Dr. Romano M. Kiome Director, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Nairobi, April 2001

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New Weapons in the War on Poverty and Hunger Let me begin by answering two basic questions: what is biotechnology and why should it matter to us? Then I’ll deal with some common misperceptions that cloud the debate about biotechnology.

What is biotechnology?

Broadly defined, biotechnology is the manipulation of living organisms to produce goods and services useful to human beings. Its two major fields of application are human health and agroindustry. In human health, biotechnology helps to develop and produce medicines, vaccines and diagnostic kits, as well as to understand the causes of disease. In agroindustry, it is used in the production and processing of crops and livestock to make food and other useful commodities.

Agro-industrial biotechnology is a continuum that ranges from the traditional practices and products developed by farmers and their families for use on the farm or in the homestead to modern methods and technologies developed by scientists, which may be applied in the laboratory, in farmers’ fields or in factories.

Saying where the traditional stops and the modern begins is difficult, since industrial or laboratory-based applications are often merely extensions or scaled-up versions of those developed by rural people. Examples are brewing beer or wine, breadmaking and cheesemaking, which rely on the same

natural fermentation processes triggered by micro-organisms whether they are done in the home or in the factory. It is modern, laboratory-based biotechnology that has attracted the concern of the Green movement and other critics, partly because it is seen as something that is the domain of specialists, who are removed from the everyday world in which biotechnology had its origins. This form of biotechnology is seen as ‘unnatural’, but in fact it relies on the same natural processes and products as all other biotechnology.

In this book I’ll deal with the laboratorybased agribiotechnology used to develop and disseminate new crop varieties. I will not discuss industrial applications, since these are already well accepted in our society (especially beer making!). Agribiotechnology is used in research on livestock as well as crops, but livestock applications are more complex and need not concern us for the time being.

In relation to crops, I’ll restrict the discussion to three broad groups of tools or processes that are absolutely basic: • Tissue culture • Genetic markers • Genetic modification.

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a plantlet. The plantlet is then transferred to a different medium, this time designed to encourage it to put down roots.

Rooting is followed by acclimatization— a process in which plantlets are taken out of the sterile, temperature-controlled conditions of the laboratory and gradually hardened, first in greenhouses and then outdoors, to the less predictable and generally less favourable conditions in which they must survive and grow in the field.

Tissue culture is a relatively simple and inexpensive set of techniques that allows whole plants to be propagated from minute amounts of plant tissue, even just a single cell of the plant. The starting tissue is removed under sterile conditions in the laboratory from parts of the plant known to be capable of regeneration into whole plants. It is placed in a growth medium, which is a mixture of sugars, hormones, vitamins and agar (a gelling agent, usually extracted from seaweed).

The precise ingredients and preparation methods for growth mediums vary for different plant species and varieties, but the result should be the same in all cases: the original piece of plant tissue sprouts a new shoot. Once the shoot is a few centimetres high and has put out lateral branches, it has become what we call 2

Provided they are supplied with enough nutrients and water, tissue-cultured plantlets are stronger and reach maturity earlier than ordinary plants. Having been raised under sterile conditions, they are also free of pests and likely to be free of most diseases (the exceptions are viral diseases present in the mother plant).

These advantages lead to higher and better quality yields from the mature plant.

The yield advantage is increased still further when the mother plants are of improved varieties developed by crop breeders. Besides having a yield advantage, tisssue-cultured plantlets are genetically identical to one another, giving greater

(though not absolute) certainty that they will perform in the same way when grown in the field. Because tissue culture can greatly speed up the multiplication of planting materials, it is a powerful means of disseminating improved varieties to farmers, especially in crop species with a low multiplication ratio, such as cassava, sweetpotato or banana. Tissue culture is also used to bulk up genetically identical raw material for other biotechnology processes, especially genetic modification.

Genetic markers are sequences of DNA that correlate with the presence of certain traits in a plant, animal or micro-organism.

They are a relatively sophisticated form of biotechnology, requiring expensive facilities and equipment and highly trained scientists.

Markers are identified through the use of ‘restriction’ enzymes that cut a strand of DNA whenever they ‘recognize’ a specific sequence of the base-pairs or nucleotides that are repeated along its length. The first generation of markers, which became available in the late 1970s, included random fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), which are relatively slow and cumbersome to use but helpful in determining the segments of chromosomes in which genes lie—in other words, their rough whereabouts. Polymerase chain reaction or PCR— a technique that reproduces the copying function that occurs in nature as cells allow the precise identification of individual divide—gave rise to a second generation genes. In the late-1990s, a third generation of more powerful and accurate markers of even more accurate markers, called DNA in the early 1990s, including random expression arrays, became available. These amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPDs), reveal whether or not a gene is expressed amplified fragment length polymorphism or ‘switched on’ at a given moment in the (AFLPs) and microsatellites. These markers development of an organism.

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‘Africa must use this opportunity.

We were bypassed by the Green Revolution.

We must not be bypassed by the biotech revolution.’

— Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, KARI

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Scientists use genetic markers as a direct aid in crop breeding—for example, to develop new maize varieties with resistance to drought, pests or diseases. Because markers can be detected by simple laboratory tests on young plantlets, it is no longer necessary to grow plants to maturity in the field to find out whether or not they possess a particular trait. Accurate markers for a gene or genes can thus greatly speed up the time it takes to develop a new variety. They come in particularly useful when a trait is determined by a recessive gene, the expression of which often skips a generation, making visual selection in the field prone to error. Scientists also use markers to analyse genetic variability or assess the relationships between populations or genepools. Their purpose in doing so might be to search for potentially useful materials in preparation for breeding work, such as resistance to a given stress, or to decide on conservation measures, for example, where to collect specimens representative of the diversity of a threatened tree or crop species. A third use of markers is in the mapping of genomes for specific traits. This is done by crossing a variety known to have the trait with one known not to have it and studying the expression of the trait in the progeny.

Genetic modification (GM), transformation or engineering—the three terms are synonymous—is a still more sophisticated and expensive set of techniques used to move a gene or genes from one organism to another, often between species. It has attracted more controversy than tissue culture or genetic markers, because moving

genes across the species barrier is seen as unnatural. Yet the GM technique most often applied makes use of the ability of a naturally occurring soil bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, that behaves in exactly the same way. Indeed, this bacterium is often called ‘Nature’s own genetic engineer’. A piece of the bacterium’s DNA, known as the tumourinducing or Ti-plasmid, is able to insert part of itself into the genome of other plants. When scientists use this technique, they attach the genes for the trait(s) they wish to transfer to a disabled form of the Ti-plasmid that can no longer cause tumours, then introduce the Ti-plasmid to the plant they are modifying. In other words, the genes hitch a ride with the Ti-plasmid as it enters the DNA of its new host. This technique works on most broad-leaved crops, which belong to a category of plants known as dicotyledons because they produce a pair of first leaves.

It is less successful on monocotyledonous

plants producing a single first leaf, which are not as susceptible to Agrobacterium.

For this category of plants, which includes most cereals and grasses, another technology, the particle or gene gun, has been developed. In this technique, the gene or genes to be transferred are coated on small particles of gold or tungsten and shot into the plant tissue of the variety to be modified. A third, less widely used, technique is to treat plant cells with various chemicals or by electroporation (the use of enzymes and electric shocks) to make them momentarily more porous and hence more able to absorb introduced DNA. GM applications begin where the techniques of conventional plant breeding are no longer enough by themselves—that is, whenever greater speed, accuracy or certainty of achieving results is required.

For example, a trait—say, resistance to drought in maize—may need to be moved across genetic ‘distances’ that are too great to allow a high success rate, or perhaps any success at all, using standard crossing techniques. This might be either between species that are wholly unrelated, or between a wild relative and a cultivated variety of a crop. Again, when plants are crossed conventionally, the genes of both parents are mixed together and more or less randomly recombined in the offspring, but some genes remain linked together, making it nearly impossible to separate the traits for which they are responsible.

In contrast, GM allows the more accurate transfer of just one or a few genes, thereby delivering desirable traits by themselves rather than in the company of other,

unwanted traits. This is a huge advantage, since it enables plant breeders to retain the gains made through thousands of years of breeding when they develop new varieties.

GM often permits the development of a new plant type that previously could not have been developed at all, or only with the greatest difficulty.

Scientists worldwide have now modified nearly 100 plant species experimentally.

In most countries, including Kenya, the results have been slow to reach farmers’ fields because of environmental and food safety concerns, which have led governments to introduce stringent regulatory procedures. However, a handful of countries, namely Argentina, Canada, China and the USA, have made much faster progress and now have large areas devoted to GM crops. And about nine other countries have adopted GM crops in a small way. In the ‘big four’ adopting countries, the use of GM crops has been actively promoted by government and the private sector, farmers have welcomed the technology and there has been little or no protest from consumers. As a result, the

‘I would like to make something very clear.

It is not the multinationals that have a stranglehold on Africa.

It is hunger, poverty and deprivation.

And if Africa is going to get out of that, it has got to embrace GM technology.’

— Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, KARI

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‘Starving people don’t look at a label to check whether a food product is GM-free.’

— John Wafula, Coordinator, Biotechnology Programme, KARI

global area of transgenic crops has grown rapidly to more than 44 000 hectares (100 million acres) in 2000 (see James, in the list of sources, p. 73).

Tissue culture, genetic markers and GM can be used separately from one another or in combination. Their most powerful effects on crop production are felt when they are combined. They are not, as some activists claim, a replacement for conventional approaches to varietal development and dissemination, but are more usually used to complement them.

Why does it matter?

Agribiotechnology matters to Kenya, as to most other African countries, for the most basic of reasons: our people do not have enough to eat. If anyone doubts this, they need only go to Turkana, where the recent drought has caused great hardship, even starvation. At such times of food scarcity the poor suffer most, because their money buys less and less as the price of basic staples rises. But Kenya’s food shortages are chronic as well as acute. Among the urban poor, around 80% of family income is regularly spent on food, even when its price is relatively low, and many families eat only one meal a day. In rural areas, few farming families have reached selfsufficiency, let alone have a surplus for sale.

In both town and country, malnutrition is widespread, with young mothers, children and the elderly particularly at risk. Even in good years, our crop yields are low relative to world averages. In maize, for example, average yields worldwide are 4 tonnes per hectare, whereas in Kenya they are only 1.6 tonnes per hectare. In some food crops, such as banana, yields are actually declining while our human population continues to rise, so unless we can do something our situation a few years from now will be even worse than it is today.

Against this background, the potential of biotechnology to increase our production of basic food staples assumes tremendous significance. In crops such as cassava and sweetpotato, only 7% of our farmers have access to improved planting materials at present. The use of tissue culture,

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combined with an effective distribution system, could raise the numbers to well over 50%. Farmers currently lose an estimated 40% of their maize crop to an insect pest called the maize stemborer.

Transferring genes into maize to protect it against this pest could prevent those losses.

Smallholders growing banana frequently suffer the loss of their entire harvest to a disease known as black sigatoka. A GM variety resistant to the disease would save the harvest. These are just a few examples of the immense power of biotechnology to transform a food deficit into a surplus for market.

This transformation wouldn’t just be good for producers. Millions of urban consumers would also benefit, since the price of food would go down as supplies increased and the costs of production fell. Creating a food surplus would also have positive knock-on effects in the rest of the economy, where it would create jobs in marketing and processing and increase the demand for other goods and services.

Besides food staples, the potential of biotechnology to increase production can be applied to a host of other food and non-food commodities that are also vital to incomes, job opportunities and living standards. These include essentials such as firewood for cooking or timber for building, alongside cash crops for the domestic or export markets, such as cut flowers, tea, coffee and sugar cane.

resource base is under threat. Soils, water, forests, rangeland—all are declining in both quantity and quality. As population rises, the area cultivated to crops is expanding at both ends of the rainfall spectrum, forcing livestock to overgraze shrinking areas of rangeland in the drier areas while, in the wetter ones, resource-poor farmers cut down more and more forest, leaving bare slopes vulnerable to soil erosion.

With the forests disappears the biodiversity of flora and fauna that they contain.

The diversity of crops in farmers’ fields is also gradually being eroded. And, if we intensify our agriculture as other countries have done, we will be in danger of poisoning birds, insects, soils, water and even the air we breathe by overapplying pesticides and herbicides. We are already doing this in the case of a few export crops, such as cotton and coffee.

Another reason why biotechnology should matter to Kenyans is that our natural

The possible harm biotechnology might do to the natural resource base has received 7

far more publicity than its real benefits.

I want to emphasize three of these benefits, because they are so seldom acknowledged by critics.

First, biotechnology can help reduce the use of pesticides. This is because genetic markers and modification enable scientists to build resistance or tolerance to biotic stresses into the seed, weaning farmers from their dependance on chemical forms of control. Evidence from countries as far apart as the USA, China and South Africa shows that the reduced spraying associated with the adoption of GM varieties benefits the health of farmers and consumers, avoids pollution of the environment and helps conserve wildlife and biodiversity. In some crops at least, farmers switching to GM varieties have reported the return of insects and bird species not seen in their fields for a generation. These benefits can even materialize when herbicide-tolerant GM crops are grown, although the evidence on this point is mixed.

Besides bringing environmental benefits, reduced spraying lowers the costs of production, which in turn raises farmers’ incomes and lowers the price of food to consumers. The savings occur both in materials, because farmers have to spend less on pesticides, and in labour, because they spray less often. In 1995, Kenyan farmers spent around US$ 4.5 million on insecticides and US$ 10.5 million on fungicides. Reducing these expenditures by only 20%— 8

a reduction typically achieved elsewhere in the world—would lower national food production costs by US$ 3 million a year, a sum large enough to unleash a considerable increase in purchasing power throughout the economy.

The second environmental benefit of biotechnology lies in the power of tissue culture and genetic markers to conserve biodiversity. Kenya already has several projects that are applying these tools for conservation purposes. For example, in banana, scientists are using tissue culture to provide ‘clean’ planting materials of traditional varieties retrieved from orchards that are in near-terminal decline owing to pests and diseases. Had it not been for this activity, some of these varieties might well have been lost altogether. Similarly, in a number of threatened native tree species, including the famous prostate-remedy tree Prunus africanus, international and national scientists are using genetic markers to guide the collection and conservation of the species’ remaining biodiversity, with the more productive provenances being introduced to farmers through participatory research.

Third, by raising crop yields, biotechnology can, at least in theory, help curb the expansion of agriculture, thereby conserving our species-rich forests and fragile semi-arid rangelands. This is because, if yields of a crop rise, a smaller area is needed to produce the same amount.

Intensification in one area can thus help take the pressure off others. This is a relationship seldom appreciated by environmentalists, many of whom preach low-input or organic agriculture despite the fact that the lower yields resulting from these practices would lead either to higher food costs or to a larger cultivated area.

rapidly, uncontrolled migration into new frontier areas could continue despite yield increases elsewhere. Indeed, if biotechnology is also used to develop crop varieties that can withstand drought and other stresses, it could actually encourage expansion into marginal lands. In such cases, biotechnology can serve to make crop production more sustainable, but not to conserve wildlife and biodiversity.

Whether expansion continues or not also depends on such factors as the laws governing land use, the economic incentives to clear new land and the availability of jobs in cities.

Whether or not this benefit materializes in practice, however, depends heavily on other factors. If population goes on rising

Fact and fiction The consumer backlash in Europe has focused attention on the food safety and environmental concerns associated with biotechnology. Some of these concerns are real, others imagined.

Let’s take food safety first. So far, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that eating GM food will be bad for anyone’s health. And that is not for want of looking for such evidence, since GM foods are subject to stringent investigation before being permitted for sale. In a 6-year study of 65 000 GM Irish potatoes, no negative features caused by GM were found.

The reason why we may be confident that GM foods are safe is that food safety depends on what a food contains, not on how it got there. Consequently, anti-nutritional elements, toxic micro-organisms, substances that cause allergies and other undesirable attributes are no more likely to

‘The public is recoiling against science fiction, not science itself.’

— Claire Fraser, President, TIGR

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be present in GM than in conventional foods. GM foods may even turn out to be better for people since, if resistance to pests in the original crop has been genetically induced, the food derived from it may contain fewer traces of pesticides.

‘Many consumers in North America, Europe and China have been eating GM food over the past several years, without any demonstrated adverse effects on human health.’

— Ismail Serageldin and Gabrielle Persley, CGIAR

Now to the environmental concerns.

One of the most powerful myths surrounding GM is that it is ‘unnatural’ because it allows genes to ‘cross the species barrier’. Activists tune in to this myth whenever they use emotive expressions such as ‘Frankenstein foods’ or portray biotechnology as a plot perpetrated by mad scientists playing God. The truth is that genes already move between species in nature. Viral DNA is an example: it moves from grasses into the gut of insects, then into cultivated crops. Similarly, the mitochondrial DNA in human cells is thought to originate from bacteria that entered our genome at an early stage of our evolution. In addition, conventional plant breeders have long moved genes between species in crops such as wheat and rice. GM is simply one more instrument enabling them to do so, albeit a powerful one since it broadens the genepool that can be accessed.

The designation of GM food as ‘unorganic’ has its origins in the same concern not to transgress the boundaries somehow (divinely?) ordained for human intervention. This designation is also

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mistaken, since nothing could be more organic than a gene. The false dichotomy between organic foods and non-organic GM foods has been willed into being as a marketing ploy by companies and environmental groups with interests in ‘organic’ food and agriculture.

In contrast, the concerns associated with ‘gene escape’ are real, if exaggerated. It is true that genes introduced to GM crop varieties could, as the crop is growing, be transferred to other organisms through pollination by insects, wind dispersal or

other means. However, the chances of their actually doing so are low. Transgenes are no more likely to be dislodged from a plant than are its thousands of other genes.

As a UK scientist has put it, ‘The transgene is not a wobbly tooth in an otherwise sound row.’ Even if a transgene did escape, it would probably be eradicated through selection pressure within a few generations and is unlikely to upset the ecological balance in any serious way. Most experts believe that the possible consequences of gene escape have been blown up out of proportion.

The ‘great escape’—the one that everyone is most afraid of—is that of the gene for herbicide tolerance, which has been introduced into crops such as maize,

cotton and soybean. In theory, this gene could, if it entered the local weed population, lead to the development of new, GM ‘superweeds’. I stress the word ‘could’, since no case of this has yet been reported, nor is it ever likely to be, however much press coverage is given to the monstrous triffid-like creatures conjured up by this technology’s more imaginative detractors. Owing to the low probability that transgenes will escape, the additional threat to ecosystems posed by the introduction of GM crops tolerant to herbicides appears marginal. That does not mean we should ignore the risk, but simply that it should be kept in perspective.

Kenya is going to surprise Greenpeace.

We will demonstrate that biotechnology can bring benefits without harming the environment or food safety

Another concern associated with herbicide-tolerant GM crops is that, by reducing weed infestation, they will lead to the decline of bees, birds and insects, which will be deprived of essential feed resources and breeding grounds.

This is a real concern, especially in countries such as Kenya, where these forms of wildlife are still very much intact. We have something precious here that we must not lose, as the Europeans and North Americans have largely done. The evidence regarding the effects of herbicide tolerance packages on wildlife is mixed: some studies show that bird and insect populations can increase when these crops are grown, but others show the reverse. For example, a recent modeling study in the UK suggested that the skylark population would decline if herbicide-tolerant sugarbeet were introduced. The outcome of such introductions will depend greatly on the crop and on where and how it is grown.

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‘Public debate about the “gene revolution” often does not sufficiently differentiate between risks inherent in a technology and those that transcend it.’

— Ismail Serageldin and Gabrielle Persley, CGIAR

My belief is that, given this uncertainty, we need to view the introduction of herbicide-tolerant crops cautiously and to proceed slowly, taking into account the lessons learned elsewhere. One of the advantages possessed by Kenya is that, as a relatively late adopter, it has the opportunity not to repeat the mistakes made by others.

Whether justified or not, concerns over herbicide tolerance should not be used as a blunt instrument with which to attack all biotechnology research and development, as some activists have done.

Critics should bear in mind that this application will not be widely used in Kenya, since only large-scale commercial farmers will be able to afford it. Its selective use to tackle certain problems in certain areas might, as we have already seen, take the pressure off other areas, where wildife could continue to flourish.

In addition, there are plenty of other GM applications that do not rely on herbicide tolerance and that should prove immensely useful to Kenya, as also should the other two biotechnologies I have described—tissue culture and genetic markers.

Besides the food safety and environmental issues, biotechnology raises plenty of other questions and concerns in people’s minds.

I’ll end by dealing briefly with some of these.

Many who attack biotechnology are really criticizing other things, especially the role of the private sector in agriculture. It is important to distinguish the inherent risks

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of biotechnology from the ‘transcendant’ political, social and economic risks incurred by any new technology.

Critics frequently fail to distinguish between public-sector and private-sector research, indulging in sweeping dismissals of all biotechnology research as profitoriented and geared to the needs of large-scale farmers when in fact there is significant work by the public sector on behalf of resource-poor farmers. Another favourite target is the development of hybrid varieties, which oblige farmers to buy new seed every year instead of saving their own. Yet hybrids are developed just as much through conventional plant breeding as through biotechnology.

And, except in a few countries with authoritarian regimes, no farmer is forced to grow them. The fact that, in marketoriented areas at least, farmers vote with their pockets and buy hybrid seed year after year is conveniently ignored by the Green movement which, on this point as on many others, is out of touch with the farming community it claims to represent.

Biopiracy—the appropriation without payment of the raw materials for improved seeds and other technologies—is a legitimate concern, especially when those who have developed the raw materials are resource-poor farmers in developing countries, but here again the culprit is not biotechnology per se, since biopiracy also occurs for the purposes of conventional technology development. Many scientists, especially in the public sector, share the public’s concern over this issue, which is under discussion at the international level

with the aim of devising ways of recognizing ‘farmers’ rights’. People also express concern over the increasing concentration of intellectual property rights to genes and improved seeds in the hands of a few private companies. This trend is indeed worrying, but to reject biotechnology on these grounds is analogous to refusing to use computers because of the profits accruing to Bill Gates from the sale of software. In all these cases, biotechnology gets unfairly blamed as an accessory to the crime, when in reality it is innocent— just a set of tools.

Some argue that the world already produces enough food and that the answer to hunger and malnutrition in countries like Kenya is to redistribute existing global surpluses rather than to produce more food through biotechnology. This argument, which has been lent a spurious respectability by some leading economists in addition to being a passionately held belief among environmentalists, is one I cannot agree with because it implies social and economic stagnation, for Kenya as for all developing countries. In economies such as ours, where 80% of the workforce is still employed in agriculture, producing food and other commodities is vital to rural incomes and livelihoods.

Farmers need desperately to move from subsistence to market-oriented production, since this enables them to meet their other basic needs such as clothing, home improvements, education and health. Making our farmers the passive recipients of food produced elsewhere in the world would rob them of the opportunity to fulfil these

aspirations and fill our cities with out-ofwork migrants from the rural areas.

Experience in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia has shown that the demand for goods and services created by a surplus in agriculture can drive the growth of the whole economy. Africa too needs to follow this path.

‘Rich countries are unilaterally asserting rights of private ownership over human and plant genetic sequences, or basic computer codes, or chemical compounds long in use in herbal medicines. These approaches are of dubious legitimacy and will worsen global inequities.’

— Jeffrey Sachs, The Economist, 22/6/00

Given that Kenya does need to increase agricultural production, why not invest more in conventional plant breeding?

After all, this approach has not failed us in the past: our maize yields, for example, have actually risen by 40% since 1980.

So why not pursue further gains using the same tried and trusted methods? There are two answers to this question. First, although encouraging, the gains we have achieved have not been enough to offset population growth. The number of mouths we have to feed continues to rise 13

Transgenic crop varieties are tailor-made for Africa’s farmers, because new technology is packaged in the seed, which all farmers know how to handle

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at 2.5% a year, a clear 0.5% faster than the rate of increase in maize yields.

This means that we must find ways of accelerating progress. Second, scientists have now solved most of the relatively easy problems that can be tackled through conventional crop breeding. Acceleration will be very hard to achieve unless we can apply biotechnology to tackle the more difficult problems that remain.

best asset for a more prosperous future.

Among them are a few trained scientists— committed individuals already acting decisively and responsibly to further their country’s development. Many more could be trained to take possession of biotechnology and make it work for Kenya.

Its methods may seem complex, but the end result of crop biotechnology research, like that of conventional breeding, is something simple: new seed.

‘Seed-packaged’ technologies have several advantages over other forms of intervention to improve farmers’ yields: they are easier to multiply and disseminate; they are relatively affordable and popular with farmers; and farmers know how to manage them. All these advantages make them more likely to be adopted by our farmers and hence more likely to deliver an impact.

Africa was bypassed by the Green Revolution of 25 years ago, mainly because the technology developed at that time— suitable for large-scale, irrigated farms on which chemicals could be used with reliable results—did not meet the needs of our rainfed farming systems, whose smallholders face much riskier conditions.

The biotechnology revolution, in contrast, brings us a highly refined set of tools which will allow us to develop crop varieties that are far better adapted to these difficult environments. It is vital that Africa is not bypassed by this second, infinitely more powerful, revolution in agriculture.

It is sometimes maintained that biotechnology is ‘too sophisticated’ for Africa.

I find this view patronizing, as well as misinformed. To accept it is to go along with the image of an Africa peopled only by victims. Certainly, some forms of biotechnology require expensive equipment and specialized training. But has not Africa as much right to these things as the developed world? Africa does have its victims, of course. But it also has millions of resourceful people who represent our

Biotechnology is not a panacea for all Kenya’s ills. As a purely ‘technological fix’, it can do nothing to create the institutional and political conditions that are also necessary if agricultural productivity is to increase. Nevertheless, it is a powerful weapon in Kenya’s war on poverty and hunger and can also do much to alleviate environmental degradation. Far from being a luxury add-on to the conventional research scene, it is a vital new set of tools that offers us real hope for a better future.

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A National Commitment Kenya is one of the few African countries to have developed a significant capacity for agribiotechnology research and development. The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) leads the national programme in this field.

Programme evolution KARI’s growing involvement in biotechnology has been part of a broader process of institutional change.

During the 1970s and 80s, crop research at KARI concentrated on conventional approaches to the development of improved crop varieties and cropping practices. The institute’s scientists used a farming systems approach to diagnose farmers’ needs and to design and test new technologies. But by the mid- to late 1980s it had become clear that farmers were not adopting the technologies, or at least not in large enough numbers to make a difference. ‘Despite all our efforts, Kenya’s farmers were getting poorer and per capita food production was still going down,’ says Samuel Muigai, Director of KARI’s National Horticultural Research Centre at Thika, near Nairobi.

The institute’s scientists were encouraged to adopt a more participatory approach to their research. Research and development (R&D) were no longer seen as two separate activities but as a single, integrated process in which scientists assume responsibility for transferring technology as well as developing it. In 1991 the institute launched a series of annual stakeholders’ meetings to which farmers were invited.

The purpose of the meetings was to keep KARI’s scientists abreast of changing needs, so that they could adapt the research agenda accordingly. In 1996, a review led to increased emphasis on

This realization was the start of a drive to make KARI more responsive to the needs of all its stakeholders.

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a market orientation in research. This was seen as especially important in areas such as horticulture, which had become one of the economy’s fastest growing sectors.

The introduction of biotechnology, which occurred over roughly the same period, was influenced by these changes.

‘Biotechnology research at KARI is needsdriven,’ says John Wafula, who coordinates

the institute’s Biotechnology Programme.

‘The approach we take is to understand farmers’ problems first, then to look at the various research options—conventional as well as biotechnology—for solving them.’

This sounds like mere common sense, but the point is worth making because critics often accuse biotechnology researchers of pursuing their own disciplinary interests rather than meeting farmers’ needs.

KARI took its first steps in biotechnology research in the late 1980s, when its scientists began using tissue culture to propagate improved planting materials, at first mainly for experimental purposes and then for dissemination to farmers.

Among the crops covered by these early efforts were pyrethrum and Irish potato.

At about the same time, private-sector companies began applying tissue culture to the mass propagation of flowers for export, a venture in which KARI was asked to assist by developing the protocols.

This prepared the way for the rapid expansion in cooperation between the public and private sectors that has since occurred. Over the past decade tissue culture research has gradually expanded to cover more crops, including sugarcane, cassava, banana and citrus fruits.

In horticulture, it was seen as the answer to the biggest bottleneck in transferring technology to farmers’ fields: the absence of clean planting materials. By 1996, the Thika centre had become aware of the potential for enhancing banana production in this way, laying the foundations for the current project on the crop conducted by KARI in partnership with the International

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Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications (ISAAA) (see Chapter 3).

And there has since been rapid spillover to yet more crops, including passion fruit and macademia.

‘As a result of this work, tissue culture is starting to make a real difference to farmers’ incomes and food security,’ notes Wafula. KARI’s role in bringing this about has been to establish laboratory facilities, train specialists, develop and fine-tune protocols and forge links with the private sector and the farming community.

The institute’s experience in tissue culture has equipped it to play a regional role, providing expertise to other African countries. In time Kenya could become a major exporter of plantlets, as South Africa already is.

To complement the work in tissue culture, KARI has begun using another biotechnology tool, virus indexing, to ensure that planting materials are free of diseases as well as pests. The diagnostic kits required for this technology are expensive and have to be imported, so progress in this field has been relatively slow. Nevertheless, our scientists are now applying virus indexing to citrus fruits and to some vegetables, and hope soon to make a start on other crops, including banana.

KARI’s use of molecular markers in crop research is less advanced than that of tissue culture, having begun only later, in the mid-1990s. Individual scientists at centres such as the Tea Research Foundation were the first to gain experience with this tool.

The more concerted efforts launched during the second half of the decade have focused mainly on maize, the country’s major food crop, in which scientists are now using markers to tackle major problems faced by farmers, including drought, insect pests and viral diseases, notably maize streak virus (see Chapter 4).

KARI’s scientists are also using molecular markers in their research on cassava, sweetpotato, Irish potato, phaseolus beans, cowpea and other important food and cash crops. The institute’s partners in this work include several centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in addition to privateand public-sector laboratories in the developed countries. ISAAA has brokered some of these partnerships.

Research involving GM is still in its infancy at KARI. However, it has been identified as a priority area in which the country needs to build capacity, so more rapid progress can be expected in the future. So far, there have been more activities in livestock than in crop research, partly because of the synergy afforded by the presence in Kenya of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Besides ILRI, KARI’s livestock scientists are working with several international partners on the development of more user-friendly vaccines against such major diseases as rinderpest and East Coast fever. In crops, KARI scientists have worked with the private sector and the international centres to develop GM materials in sweetpotato, Irish potato, cassava and cowpea.

The country’s first GM sweetpotato varieties, which I developed in partnership 17

with Monsanto in the USA, are currently being tested under containment in Kenya (see Chapter 4). The need to establish a framework for regulating the importation and testing of such materials has delayed progress in both crop and livestock research. However, this framework is now in place (see Chapter 5).

Two initiatives funded by external donors have supported the development of agribiotechnology R&D in Kenya.

The first is the Kenya Agricultural Biotechnology Platform (KABP), a national committee established by the Netherlands’ Special Programme on Biotechnology and Development Cooperation (DGIS). The KABP supports biotechnology projects on the basis of a survey conducted in the early 1990s to assess priorities. Crop projects include tissue culture research on banana, sweetpotato and Irish potato, marker research on maize, research on biopesticides and participatory research on transgenic cassava. Livestock projects focus on the development of vaccines against peste des petits ruminants in sheep and goats and against Rift Valley fever in cattle. The KABP has also supported the provision of training and the development of a national biosafety regulatory system.

Second, regional projects brokered by ISAAA have also contributed to the national biotechnology effort. Four major projects are currently in progress, covering tissue culture in banana (see Chapter 3), tissue culture and clonal technology in 18

priority tree species, marker-assisted selection against maize streak virus and the introduction and evaluation of GM sweetpotatoes resistant to feathery mottle virus (see Chapter 4). Besides conducting adaptive research, these projects focus on developing links between the public and private sectors to ensure the transfer of skills and technology. Like the DGIS, ISAAA has also supported training and the development of Kenya’s biosafety regulatory system.

Let’s get physical White-coated and masked, Penina Murisa and Jane Njiru conduct their work calmly amidst a chorus of electric drills, the sawing of timber and the hammering of nails.

The two laboratory assistants are sitting at what is known as a laminar flow chamber—a working surface flanked by a perforated screen that emits a current of filtered air to prevent contamination.

They are using tweezers to separate the foliage from the stem nodes of sweetpotato plants in a petri dish, before placing the nodes in a universal bottle containing a growth medium called MS. Next they will take the bottles through to a growth chamber—a room with controlled temperature and light in which the nodes will swell and shoot to become plantlets.

It’s meticulous work requiring a degree of concentration that doesn’t come easily when your workplace is a building site.

But the two take comfort in the thought that, once the hammering is over and the

joiners move on down the corridor, they will be able to plug their autoclaves and hotplates into a newly installed electric socket when they need to prepare a fresh batch of MS. At present they have to share a socket, not to mention a cramped shelf, with the laboratory’s kettle and other teamaking facilities.

Despite the inconveniences of working there, morale is high at KARI’s new biotechnology centre. A tangible symbol of the institute’s determination to make biotechnology research work for Kenya, the centre has its origins in one of those chance meetings in the corridor between a scientist and his boss that all scientists dread. As head of KARI’s livestock research, Wafula already had enough on his plate when he ran into the institute’s then Director, Cyrus Ndiritu. ‘I’m being bombarded with information about biotechnology,’ said Ndiritu. ‘Can you help me work out how KARI should respond and what our strategy should be?’

Wafula lay low for a week, leaving the office only at times when he was unlikely to bump into Ndiritu again. But at the end of the week Ndiritu summoned him to his office and asked him to draft a letter appointing himself to the new post of Biotechnology Coordinator.

Wafula’s first task in his new role was to find out more about KARI’s existing stake in biotechnology. A survey of the institute’s activities revealed that it was already making use of the new tools, but not very efficiently. KARI’s decentralized system of research stations meant that efforts were

widely scattered, with scientists working individually rather than in teams that would allow them to learn from one another. Although a number of scientists had been trained in biotechnology, the investment in training had not paid off because, on return to their stations, they lacked the necessary facilities and equipment with which to pursue their work. Another problem was that people who should have been sharing resources were instead competing to acquire them, implying future inefficiencies. For example, research on livestock at Kabete and on maize streak virus at Muguga required the same kinds of genetic marker, which were requested twice over as a result.

‘Our idea was to replace this situation with a central facility where we could consolidate our effort and create a critical mass of people and equipment,’ says Wafula. He and his colleagues wrote a proposal to build a biotechnology centre as part of KARI’s new headquarters complex at Kabete, in northern Nairobi.

The proposal was submitted to the World Bank, which was already supporting the development of the Kabete complex.

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But the idea got halted in its tracks when the World Bank refused to fund the proposal. The Bank argued that biotechnology was too expensive and sophisticated for Kenya and that the central facility, once built, would not be properly maintained.

Nothing was more likely to make Wafula and his colleagues more determined to pursue their vision. KARI decided to undertake the project without external assistance and to save money by converting an existing building in nearby Westlands rather than building a new one.

public and private sources, including the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maïz y Trigo (CIMMYT), the British Government and Monsanto.

The result is a more or less functioning biotechnology centre, if not a coherently planned one. Work on the building has proceeded piecemeal, with sections completed here and there whenever funds became available. ‘It’s a bit ad hoc,’ says Wafula, ‘but people are able to work.

The tissue culture section is ready and the greenhouse for hardening isn’t far behind.

Now we’re working on the molecular biology section.’ Wafula is proud of what has been achieved but still hopes to get a brand new building one day. ‘The case will be irresistable once people see that biotechnology in Kenya is making a real contribution to national development,’ he says.

Investing in people

The institute’s Board and directors believed that, although donors were unwilling to put money into a major capital development, they would nevertheless make small contributions when they saw that KARI itself was making an effort.

That belief has been partially vindicated, with support for the conversion at Westlands coming from a variety of 20

Kenya’s involvement in biotechnology is contributing to the development of a more skilled workforce. Every biotechnology project at KARI has an allocation for human resources development, ranging from masters degree studies through full PhDs to special skills development for mid-career scientists.

Many of our scientists have received their training abroad. This may be at universities, at public-sector international research centres or laboratories, or in private-sector companies. The new South Africa has been

a major source of expertise within the region. ‘It’s close not only physically— you can fly there in 4 hours—but also in the sense of sharing common problems with Kenya,’ says Muigai. For example, no less than five people working on the KARI-ISAAA banana project have visited South Africa to gain first-hand knowledge of its experience in developing protocols for the mass propagation of tissue-cultured plantlets and in evaluating plantlet performance in the field. In this project as in others, ISAAA has assisted by identifying the sources of training, finding donors to fund it and keeping the content of training strongly oriented towards impact.

Kenya can now meet some of its own training needs. In the early 1990s, the University of Nairobi’s Department of Biochemistry launched a course on molecular biology that has since trained several of our younger scientists.

In addition, scientists trained abroad pass their skills on to others when they return.

Because biotechnology techniques are the same across species and commodities, including the crop-livestock divide, skills can spread rapidly throughout KARI.

year as more scientists return from overseas to take up their posts. But Wafula and his colleagues are conscious of the need to build expertise still further, especially in GM, which has been recognized as a national training priority. ‘We are still well short of critical mass in this and several other areas,’ he says. Part of the problem is Kenya’s own brain drain: ‘As fast as we train them, our qualified scientists take up better paid posts overseas.’ Once it has qualified staff in sufficient numbers, the new biotechnology centre will become a training resource for other Kenyan institutions and for the East African region.

‘We are very happy with our progress, but we aspire to greater things in terms of both infrastructure and expertise.’

— John Wafula, Coordinator, Biotechnology Programme, KARI

Clearly, Kenya’s investment in biotechnology R&D is still taking shape and much more remains to be done. Yet it has already started paying dividends, as we shall now see.

KARI’s new biotechnology centre now has five scientists with PhDs in molecular biology. And the number is rising year by

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3

The Power of Tissue Culture Tissue culture is already fueling agricultural development in Kenya. In this chapter, we visit three areas of the country to which it has brought higher incomes and improved standards of living to farmers. Soon, consumers too will feel the benefits.

In Maragua District, tissue culture is helping poor women farmers increase their production of banana, a former subsistence crop that is becoming a major income earner. On the Mau escarpment, it is supporting a recovery in the production of pyrethrum, an environmentally friendly insecticide of which Kenya is the world’s leading exporter. And on the shores of Lake Victoria, it is part of a drive to increase the efficiency of sugar production for the domestic market. Key to impact in all three cases is collaboration between the public and private sectors.

A banana kitchen Esther Gachugu’s farmhouse boasts a new kitchen. Spacious and clean, with three large fireplaces, it’s a big improvement over its predecessor, a poky affair from which the smoke had nowhere to escape but into the next-door dining room. ‘Now we can sit and eat without coughing and feeling our eyes sting,’ says Esther. And her walls, ceilings and furniture will no longer be stained with soot.

Home improvements on this scale don’t come cheap and poor rural people can’t normally afford them. But Gachugu was able to pay for her kitchen with the proceeds of a highly successful new venture for her small family farm: a rejuvenated banana orchard stocked with improved plants derived from tissue culture.

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Gachugu lives in ‘banana land’—the area around Maragua town, in Kenya’s central highlands, that has long been famed for its production of the fruit, largely on small farms such as hers. Whereas the crop used to be grown for subsistence, nowadays it is becoming the mainstay of family farm income, since the market for coffee— its only serious rival for land and labour— is in decline. But here, as in other bananagrowing areas of Kenya, farmers’ efforts to increase production are being frustrated by the rising toll on yields exacted by pests and diseases. Faith Nguthi, head of banana research at KARI’s nearby Thika station, describes farmers’ losses as disastrous.

‘I have seen whole orchards affected, with yields falling year after year,’ she says.

‘Some commercial varieties have been all but wiped out.’ Under the combined onslaught of weevils, nematodes, Panama disease and black sigatoka, the average yield of bananas on traditional farms in Kenya today has fallen to 14 tonnes per hectare, less than one-third of the crop’s potential under humid tropical conditions. Besides reducing the cash incomes and food security of producers, these low and declining yields keep bananas expensive for consumers.

of infestation, avoiding pests altogether and reducing the likelihood that diseases will be present. The use of juvenile tissues and the ‘hormonal kick’ in the culture media are further sources of plant vigour.

Especially when improved varieties are propagated, the process of tissue culture also leads to plants that mature earlier and yield more than conventionally propagated ones. The use of these plants can transform a smallholder’s banana orchard from something that barely meets subsistence needs to a vital new enterprise that increases incomes and creates new employment opportunities.

Gachugu is among the growing number of Kenyan farmers who are discovering these advantages for themselves. In October 1997, she became one of 150 smallholders in the country’s four major banana-growing areas to receive a batch of tissue-cultured plantlets for testing in a demonstration

All this means high demand for clean, new planting materials. The traditional way of propagating a new plant is to uproot a young sucker from around the base of a mature plant—a practice that, while virtually cost-free, has the disadvantage of carrying over pests and diseases.

Because it involves the production of fresh materials under sterile conditions in the laboratory, tissue culture breaks the cycle 23

plot on her farm. Besides enabling her to evaluate the plantlets herself, the plot was intended to spread interest in the technology throughout the local farming community.

Now in her fourth year of production, Gachugu has exceeded the expectations placed on her as a demonstration farmer.

She has managed her plantlets well, applying the necessary inputs to ensure a highly productive orchard for touring by visitors, of whom she and her husband receive a constant stream. Around 200 farmers have joined the project as a result of their visit, many taking away with them an initial supply of plantlets from the nursery that has also been started on her farm.

To each visitor, Gachugu is able to speak from personal experience of the benefits that tissue-cultured plantlets have brought her and her family. Of the seven varieties she has tested, she prefers Chinese Cavendish, which she says provides the biggest bunches and earns her the highest income. But other varieties may suit other tastes and, in season at least, visitors are often given a chance to sample the fruits.

She and her husband have actively marketed their increased harvest, earning as much as US$ 300 in a single day by delivering in bulk to Nairobi. This is the sum she has invested in what she calls her ‘banana kitchen’—the high point of the tour of her farm.

Gachugu is not alone in making such dramatic improvements to her family’s living conditions. Some farmers in Maragua District have built whole houses 24

on the proceeds of their improved banana harvests. Water storage tanks are another favourite capital investment, with the extra water destined for domestic use as well as for crops and livestock on the farm.

Parents are also investing in the future by paying school fees and buying educational items for their children. In addition to these major new expenditures, families are finding that they can spend more on food and household items such as sugar, tea, firewood, clothing and soap.

Flagship project Gachugu’s plantlets were distributed under a KARI-ISAAA project that powerfully illustrates the benefits Kenya can derive from agribiotechnology.

On the face of it, banana was an unpromising choice as the crop in which to pioneer such development. Until recently, it was not seen as a priority by government or KARI. It was still mainly a subsistence crop, with small surpluses being marketed locally, rather than a commercial or export crop.

As such, it had no commodity board to push the interests of growers or to promote research. And there was no established strategy for distributing new varieties or marketing the crop.

These drawbacks make the project’s achievements all the more remarkable.

‘The project is a flagship one for ISAAA and KARI,’ says Nguthi. ‘We had to start from scratch and to work on all aspects of the system, from the petri dish to the plate.

We worked first with tissue culture providers, then took the technology to farmers and distributors, then to traders and consumers. At each stage, we have adopted a holistic approach, asking how we can make this technology contribute not only to economic growth but also to food security and incomes among the poor and to the environment.’ Two sets of links have given the project special strength. First, laboratory-based R&D has been firmly tied to needs identified through participatory on-farm research, ensuring that priorities are correctly identified and technology is accurately targeted. And second, the public and private sectors have worked together to ensure that technology is not only well designed but also effectively massproduced and disseminated.

The first step was to study the experience of South Africa, where public-sector research in the 1980s paved the way for what is now a flourishing private-sector business, the mass production of tissue-cultured banana plantlets for commercial production and export. Next came preliminary evaluations with Kenyan farmers, which led to a short-list of seven improved varieties that would be relevant to their needs. Once the protocols for propagating these varieties had been mastered, production began at the laboratories of a private-sector biotechnology company in Nairobi. The plantlets were then distributed to small-scale farmers who, like Gachugu, were selected for their leadership abilities and their willingness to demonstrate the technology to others.

At the same time, a large-scale bean farmer in Maragua was persuaded to devote part of his land to banana production based on tissue-cultured plantlets. His farm has since served to stimulate demand for plantlets among small-scale farmers and to show them how to manage the technology.

Studies on the social and economic factors that affect smallholders’ adoption of the plantlets have been crucial to success. ‘Word of mouth passes fast among farmers. If one farmer has a negative experience, the whole village will reject the 25

technology,’ says Margaret Karembu, the social scientist responsible for these studies.

Karembu’s work begins with farmers’ varietal preferences, as both producers and consumers. The varieties produced in the laboratory must comply with taste and ‘Biotech is an exciting venture cooking requirements, as well as other practical considerations such as bunch size. for us banana Next on her research agenda are the farmers, problems of accessing the new technology. because of the Can farmers afford to buy the plantlets, severe problems and how can they arrange delivery? we have had.’

A further set of issues concerns farmers’ — Samuel Kamau, management of the plantlets once they farmer have been delivered to their farms.

Tissue culture may be the least sophisticated of the three major biotechnology tools being tested in Kenya, but it still implies extra labour and input costs if farmers are to get the best out of their investment.

Finally, Karembu looks at the challenges posed by harvesting, transporting and marketing the produce of a more productive orchard.

The project also has a strong biophysical research component. Through both onstation and on-farm research, Nguthi and her colleagues evaluate traditional and new banana varieties of potential interest to farmers for their productivity and other 26

characteristics. In the Thika station’s small laboratory, they conduct the painstaking research needed to develop the protocols for propagating plantlets, research that is essential to support mass production at the private-sector laboratory. The Thika team is also investigating the performance of suckers taken from tissue-cultured plants. The rationale for this research is that farmers may be able to reduce the costs of rejuvenating their orchards by making an initial investment in tissuecultured materials, then resorting to their traditional practice of obtaining planting materials as suckers. However, there is some doubt as to whether this practice

would be beneficial, since farmers could well run into the same pest and disease problems as afflict their traditionally propagated plants.

Lastly, the team conducts research on the spacing of plantlets in orchards.

This determines plant height and bunch size, which in turn are important criteria for harvesting and marketing.

The demonstration plots hosted by Gachugu and her fellow farmers generated considerable enthusiasm throughout the farming community, prompting the project to go into large-scale dissemination during its third year. But then came a setback: actual uptake of the technology was lower than expected, mainly because farmers found the plantlets, at Ksh 80-100 (US$ 0.801.20) apiece, too expensive. Most bought only 5-10 plantlets, instead of the 80 or so needed to restock an average-sized orchard. A way had to be found of speeding up dissemination by making the plantlets more affordable.

Pulling together Through the pitch black of the Kenyan night, a pick-up truck bumps along a track, then swerves into a farmyard. A waiting group of farmers gathers round, their faces lit by a kerosene lamp. The truck’s doors open and two women jump out. After the usual greetings, hurried at this late hour, the women ask the farmers to form a human chain to unload the truck.

This the farmers do, quickly passing each item of the cargo from hand to hand, the last in the chain setting it down in a pre-designated flat area under a tree.

Soon the task is done and, amidst shouts and the banging of doors, the women set off through the night again.

For Nguthi and her colleague Lucy Njuguna, it’s the end of a long 3 days.

The two have just completed the first stage of an ambitious scaling up of the KARIISAAA project. The cargo they were delivering consisted of hardened banana plantlets obtained from the Nairobi laboratory.

In similar drops across three districts, around 15 000 plantlets have reached some 400 farmers organized in groups 20 to 40 strong.

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Each group has acquired the plantlets under a micro-credit scheme pioneered by Njuguna, a consultant to the project who has experience of such schemes.

For Njuguna, launching the scheme was a challenge. ‘Most micro-credit organizations steer clear of loans to agriculture, which they perceive as too risky,’ she says. ‘And when they do test the water, they tend to stick to cash crops such as tea or coffee, whose yields are relatively predictable.’ The results of an initial survey to assess the scheme’s feasibility were disappointing.

‘The organizations weren’t keen to loan to a banana project, because they saw banana as a subsistence crop.’

‘Forming the groups has been a tremendous boost to the project.’

— Faith Nguthi, Head of banana research, KARI-Thika

Undaunted, the ISAAA-KARI team decided to launch a pilot scheme themselves. ISAAA’s Board generously granted my request to launch the scheme with funds from our Afri Center budget, and an anonymous donor also provided generous support. Njuguna and Nguthi approached recognized community leaders in the three districts, who then called meetings to explain the scheme and form the groups.

The groups are an intriguing blend of the old and the new, the indigenous and the external. They are motivated by the spirit of harambee, the Kenyan tradition of pulling together to achieve more than you can as an individual. This spirit, still strong among the country’s rural poor, imbues all the groups’ activities, enabling members not only to work together but

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also to learn from one another and to share their resources. But the groups are modeled on the experience of the Grameen Bank, a highly successful micro-credit scheme launched in Bangladesh during the 1980s and now widely replicated elsewhere.

In this scheme, groups operate on the principles of mutual trust and peer pressure. Credit is extended to individuals, but is withheld from the whole group if a single member fails to repay. In our banana groups, each member must pay back at least Ksh 100 (US$ 1.20) as an entry fee to attend the group’s monthly meetings, at which information on management and marketing is made available.

The money, held in a local bank account, is used as a revolving fund to buy and transport plantlets.

Based on these firm foundations, the pilot scheme looks set to prove the cynics wrong about the riskiness of lending to small-scale agriculture. The groups are demonstrating that farmers have several characteristics that make them more creditworthy than some urban businesses. Not least of these is the ownership of land, which is the only criterion for group membership. Land represents more than just collateral.

‘People who own land are settled and unlikely to migrate to cities,’ says Njuguna.

Another advantage of lending to farmers is that rural groups tend to be more cohesive because all the members know one another and are aware of each other’s circumstances.

‘One man who wanted to join a group was about to sell his land. Others in the group knew this, so they didn’t allow him to join.

His plantlets stayed on the truck.’

Besides enabling farmers to access the plantlets, the groups form the basis for tackling several other adoption problems.

These include the labour and cash costs of applying the necessary inputs, and the difficulties of marketing surplus fruit.

A thirsty crop…

Watering the young plantlets can be critical to their survival and future productivity. Surprisingly, water may be scarce in parts of Kenya’s central highlands, especially for hilltop farmers and during the dry season. Farmers are encouraged to plant at the start of the long rains, but even then dry periods can occur.

Farmers’ responses to water scarcity vary.

Those who can afford it take the plunge and invest in a borehole or pump to access groundwater. Samuel Kamau, one of the micro-credit group leaders, bought a pedal pump from Nairobi, at a cost of Ksh 5000 (US$ 60), to irrigate his new orchard.

Most farmers, however, cannot afford such investments and must walk to fetch water, sometimes long distances.

‘Water is the crucial constraint around here,’ says Kamau. ‘Each banana plant needs a bucket of water once a week as a minimum. It sounds like a small amount, but fetching and applying it gets very labour-intensive if you have 200 plantlets.’

Some farmers reduce the number of plantlets they order once they realize the watering requirement. As watering is seen as a woman’s task, women may be especially

reluctant to get involved. One women’s group even walked away from the project altogether because of the demand on their labour. Farmers growing bananas in the traditional way seldom water their plants, so the practice comes hard to them.

Jane Wangui, one of the demonstration farmers, must walk 1 kilometre to a river to fetch water. At first she didn’t bother, as she had planted during the rainy season.

But when the dry season came she noticed that the bunches she was harvesting were small and that some plants looked parched, so she began the recommended weekly applications of 10 litres per plant.

To fetch the water she uses a large 20-litre plastic jerry can, but she can only carry one of these at a time. Watering her 1-hectare plot takes her the best part of a day. When her children are not in school they help her with the chore, but otherwise she faces the task alone.

The alternative is to hire labour, but this is expensive.

Under these circumstances, there is a risk that farmers will revert to their traditional management and give up watering their plants. Those who do so will suffer, since the plants are unlikely to yield well, if they survive at all. And if the word gets around that plants are dying, many more farmers could be put off even trying the new plantlets.

The watering problem is thus the single biggest risk of failure facing the project.

‘It’s vital we fix this problem,’ says Kamau.

He believes the micro-credit groups can and should play a part in enabling farmers 29

Yet, as adoption gathers pace and larger orchards are planted, farmers may find even this source is not plentiful enough. According to Karembu, each planting hole needs 8-10 kilogrammes of manure to get the new plant off to a good start. Establishing an orchard of 200 plants thus requires 2 tonnes of manure, an amount that few farmers can accumulate, even if they keep cattle.

And that’s not counting the need to make top-up applications in subsequent seasons.

to invest in solutions. But to do that the groups will need the injection of a further large lump sum.

The solution offering the best value for money is drip irrigation. In the simplest version of this technology, a bucket hung from a tree is used to feed water to plants by gravity, down a hosepipe with holes in it. This technology has low investment costs and cuts the labour requirement for watering to virtually zero, as well as economizing on the use of water. KARI scientists testing drip irrigation have achieved excellent results in on-station trials and the technology is now being widely promoted among farmers, who have greeted it enthusiastically.

‌and a hungry one Tissue-cultured banana plantlets also need generous applications of nutrients.

Given the high cost of commercial fertilisers, the cheapest and most plentiful source of nutrients in the central highlands is farmyard manure.

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The most prolific providers of manure in the central highlands are crossbred dairy cows. These are usually stall-fed, making the collection of manure relatively easy.

But these large and expensive animals are still owned by a minority of smallholders.

Many farmers keep traditional cattle, smaller breeds that do not provide manure in the same quantity or quality and are often grazed on open pasture and fields, making collection more laborious.

Poorer farmers tend to keep goats, rabbits or chickens. These species produce a manure that can be rich in nutrients, but the amounts are very small. Lastly, a few farmers have no animals at all.

Most farmers, and especially those starting large orchards, will thus have to barter some of their crop yields or else spend precious cash to obtain manure. Surveys

by ILRI have shown that such bartering is common in the traditional production system. But given that manure is such a precious resource, will it be applied to banana plants in preference to other crops, such as coffee or maize? Most of the farmers participating in the KARI-ISAAA

project have expressed a willingness to give their banana plants preferential treatment, but this could change if the price of bananas were to fall relative to that of other commodities. And even if farmers do as they say they will, how will the needs of the other crops in the system be met without mining the resource base?

Research has shown that the maize component of mixed crop-livestock systems in Africa tends to be systematically deprived of nutrients, threatening system sustainability in the longer term.

For these reasons, Karembu and her colleagues are investigating alternative sources of nutrients for the system as a whole. They have approached the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming (KIOF), a non-government organization (NGO) that provides farmers with training and assistance in the production of green manure and compost. All farmers participating in the micro-credit scheme are being linked with KIOF, which already has an active programme in the bananagrowing areas of the central highlands.

expensive and not one that most farmers can afford without access to generous amounts of credit. Whether the microcredit scheme can run to this kind of solution remains to be seen.

The marketing issue Another purpose behind the micro-credit groups is to strengthen farmers’ bargaining power in the market place. New to the game of marketing what has only recently become a cash crop, small-scale banana farmers are not well organized at present and are liable to be exploited.

‘Buyers always say it is a “bad market day”,’ says Njuguna. As in the case of milk, the fact that the fruit is perishable doesn’t help. Growers taking a few bunches to market know they must find a buyer

Some farmers are already testing innovative solutions to the management challenge.

Kamau, for example, has installed a biogas digester, from which a nutrient-rich slurry made of water and chicken manure trickles downhill to his orchard. By combining the use of his digester with that of his pump, he solves both the water and the soil fertility constraints while simultaneously reducing his labour requirement. Because Kamau is a group leader, his example may well inspire others. But the initial outlay is 31

before midday, when the heat of the sun will cause over-ripening. Buyers are well aware of this fact, and try to knock down the price as the morning wears on.

Bananas are marketed by several kinds of trader.

Sometimes the women growers themselves take their produce to market. Other farmers prefer to sell at the farm gate to specialized local traders, again mostly women.

Larger buyers, both men and women, typically have trucks and vans to take the fruit further afield, to large urban markets.

Especially when they buy direct from the farm, these buyers can make handsome profits. They may sell on to city retailers, who mark prices up still further, or hawk their wares in large urban markets or from house to house in wealthier suburbs.

Between the farm gate and the big city market, prices may double or even treble.

At present, relatively few farmers are aware of this large difference. But group leaders such as Kamau and Gachugu are keen to explore the potential for their groups to market directly. The groups make it much easier to assemble the cash and labour needed to hire a truck and drive it to Nairobi. Gachugu has already begun doing this on a small scale, as have some groups in nearby Embu District.

One way in which farmers can increase their incomes from bananas is to add value 32

to them by processing. Banana-based products such as crisps, jam, wine and beer are not yet widely consumed in Kenya, but the market for them is growing. Group processing and marketing of these products could provide economies of scale over individual efforts. In the longer term, the groups could experiment with the development and testing of new products.

Karembu says that it is particularly important to address marketing issues since increased productivity will eventually start to drive prices down. At that point, the farmers’ greatest need will be for accurate market information. Nairobi is their obvious market, but there are alternatives, including several areas of the country where bananas don’t grow. ‘Virtually all Kenyans like bananas,’ says Karembu, ‘so the potential for growth in the domestic market is very great.’ She and her colleagues are investigating several means of disseminating information, including the use of radios, which many farmers already own.

They are also exploring the options for supporting the establishment of rural telecentres at which farmers could log on to the internet to obtain market information.

Exports are another possibility. At present, only a handful of large-scale farmers sell into the export market, but in the longer term smallholders could do so too, perhaps under contract farming arrangements.

Karembu’s studies suggest these concerns are ill founded. ‘The KARI-ISAAA project is closing the gender gap, not widening it,’ she says. Traditional production systems are not static but evolve towards a more egalitarian distribution of power as they become more market-oriented. As men realize that bananas are earning more for the family than the traditional cash crop, coffee, they release more land for bananas to the women or else start to plant banana themselves. Surveys in Central Province, close to the major market of Nairobi,

Closing the gender gap Traditionally grown mainly for subsistence, banana is considered a woman’s crop in rural Kenya. In traditional farming systems, women take responsibility for feeding the family while men look after the cash crops and so control the family’s cash income.

Moreover, it is men who own the land and decide on its use.

In theory, such gender differences could constrain the adoption of tissue-cultured plantlets. Because their activities are subsistence-oriented, women tend to lack cash and so may be unable to buy plantlets.

This means that, unless the women can obtain credit, the men must buy planting materials for them. Even if a woman can obtain plantlets, where can she grow them if she has only a small plot of land on which to produce the family’s food?

A further worry is that, as banana becomes a more commercial crop, men will take over marketing, depriving women of whatever small amount of income they previously earned from this activity.

found that women were now more able to influence their husbands’ decisions on technology uptake and land use. More and more women here are marketing surplus bananas, and they will do so in larger quantities as yields rise. Some, like Gachugu, 33

are starting to sell in bulk and to organize transport to urban markets in order to raise their profit margins. In this activity Gachugu gets the full support of her husband. ‘The new technology means that men and women are working more closely together,’ comments Karembu. ‘And when they work together to earn an income, they are more likely to share household tasks too, so there is also a welfare benefit for women.’

As regards cash incomes, it is probably still true that men get the larger share, but it is clear that women too are earning more.

‘The bottom line is that more money becomes available for the whole family, whatever its source,’ says Karembu.

Women spend most of their extra cash on maintaining the family and the household.

They buy more food, including commodities already grown on the farm, such as beans and maize. They also spend more on health care, in addition to domestic items 34

such as clothing, firewood and soap. Major investment decisions, such as the renovation of a house or the installation of water tanks, tend to be taken jointly by man and wife.

And the whole family, not just the man, benefits from such investments.

So far, the micro-credit groups have particularly benefited women, since they tend to form cohesive groups and to work together in cooperatives more easily than men do. But the men are waking up to the groups’ potential. When the groups first started, 80% of those attending were women. Now, the ratio of men to women is about 50:50.

Laboratory and station-based researchers need to be constantly aware of gender issues, says Karembu. The links between the participatory on-farm research conducted

by Karembu and her colleagues and the laboratory-based tissue culture work are, as we have seen, a special strength of the project, with information on tastes or marketing practices being fed back into the upstream R&D process. For example, in areas such as Kisii, in western Kenya, women tend to lack access to the farm’s bullock cart and have to head-carry bananas to market, so they prefer the traditional small varieties, which are lighter and less bulky than improved varieties, in addition to tasting sweeter. Recently, men have entered the market for bananas, but they sell bigger bunches of the larger-fruited varieties such as Uganda Green, which fetch higher prices. If laboratories produce plantlets of only one of these two types, they risk benefiting one group and not the other.

Impact assessment

from the project should be worth around Ksh 94 million (US$ 1.574 million). That compares with an investment of Ksh 40 To retain the support of donors, government and the general public, invest- million (US$ 0.669 million), creating a highly favourable internal rate of return to ments made in biotechnology R&D need the project of 42%. Besides producers, to be justified. The standard way of doing this is to make what is known as an ex-ante consumers also stand to benefit, capturing roughly 40% of the surplus as prices fall. assessment—a forecast of the economic and social benefits that can be expected A further finding of Qaim’s study was that, from the investment. if farmers made an initial investment in tissue-cultured plantlets, then obtained In 1999, ISAAA published an ex-ante additional planting materials by transassessment of the KARI-ISAAA banana planting suckers in the traditional way, project. The assessment was made by the technology would spread faster and Matin Qaim, then a PhD student from Bonn University, Germany. Qaim analysed its profitability to poor farmers would improve still further. As we have seen, the impact of adopting tissue-cultured this practice may not be advisable at banana plantlets on three types of farm— present, but it could become so once large-, middle- and small-sized. improved varieties with better resistance to pests and diseases have been developed, Qaim found that the potential for yield a few years from now. If the practice were gains was highest on small farms, where widely adopted, the internal rate of return yields have suffered most in recent years. to the project would rise to an impressive By adopting the technology, small-scale 91%, a level that fully justifies the KARI farmers could raise their yields by up to research being conducted on this option.

150%. However, he also found that these farmers faced the highest production costs, Lower unit prices for plantlets are another possible route to greater profitability for which would rise by around 130%. poor farmers. The current price is Qaim concluded that the profitability of the technology to these producers could Ksh 80-100 (US$ 0.80-1.20), which farmers find too expensive, but this can be greatly increased through micro-credit be expected to fall in the future, as the schemes and the formation of farmers’ number of plantlet suppliers increases. groups. His report thus fully endorses the project’s current strategy.

Lastly, Qaim pointed out that tissue culture All successful development projects opens the way for the more rapid dissemigenerate what is known as an ‘economic nation of future biotechnology innovations. surplus’—the monetary figure put on the If a share of the benefits from these benefits to society as a whole. Qaim innovations is factored into the assessment, calculated that the average annual benefits the returns to the project rise still further.

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Reaching out to the region

‘ISAAA’s strategy is to develop a model in Kenya, then encourage other countries to replicate it,’ says Michael Njuguna, Programme Assistant with the ISAAA Afri Center. ‘There’s been particular interest in the private-public partnership aspect of the work in Kenya.’ To share the project’s experiences, ISAAA and KARI hosted a workshop to which participants from the rest of the region were invited.

The participants, drawn from the private sector as well as from public-sector research institutes, extension services, NGOs and farming communities, were introduced to all aspects of the project, from the petri dish, through planting and managing the crop, to harvesting, marketing, processing and consuming it.

who visited Maragua District during the workshop. Once they had seen the performance of the tissue culture plantlets in Kenyan farmers’ fields, the visitors refused to spend their per diems on themselves but insisted on using them to buy tissue-cultured plantlets instead. ‘All we had to do was let them talk to their Kenyan counterparts,’ says Njuguna. ‘It was a clear sign that farmer-to-farmer transfer works best.’ After the farmers had returned to Tanzania, ISAAA and KARI cleared a consignment of plantlets with Kenya’s plant quarantine services, while the farmers arranged an import permit on their side of the border. The plantlets were then sent across the border in a lorry, whose cargo reached the farmers just in time for the planting season. Three months later, the Kenyan farmers were accompanied by ISAAA and KARI staff on a visit to their Tanzanian ‘students’. A follow-up workshop was held in Tanzania, to which a representative from the Rockefeller Foundation was invited. The foundation has now approved a grant to expand the work in Tanzania.

After the workshop, Tanzania moved ahead particularly rapidly. Twelve trial sites were started in the country’s three major bananagrowing regions—Arusha, Kalimanjaro and Tanga. The Hotti Tengeru Agricultural Research and Training Institute now boasts a new tissue culture laboratory, which has sent a technician to Kenya for training in propagation techniques. But perhaps the most encouraging evidence of Kenya’s ability to serve as a model was the interest shown by the group of Tanzanian farmers

The benefits of collaboration don’t flow in only one direction, however. Uganda has a strong national banana research group whose experience has proved useful to Kenya. Based at the Kwanda Research Institute and Makerere University, the group has hosted a visit from the KARIThika team, who came to learn the techniques for propagating local banana varieties. ‘The visit brought a new dimension to the Thika team’s work, laying the foundations for the propagation of local

The KARI-ISAAA banana project, like all projects brokered by ISAAA, is regional rather than national in focus. Its activities in Kenya are more advanced than in the other participating countries, but work has already started in Tanzania and Uganda.

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varieties that started in Phase II of the project,’ says Njuguna. A return visit by the Uganda group to Kenya, in December 1998, enabled the two groups to share their field experiences.

By participating in projects at a regional level, all partners in the region are able to benefit from the synergies and spillovers that characterize such projects.

Public-private partnership A spacious colonial bungalow, whitewalled, red-roofed and set in its own gardens in a quiet residential district of Nairobi, seems an unlikely place from which to generate a more prosperous future for Kenya’s rural areas. But that is to reckon without Genetic Technologies Ltd (GTL), a private company that has become a key player in scaling up the production and marketing of tissuecultured plantlets.

Established in 1994, GTL bought the bungalow in 1995 after an initial period in which it had wanted to develop its own purpose-built laboratories. ‘In the end we gave up dreaming of the perfect lab and just decided to get started,’ says the company’s Managing Director, Suresh Patel. The decision is reflected in the agreeably ad hoc flavour of working arrangements at the bungalow. The heart of the business is the house’s old kitchen, now used to ‘cook up’ the media required for culturing plantlets. Originally, pressure cookers were used for this purpose,

but these gave way to standard laboratory autoclaves once the company could afford them. Converted bedrooms house a dispensing room and growth chambers.

The bungalow has been extended piecemeal as the business has grown, sprouting new growth rooms like branches on a healthy plantlet. And at the back of the house, where gracious lawns once sloped steeply to a river, is a terraced area that now accommodates irrigated greenhouses for hardening.

Unlike other Nairobi-based biotechnology companies, GTL takes a special interest in crops grown by resource-poor farmers and sold on the domestic as well as the export market. In some cases, including banana, its involvement with these crops is partly altruistic, something done for the good of the country rather than to make money.

But Patel and his colleagues also entertain a healthy belief in the future of the small37

holder sector as a major source of demand for plantlets and hence of profitable business in the longer term.

‘Without GTL we would never have had an impact,’ says Nguthi. ‘Researchers in the public sector don’t have the capacity for technology dissemination. They can show how production can be improved, but it’s up to the private sector to pick the technology up and run with it.’

Running with the technology is certainly what GTL has done. In less than 10 years since its establishment, the company has developed or acquired the know-how to produce plantlets in an impressive array of crops grown by resource-poor smallholders in addition to larger-scale producers.

The commodities for which plantlets are already available include banana, cassava, sweetpotato, pyrethrum, pineapple and sugarcane. And there are plans to start production in the near future in coffee, passion fruit, sisal, eucalyptus and grevillea.

In all these cases, tissue-cultured plantlets can be expected to raise the incomes and living standards of producers dramatically.

That makes GTL a vital contributor to the payoff achieved from public-sector research. Through its work on cassava and banana, GTL stands to benefit millions of resource-poor farmers who depend on these crops for subsistence as well as an income. Other crops on which the company works are suitable for production under contracting arrangements that link smallholders to expanding export or domestic markets. Available soon will be 38

plantlets for passion fruit, a species considered by KARI researchers to have a very high potential for market growth.

Smallholders producing eucalyptus will be able to sell to Pan Papers, a large Kenyan paper mill, in addition to using the tree for firewood or timber. Patel keeps an ear cocked for the changing fortunes of all the commercial crops in which GTL might have an interest. At present he is keen to forge ahead with sisal, the market for which is recovering as natural fibres, for so long unfashionable, make a come-back.

In a few cases the company is creating new opportunities for smallholders to enter the market for rare and high-value plants.

For example, a recent visitor to the bungalow was a consultant from the Philippines, who came to advise on media for the propagation of orchids.

Besides contributing to rural development, GTL creates city jobs and a demand for inputs and services that boosts other parts of the economy. Around 100 people are employed at the bungalow, 30 of them in the laboratory and 60 outside, in the hardening area. Training the staff has meant jobs for external consultants, some from Kenya’s public sector and others from abroad. To make the media, chemicals and other laboratory supplies are regularly purchased. Delivering the plantlets requires trucks and drivers, creating work for local transport firms.

Links with the public sector have been vital to GTL’s fortunes in several ways.

First, the company relies on public-sector researchers to develop or introduce the

I was working at KARI in the early 1980s. This knowledge was transferred to GTL when mass propagation began in the mid-1990s. More recently, Pauline Mbaabu, originally with the public-sector Forestry Health and Management Centre, was transferred to GTL to work on the development of protocols for the mass propagation of euclayptus and acacia, which like many tree species are tricky to root. Pauline acquired her expertise in this area at Mondi Forests, a private-sector company in South Africa where she did an internship under ISAAA sponsorship.

Protocols for many of the improved new plant varieties it uses as raw materials. banana varieties now grown in Kenya were first developed by Uganda’s National ‘KARI has been an excellent source,’ says Patel. ‘Its links with farmers ensure that its Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), with funding from the Rockefeller Founvarieties have the traits people want.’ dation. Kenyan scientists from the public The international research community is also a source of new materials. For example, and private sectors went to NARO under the International Network for the Improve- ISAAA sponsorship to learn the techniques, which are now being further developed ment of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) and South Africa’s Institute of Tropical and by Nguthi’s group at KARI-Thika.

Sub-Tropical Crops (ITSC) have supplied Third, public-sector research institutes improved banana varieties resistant to and universities are essential providers major diseases such as black sigatoka. of market research. ‘Feedback on what These varieties include the popular varieties people actually want is vital to Goldfinger, originally developed by a public-sector research group in Honduras. our operations,’ says Patel. In banana, for example, market research conducted

by Karembu and her colleagues under the Second, the public sector has developed KARI-ISAAA project has been instrumenthe protocols for tissue culture, which tal in determining the varieties to which differ for each species and variety.

GTL gives priority. Experience here stands For example, I myself conducted research in marked contrast to that of some other on the protocols for pyrethrum, while

‘Tissue culture is an art, not a science.’

— Suresh Patel, Managing Director, GTL

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tissue culture suppliers, who have produced plantlets but been unable to sell them because of poor identification of consumers’ requirements and inadequate extension efforts.

National Pyrethrum Research Centre, high on the Mau escarpment near Molo, it looks as if there is no shortage of planting materials. But the appearance is deceptive.

Pyrethrum is one of a handful of plants worldwide grown for its properties as Patel is confident of the future market for a natural insecticide. Best known for their GTL’s products. At present, the company is concentrating on consolidating its place effectiveness as mosquito repellants, the in the Kenyan market. In the longer term, pyrethrins present in the plant’s flowers it could extend its operations into Tanzania, can also be used to control cockroaches, fleas, ticks and other insects. Since they Uganda and perhaps beyond. The newly are non-toxic to human beings, pyrethrins formed Common Market of Eastern and are widely used to preserve food products Southern Africa (COMESA) constitutes a vast market of some 400 million consumers. and to keep food storage areas clean.

‘All of them are potential buyers of tissueA single packet of pyrethrum seed was cultured plantlets,’ says Patel, with an introduced to Kenya in 1928. Within entrepreneurial gleam in his eye. a decade the country had become the world’s leading supplier, a position it Pyrethrum makes a comeback continued to hold in the post-war years.

When cheaper synthetic pyrethroids Row upon row of small plants with bluebecame available in the1970s, the market green foliage and a single erect stem for pyrethrum declined sharply. But many capped by a daisy-like flower extend into of these competing products have since the distance, clearly visible in the cool, been banned because of their damaging clean air. In the nurseries of KARI’s effects on the environment and their accumulation in the food chain. Over the past 15 years, pyrethrum has made a comeback and prices have started to rise again.

Global demand for pyrethrum now stands at 12 000 tonnes per year, of which Kenya supplies nearly half.

But the difficulties of 40

producing and processing the crop, together with the low returns it used to bring, have turned farmers away from it, endangering the country’s market position. Pyrethrum is very sensitive to drought and needs the cool temperatures of the highlands in order to flower. If irrigation water is scarce or the sun beats down too hard, farmers can lose their crop. Harvesters have to bend down to pick the individual flowers, a timeconsuming chore that is the source of many a back-ache. And the flowers then have to be dried, another laborious process that must be completed outside the homestead because of the unpleasant smell they give off.

Many farmers have given up pyrethrum in favour of Irish potato, tomato and other vegetables, which yield more reliably and produce a steadier income for less labour.

As a result they have lost their planting materials, making a return to pyrethrum difficult.

Pyrethrum plants can be produced either from seed or from ‘splits’—the smaller individual plants seedlings into which a cloned mother plant is divided. Farmers prefer splits, as these are less delicate, reach maturity faster and yield more reliably than plants raised from seed. But multiplying clones to provide splits by conventional means is an excruciatingly slow business. With each clone yielding only five splits, it takes around 8-10 years to reach the 55 000 plants needed to grow just 1 hectare of the crop.

‘That’s where tissue culture comes in,’ says Joseph Ikahu, Director of the Molo centre.

‘It enables us to reduce the propagation

period from 10 years to only 3.’ As has been found for other plant species, tissuecultured pyrethrum materials are more vigorous and free from pests.

Pyrethrum was actually the first crop in Kenya to be propagated using tissue culture. I developed the protocols for propagation back in 1980. But it is only since the mid-1990s that farmers have started feeling the benefits of my research.

KARI and the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya built a small tissue-culture laboratory at Molo in the late1980s, but this was really intended for experimental purposes and is too small to meet the demand for plantlets by itself. In 1996, the centre turned to GTL to bump up supplies. Lorries full of plantlets now regularly ply the road from Nairobi to Molo, greatly augmenting the flow of materials to farmers’ fields. Once again, the private sector has, through its capacity for mass production, secured the payoff from public-sector research.

The case of pyrethrum also shows how tissue culture can nourish Kenya’s agricultural exports. With the price of pyrethrum once again rising, farmers’ interest in the crop is rekindling. If it were not for tissue culture, few of them would be able to 41

obtain planting materials. Now that these can reach farmers’ fields faster, Kenya has a chance of increasing its share of the global market for this environmentally friendly insecticide.

Catering to Kenya’s sweet tooth On the other side of the Mau escarpment, in a fertile and well watered valley that slopes gently westwards to Lake Victoria, the National Sugar Research Centre at Kibos is using tissue culture to tackle a more complex set of issues in an important commercial crop that could help the country cut its import bills.

Kenyans have a soft spot for sugar, getting through over half a million tonnes of the stuff every year. Consumption has risen by 35% over the past decade and the rate of increase shows no signs of abating. Launched during the colonial era, the domestic sugar industry was expanded by the government after independence in a bid to save foreign exchange by ‘growing our own’.

But at present the country is losing the battle for selfsufficiency: production peaked at around 435 000 tonnes a year in 1989 and has since declined steadily.

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To plug the yawning gap between supply and demand, imports have soared.

The reasons for the sector’s decline are complex. Kenya’s sugar industry is far from efficient, with higher production and processing costs than almost any other producing country. Many of the mills are surrounded by their own estates, which tend to be overmanned and underproductive. Beyond the estates lie the mainly large-scale farms that also supply the mills. The quality of the planting materials possessed by these farmers is often poor, leading to uneven germination, vulnerability to pests and diseases and low yields. Farmers using standard varieties must wait a long time, 18-22 months, for the crop to mature. And when it does mature, they must harvest it promptly, since the sugar content of the cane starts to decline rapidly if the crop is left too long in the ground. After harvest, farmers must transport their crop from the farm to the factory, often moving it long distances

along rough roads, a hazardous and expensive business that they must undertake at their own cost and risk, using small, ill-serviced tractors and trailers rather than the large trucks typically used in other countries. The ‘economic distance’ from a mill in Kenya is only 30 kilometres, but many farmers grow their crop much further away than that.

Perhaps the most serious cause of inefficiency is the pricing system. Negotiated between two associations, one representing the millers and the other the growers, the prices paid to farmers are based on the weight of the cane farmers deliver, not on its actual sugar content. As a result the farmer has no incentive to deliver a quality product and sugar recovery rates at the mills are low. As the industry has declined, the mills have taken to paying farmers for their crop later and later, discouraging farmers still further.

When the farmers complain, the millers cite the poor quality of the harvest as their excuse. ‘There was no juice in your cane,’ they say.

‘Measuring sugar content at the mills is the single most important step we could take to get better quality out of our farmers,’ says Malinga Kirui, Director of the Kibos centre. But the millers are reluctant to switch to a quality-based pricing system, since this requires an expensive piece of new equipment, a sampler drill. In mills elsewhere, these drills are installed at the point of delivery, on the weighbridge, where they are used to penetrate trucks and obtain samples from different parts

of the load. The mill analyses the samples in its laboratory and uses the results as a factor alongside weight in determining price. Kenya’s millers argue that farmers must first be persuaded to grow better quality cane before they will switch to a quality-based pricing system. The farmers ask why they should improve quality when they get paid the same anyway—and paid late at that.

‘Through tissue culture we can break this vicious circle,’ says Kirui. Tissue culture gives the same productivity advantages in sugarcane as in other crops. A hectare of tissue-cultured materials yields enough cane to plant 10 hectares for commercial production, a big increase in the multiplication ratio. The materials produce setts of good quality, leading to even germination and hence a uniform stand of cane that can be harvested all at the same time. Instead of waiting 12-14 months for the crop to mature, farmers can harvest in as little as 8 months. Yields are considerably higher, as the plants grow vigorously and produce more stalks. The ratoon crop that follows the first harvest is also stronger and more uniform, providing a boost to farmers’ incomes that is often essential if they are to make a worthwhile profit.

The mass production of plantlets through tissue culture is a timely next step in the national R&D process for sugar.

The 1980s and early 1990s saw major achievements in varietal development, but the challenge now is to get the new varieties into farmers’ fields. Since 1996, with funding from the Kenya Sugar Authority, 43

the Kibos centre has contracted GTL to supply tissue-cultured plantlets to order.

The potted plantlets are delivered by truck, then hardened in sheds before being grown out at the centre. The first on-station harvest yields setts that are distributed to farmers.

‘Our relationship with GTL has been a real help,’ says Kirui. ‘Without it we could not realize a return to the investment made in developing new varieties.’ To speed dissemination still further, the centre now encourages selected farmers to go in for multiplication as well as commercial production, turning a proportion of their cane into setts to sell on to their neighbours. At the same time, Kirui and his colleagues are trying to sensitize farmers to the importance of sett quality as the basis for a uniform crop, timely harvesting and an improvement in the quality of cane delivered to the mills. In the longer term, they hope to persuade the millers too that quality is worth a premium payment.

Nestor Nyambori is the manager of one

of the farms participating in the multiplication scheme. He received setts of EAK 70-97, an improved variety that was developed more than 20 years ago but was unobtainable until tissue-cultured materials became available recently.

‘Germination was good and growth is excellent,’ he says, admiring the tall crop growing in his fields. ‘And because the canopy closes faster, there is less weeding to do.’ Nyambori is one of a growing number of farmers passing the message about tissue-cultured materials on to others. When he told the farm’s owner, the latter came over to see for himself and placed a bulk order for plantlets a few days later.

At present, the domestic price of sugar in Kenya is Ksh 48 (US$ 0.58) per kilogramme, well above the price of imports despite a 100% import tariff. ‘Shoppers in supermarkets don’t hesitate,’ says Kirui.

But Kirui believes that tissue culture, with its potential to increase both the quantity and the quality of production, can help the sector become more competitive.

‘If we can drive the price down, there is plenty of room for growth,’ he says.

‘Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll become an exporter.’

Incidentally, work at the Kibos centre, including the purchase and dissemination of tissue-cultured plantlets, is funded by a 0.5% tax on the retail price of all sugar sold in Kenya. ‘That’s what we live on,’ says Kirui. ‘So, please, put lots of sugar in your tea.’ Most Kenyans don’t need to be asked to do that!

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4

The Potential of Genetic Markers and Genetic Modification Tissue culture cannot solve all Kenya’s agricultural problems. That’s why KARI and its partners are conducting research on a second generation of biotechnologies based on genetic markers and GM.

Farmers want action, not words streaking effect followed by stunted growth Anyone who doubts the relevance of biotechnology research to small-scale farmers’ needs should accompany Jane Ininda on a field trip to Githunguri.

This area of the central Kenyan highlands is a ‘hot-spot’ for a disease that devastates farmers’ most important food crop, maize.

Maize streak virus (MSV) is transmitted by an insect that feeds on maize called the leafhopper, which passes the virus through its saliva into the stalks and leaves of the growing plant. The result is a characteristic

and, all too often, death. Even if the plant survives, it produces few flowers and hence little seed. The impact on yields can be catastrophic, especially when the disease strikes early in the growing season.

‘I know farmers who have lost 100% of their harvest,’ says Ininda, a maize breeder with KARI. ‘They are desperate for a means of control.’

The farmers of Githunguri are not alone in their plight. Around 20 African countries now suffer from MSV, epidemics of which have become recurrent since about 1980.

The disease continues to spread rapidly and losses from it are getting worse.

Conventional approaches to controlling MSV have failed to deliver practical solutions. Insecticides could be used to destroy the leafhopper vector, but they are too expensive for small-scale farmers.

They also risk damaging both the environment and farmers’ health, and are in any case a short-term palliative, since resistance would soon develop in the insects. Sowing early in the growing season can help the maize crop reach maturity before the 45

leafhopper populations build up, but this does not work in areas where farmers traditionally stagger their sowing dates or where there is more than one cropping season. In these situations, which are common in Kenya, infection passes easily from one growing crop to another.

‘Where are they, these streak-resistant varieties?

If you can give me the seeds, I will plant them now.’

— Maria Wanjiku, a maize farmer in Githunguri

The best hope of protection lies in genetic resistance. But conventional breeding to develop resistant varieties is fraught with uncertainty. The virus is extremely variable and is constantly evolving, so it is difficult to know where and for how long a resistant variety will prove effective. Moreover, the genetic basis of resistance is poorly understood: some plants appear to be immune to the disease, possessing some property that deters leafhoppers from feeding on them; in other cases the insects may feed on the plant, but the virus is not transmitted; and in still others, the virus is transmitted but does not multiply in the plant. Nor is it known for certain whether resistance is a monogenic or a polygenic trait. Lastly, the life-cycle and behaviour of the leafhopper also affect the spread of the disease, complicating both the task of effective screening for resistance and the deployment of improved varieties.

The result of all these complications is that few resistant varieties have yet become widely available. Of those that have, some have been rejected by farmers, either because resistance breaks down or because it is associated with other, unattractive traits, such as low yields, poor taste and cooking qualities, or susceptibility to other pests and diseases.

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Ininda says that farmers can be forgiven for feeling cynical about the potential of research to come up with solutions.

‘After 20 years of waiting, they have given up on the idea that we have anything useful to offer them. They say we are all talk and no action.’

Marker-assisted selection to the rescue In the mid-1990s, I and my colleagues at ISAAA brokered a multi-partner project that aims to change the perception of Ininda’s farmers.

The project uses genetic markers to delve beneath the appearance of the plant to understand the genetic basis of resistance.

Partnering KARI in the project are the UK’s John Innes Centre, the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the Kenya-based International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).

The project’s first step was to ask all the institutions involved in resistance breeding to send their best materials for screening.

The aim was to find out how well the materials would perform in different parts of Kenya. KARI’s scientists received germplasm from CIMMYT, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), the South African seed company Pannar and the Grains Crops Institute (GCI), also in South Africa. The trials, conducted by KARI pathologists Jackson Njuguna and

Benjamin Odhiambo, took place at 12 locations in four agro-ecological zones known to suffer from MSV: the central highlands, where Githunguri was one of the locations, the western highlands, the coastal zone and the Lake Victoria basin.

During the trial the pathologists saved samples of germplasm affected by the disease, extracted viral DNA from them and took the DNA to the Department of Microbiology at the University of Cape Town, where they characterized it using genetic markers.

‘Our results reflect the complexity of the MSV problem,’ says Odhiambo. ‘Most of the germplasm was resistant to some degree, but it performed differently at different locations. Similarly, the characterization exercise confirmed the variability of the virus in Kenya, revealing three different isolates. The isolate from the Lake Victoria basin was the most virulent and therefore the most likely to cause resistance to break down.’ Odhiambo and his colleagues believe there could be many more isolates present in the country.

The screening trial yielded some interesting new materials for inclusion in KARI’s breeding programme. Four of the eight lines tested showed useful levels of resistance. One, from CIRAD, appeared immune under most conditions at all locations, falling prey to the disease only when it met a highly virulent strain.

One of the CIMMYT lines also showed excellent resistance. The IITA materials, in contrast, did not perform well.

The development of resistant varieties has been frustrated in the past by scientists’ inability to distinguish between the maize plant’s resistance to the pest vector and to the virus itself. Researchers at the John Innes Centre have overcome this problem by developing the technique of agro-infection, in which the insect vector found in nature is replaced by GM via Agrobacterium tumefaciens, into which the DNA of the virus is inserted (see Chapter 1). Using Agrobacterium as a vector eliminates the palatability of the plant to the insect as a factor in disease transmission, thereby revealing genuine cases of resistance to the virus. Used in combination with the data on viral isolates obtained at the University of Cape Town, the agro-infection technique is providing accurate information on which germplasm is resistant to which isolates.

The next challenge is to ‘pyramid’ the different genes that code for resistance— that is, to combine them in a single variety that will have more stable resistance across a wider range of locations.

Ininda is playing a leading part in this research, the success of which depends critically on identifying the genes that code for resistance in each variety.

She is using two types of marker to assist her: first RFLPs, to narrow the search down to relatively long sections of chromosomes, then microsatellites, to pinpoint the genes accurately. To find the markers, Ininda conducted a mapping exercise in which she crossed each of the four lines known to be resistant with a variety known to be susceptible.

By studying the performance of the 47

ant varieties available at present do not yield well under Kenyan conditions.’ Grain quality and storage characteristics are other important factors. Kenyans prefer what are known as ‘flint’ varieties, which store better and have a sweeter taste than the so-called ‘dent’ varieties marketed by some of the seed companies. Lastly, resistance to MSV will have to be combined with resistance to other diseases, such as leaf blight, gray leaf spot, leaf rust and head smut. progeny when exposed to the disease, she was able to correlate the presence or absence of resistance with different markers.

To conduct the molecular part of her research, Ininda visited first the John Innes Centre in the UK, then the laboratory of the multinational seed company, Novartis, in France.

‘Our connections with both these organizations have really benefited the project,’ she says. ‘I had access to expertise and equipment that enabled me to make progress in a few weeks that would have taken a decade or more using conventional approaches.’ Odhiambo has also been exposed to the advanced techniques in use at the John Innes Centre, where he recently completed research for a PhD on MSV. These private-public, north-south exchanges were both facilitated by ISAAA. Once more stable resistance has been developed, it will be transferred to varieties that farmers actually like. ‘We can’t just give farmers a streak-resistant variety if it is not good in other ways,’ says Ininda.

High yield is the first priority. ‘The resist48

To ensure the widest possible dissemination of improved materials, Ininda and her colleagues will develop both open-pollinated and hybrid varieties. The advantage of the former is that small-scale farmers will be able to continue to save their own seed, avoiding the need to buy a fresh batch at the start of every growing season.

But hybrid varieties, which give higher yields, are also likely to prove popular with farmers, especially large-scale farmers in the commercial areas. These will be marketed through private-sector seed companies.

Eventually, resistant varieties will form the central plank of an integrated approach to controlling both the pest vector and the disease—an approach that will be environmentally friendly because it will minimize the use of chemicals. Another essential ingredient of this approach is an understanding of the leafhopper’s life-cycle and behaviour, which can guide the development of more effective agronomic practices and, possibly, reveal opportunities for other control measures. Collaborative studies with ICIPE have contributed to this understanding, providing data

on insect population dynamics and the relative importance of different species of leafhopper.

In September 1999 the KARI team hosted an international workshop on MSV, with the aim of synthesizing the achievements of Phase I of the project and identifying the way forward for Phase II. The workshop showed that Kenyan scientists had been able to use biotechnology approaches to build rapidly on the results achieved through conventional research. Progress had been accelerated by pooling resources, sharing results and learning new skills.

Kenya’s small-scale maize farmers will soon reap the benefits: in the coming cropping season, Ininda will take the first of a new generation of resistant materials for on-farm testing in the Githunguri area. ‘The farmers are crying out for the seeds,’ she says.

‘At last, we can show them action, not words.’

Biotechnology comes of age Benjamin Odhiambo is looking forward to a party. Surprisingly, it’s an official KARI do—not the sort of gathering you’d expect to be greeted with much enthusiasm by staff, who tend to go to such functions more out of a sense of duty than a wish to unwind. But if all goes well, this will be no routine office bash but a special celebration marking the coming of age of Kenya’s biotechnology research.

menu, namely Kenya’s first ever transgenic sweetpotatoes. As acting head of the institute’s Biotechnology Programme, Odhiambo will be among the first to taste the early fruits of the programme’s research on GM. In so doing, he and his colleagues will also demonstrate that you can eat GM food and live to tell the tale.

The party will represent the culmination of a decade of work. It was in the early 1990s that I obtained funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to travel to the US-based multinational, Monsanto, for a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship.

There I became the first Kenyan to learn the techniques of gene transfer.

The purpose of my research was to use these techniques to tackle one of the most serious constraints faced by Kenya’s resource-poor farmers.

Drought-resistant, energy-rich and packed with vitamins, sweetpotato is vital for food security and livelihoods, especially in semiarid areas where farming is marginal.

The centre of attention at the party, indeed its raison d’être, will at the same time be the number one item on the buffet dinner 49

The highly versatile tuber can be processed into flour, purée, biscuits, jams and drinks, while the stalks and any discarded tubers are used to feed farm animals. The crop also has a promising future as a starch producer and a ‘green’ energy crop.

If smallholders are to realize the full potential of sweetpotato, their yields must rise. Recently, however, they have been doing just the opposite. The crop has fallen into the grip of a devastating complex of seven viruses that can cause losses of up to 78% of farmers’ harvests.

At the heart of the complex is the so-called feathery mottle virus, which is harmless on its own but lethal when it gangs up with the others.

The only way forward Sweetpotato feathery mottle virus is a classic example of a problem that cannot be solved through conventional breeding.

Part of the problem lies in the nature of the plant, which is difficult to cross.

Centuries of vegetative propagation have reduced the number of varieties that flower.

The few that do are mostly self-pollinating or have flowers that open only briefly, limiting the chances of successful crosspollination. In addition, different varieties possess different numbers of chromosomes, 50

making them mutually incompatible.

The other part of the problem is the variability of the viral complex. This causes a wide range of symptoms, rendering infected plants difficult to spot in the field.

Sometimes plants carry the feathery mottle virus alone and hence display no symptoms at all. Such plants can easily be thought resistant when they are not.

These difficulties make conventional resistance breeding a game of blind man’s buff. In the early 1990s, I and my colleagues at KARI became convinced that the only way forward lay in GM. Experiences at Monsanto have vindicated this conviction. Five other KARI scientists besides me have now visited the company to learn the techniques of GM. During our visits we have modified eight sweetpotato varieties so that these now contain the genes for resistance, which Monsanto has kindly donated to Kenya. To make sure the varieties are resistant, we have challenged them with virulent Kenyan strains of the virus and its complex, under containment in the greenhouse. Those that performed best have been repatriated to Kenya, where they are now being further tested in the laboratory, again under containment. If all goes well, the plants will be released for field trials in early 2001.

It is the harvest from these trials that will end up on the plates of Odhiambo and his colleagues.

With the testing phase successfully concluded, the KARI team will use the knowledge gained at Monsanto to transfer

By the time they reach farmers’ fields, the new varieties will have been the subject of a lot of expensive attention, most of it reflecting the cautious approach taken to GM by KARI and the government.

Odhiambo and his colleagues first applied for a permit to bring the modified plants back into the country from Monsanto in The KARI team plans to use GM to tackle December 1998, but it was 2 years before the permit was granted. Because Kenya other severe problems facing sweetpotato farmers. One priority is infestation by had no national biosafety committee, weevils, to which the crop is particularly one had to be set up before the case could susceptible because farmers store tubers be dealt with (see Chapter 5). The plants where they mature—in the ground. were then flown to Nairobi accompanied ‘GM varieties resistant to weevils should in person by a Monsanto scientist, prove a big hit with farmers,’ says Odhiambo. inspected by the Kenya Plant Health Inspection Services (KEPHIS) at the Daniel Maingi, a PhD candidate from airport, then inspected again by scientists KARI, is already working on the problem at the University of Missouri, in the USA. at the laboratory where they were to be tested. The laboratory too had to pass The case of KARI’s transgenic sweetpotatoes stringent safety and security checks before tests went ahead. Further rigorous proceillustrates the power of biotechnology dures will surround tissue culture propagaapproaches when they are combined.

While genetic markers are used to identify tion and hardening in the greenhouse, before the plants are field tested, again relevant genes, the techniques of GM are applied to create improved varieties. These under carefully controlled conditions. can then be multiplied using tissue culture, At each stage, operations will be reported with viral indexing serving to check for the in full to Kenya’s new Biosafety Committee, presence of viruses in the raw materials for which must ultimately decide whether the varieties are environmentally sound and multiplication. can be released to farmers. the resistance genes into the most popular varieties currently grown by Kenyan farmers. The biotechnology centre’s tissue culture section will then propagate plants for more widespread testing and dissemination. Eventually, GTL may become involved in mass propagation and marketing.

‘It is one thing to romanticize Africa, to imagine that the developing countries should not do things that maybe the West feels it did wrong.

But listen, it depends on whether you understand hunger or not, it depends on whether you know what it is to be deprived or not.’

— Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, KARI

Is it all worthwhile? Odhiambo and his colleagues point out that the time and money spent actually developing GM varieties are less than for conventional varieties. Gene transfer is faster and more accurate, replacing the hit-and-miss efforts of the past with a new certainty that usable results will be achieved quickly. Given these 51

shorter lead times for technology development, the real challenge is to streamline the regulatory process. Still new itself, Kenya’s regulatory system is, quite rightly, reacting cautiously to new biotechnologies at present. But if, as expected, the new becomes familiar, then the approval process should speed up. If this happens, the total time taken to deliver GM varieties to farmers’ fields will be lower than for conventionally developed varieties. These shorter delivery times can already be seen in countries such as China, where the promotion of GM crops is government policy.

‘In the long term it’s worth it,’ Odhiambo concludes. ‘For a poor country like Kenya, where agriculture is a livelihood for millions of rural people and an essential source of food for urban consumers, the benefits of GM will far outweigh the costs.’

A gleam in our eye Kenya has barely started tapping the potential of biotechnology. On the road ahead lie some applications with profound implications for the country’s development.

‘A GM banana a day could keep the doctor away.’

— Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, KARI

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Among the most exciting are applications that contribute to human health as well as nutrition. In Kenya as in other developing countries, thousands of children die each year of cholera, contracted from dirty water or food. Instead of making an expensive and time-consuming visit to the clinic, tomorrow’s Kenyan mothers may be able to vaccinate their children against

this and other diseases simply by giving them a GM banana to eat. Such technologies may be little more than a gleam in scientists’ eyes at present, but they are under research and there appear to be no insuperable barriers to their successful development. If widely available at low cost, they would place health care within reach of millions of poor families while slashing government expenditure. It is thought that the delivery cost of a banana vaccine would be 2 US cents a dose, compared with US$ 125 for an injection.

If the prospect of food vaccines seems far-fetched, consider the advances already made in food quality. All over Africa and South Asia, millions of children and pregnant mothers suffer from anaemia.

The condition can be substantially reversed by eating rice varieties with a high iron content, which have recently been developed by scientists and are now being tested on farmers’ fields. An estimated 250 million children worldwide suffer from blindness or defective eyesight caused by vitamin A deficiency. So-called ‘golden rice’ containing beta-carotene, the compound that converts to vitamin A, will help to offset these deficiencies. High iron and beta-carotene contents have recently been combined in a single GM variety, offering even more powerful health benefits.

Scientists are also working on what is known as quality protein maize (QPM), which contains two essential amino-acids that reduce the amounts of the crop required for a healthy diet. Research has shown that children need to eat 30% less QPM than ordinary maize to obtain the

same nutritional benefits. Quality foods can thus create real savings in consumption, helping poor consumers improve their access to a healthy diet and taking the pressure off threatened agro-ecosystems.

Also on the horizon is apomixis. Critics often claim that biotechnology is just another tool through which the privatesector seed and chemical giants can increase their control over food supplies in developing countries. Apomixis, which means regeneration by non-sexual means, is a biotechnology that will make them eat their words. Farmers growing apomictic hybrids will no longer have to return to the seed companies for the provision of fresh seed at the beginning of each season, but will once again be able to save their own. In other words, after the first season, they will enjoy the yield advantages of hybrids without having to pay a premium for them. Developed through public-sector research at CIMMYT, the first apomictic maize varieties are about to be tested in Kenyan farmers’ fields.

To maximize the benefits from its investment in biotechnology research, Kenya will continue to focus its efforts on the major food crops grown and consumed by poor people. Smallholders produce up to 80% of the country’s maize, cassava, sweetpotato and banana. In all of these crops, the years to come promise real breakthroughs.

intractable problems facing small-scale maize producers is Striga, a parasitic weed that, once it has invaded farmers’ fields, has a devastating effect on yields year after year, building up a seed bank in the soil so large as to make eradication virtually impossible. For decades, Striga has defied farmers’ and researchers’ efforts to control it. Because the weed needs the presence of the growing crop before it will germinate, spraying herbicide before sowing maize is not effective. KARI’s researchers intend to tackle the problem with herbicide-tolerant GM maize developed by Monsanto. It is thought that two applications of Round-up®, once to the seeds before sowing, then again 3 months later once the Striga has germinated, will be sufficient to rid farmers’ fields of this scourge once and for all.

If it proves successful in maize, this technology can be applied against Striga in other crops, including sorghum, pearl millet and sugarcane.

Used selectively against problems such as Striga, the herbicide tolerance package could bring significant improvements to womens’ lives by sparing them the backbreaking task of weeding by hand.

Let’s briefly consider maize, our major food crop and one for which the future looks particularly exciting. One of the most 53

A project already under way in Ghana has shown that women freed from weeding quickly take up other occupations that boost their incomes, such as weaving or pottery.

Our scientists are developing other useful traits that will make maize easier to grow in difficult environments. Settlers in Kenya’s semi-arid midlands often grow the crop in areas better suited to the more drought-tolerant cereals, sorghum and pearl millet. They do so because they know how to manage maize and prefer the taste of it, having been raised in highland areas where the crop can be grown more reliably.

New drought-tolerant varieties developed through marker-assisted selection will raise and stabilize maize yields in these

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semi-arid areas. Using 30-40% less water to reach the same yield levels as existing varieties, the new varieties will transform the food security and incomes of some of our poorest farmers.

In the more humid zones, maize falls prey to insect pests. Surveys have shown that the most destructive is the maize stemborer, which accounts for yield losses of up to 40%.

Resistance to stemborer has been identified as a priority by our scientists, who are working on a GM variety that will effectively control the pest.

With innovations like these in the pipeline, who can doubt whether Kenya should be involved in biotechnology R&D?

5

Biosafety and Food Safety Regulating the introduction of GM materials is vital for building public confidence in the products of biotechnology R&D. ISAAA studies have shown that, in all countries where GM crops and foods have been accepted by farmers and the public, governments have taken steps to establish a strong regulatory framework.

Regulation should address the two main areas of public concern over GM: biosafety and food safety. Biosafety refers to the risk of transgenes ‘escaping’ into the external environment during testing, either from the laboratory or in the field. This is a new risk, so new structures and procedures are needed to deal with it. The food safety issues raised by GM foods are identical to those in conventionally developed food products, so the existing regulatory system can be used.

Creating a framework

‘Our country is poised to control its bio-resources effectively.’

— G.K. King’oriah, Secretary, NCST

Kenya is one of the first countries in Africa to have put in place the necessary biosafety policies and institutions to regulate the testing and deployment of GM materials.

Our progress has been more rapid than other countries in the region, mainly because the relatively advanced state of our biotechnology research has raised practical biosafety issues, compelling the government to deal with them responsibly if it is to retain public confidence.

‘Our catalyst was the transgenic sweetpotato plants developed in the USA,’ says Grace Thitai, who heads the Biology Department at Kenya’s National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) and is a member of the national Biosafety

Committee. ‘Developing countries can’t afford to devise rules and regulations or set up committees to deal with purely theoretical problems. But we had a real case to deal with, and that focused our minds.’

The process of developing a national biosafety framework began in earnest in the early 1990s, when it was realized that 55

no existing Acts of Parliament or regulations specifically covered the development and release of GM organisms. The matter was taken up by the NCST, which has a mandate to clear all research activities in the country and to advise the government on R&D issues. The council formed a task force, which began by synthesizing all the available information on biosafety.

A draft document was prepared by the council’s secretariat, then revised by the task force in the light of comments from national and international experts.

The final version of the document, entitled Regulations and Guidelines for Biosafety in Biotechnology in Kenya, became available in 1998.

Besides harnessing its own expertise, Kenya has benefited greatly from the experience of other countries and international bodies in developing and reviewing its regulatory framework.

The Netherlands’ DGIS helped launch the process by convening a regional workshop on biosafety in Harare in 1993 and followed this up by sponsoring two workshops at national level, the first in 1996 and the second in 1998. The World Bank and the Stockholm Environmental Institute provided inputs to the draft document, which was also reviewed

by Kenya’s Biotechnology Commission, another DGIS-supported initiative. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) supported a survey and other studies in preparation for the publication of a 56

national Biosafety Framework Document in 1999. This document constitutes the first external assessment of Kenya’s progress in introducing biosafety measures in line with its obligations under the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to which it is a signatory. Kenya is also a member of the Bio-Earn programme, a regional network on biosafety supported by the Stockholm Environmental Institute.

Lastly, ISAAA has also provided its expertise and assistance, holding two regional biosafety workshops in Nairobi during 1995.

Kenya’s biosafety regulations and guidelines do not yet have the status of law.

But it is proposed to annex them to the Environmental Management and Coordination Act, now before parliament.

Alternatively, a new statute, the Biosafety Act, might be proposed.

How regulation works Kenya’s regulatory process covers the two main phases of research on GM products, laboratory development and experimental release for field testing. Three key concepts govern the process: • Risk assessment • Risk management • Familiarity.

Risk assessment is the process of gathering data to identify possible risks in R&D involving GM organisms. The factors taken into consideration include the properties of the organism and the environment(s) into which it will be

introduced, the feasibility of containing the organism, and the probable effects on the environment if the organism or its transgenic component were to be released.

Risk management involves reviewing the various possible regulatory measures and selecting the best ones in the light of the risk assessment. Containment is the most important measure for managing risk in the laboratory, especially when infectious agents are being tested. Containment may be biological, meaning that the organisms cannot survive or reproduce without the special conditions under which they are maintained, or physical, which implies the use of special buildings, equipment or procedures to prevent organisms that can survive outside the laboratory from escaping. Physical containment has four levels, of which Level 4 is the most secure.

Risk management in the field consists of following established standards on trial design and location to minimize the chances of gene escape, specifying the measures used to destroy material after trials, and devising procedures to monitor or deal with gene escape in the unlikely event that it should occur.

Familiarity is the principle of making decisions on the basis of past experiences.

It relies on data from field tests and laboratory experiments, which may or may not be available from past cases involving similar GM organisms. In the case of imported GM materials, data will often be available from research conducted outside the country. Kenya’s biosafety decision-making is bound to be cautious

at first, since all GM applications must initially be categorized as ‘unfamiliar’.

Eventually, however, whole classes of introductions may become familiar enough to warrant minimal oversight.

As recommended by the regulations and guidelines document, Kenya has established biosafety committees at two levels, institutional and national. While institutional committees, such as the one at KARI, handle issues relating to the health and safety of employees and their immediate environment, the national committee deals with broader environmental and public safety issues. All research proposals involving GM organisms must be submitted to the national committee and no field testing can go ahead without its approval.

Scientists wishing to introduce or test GM crop varieties must fill out a questionnaire.

The questionnaire asks about the variety’s gene construction, where in the genome the introduced genes are located and how stable they are. If the variety is being imported, the nature of the material must be stated—whether an in vitro ex-plant or a hardened plantlet—since this will determine how it is handled once it enters the country. Also needed is information on whether the materials have been field tested in their country of origin and what the results of the tests were.

‘We believe biosafety procedures should be followed rigorously.’

— Michael Njuguna, Programme Assistant, ISAAA

Once the committee is satisfied that a proposed introduction or transformation process will be handled properly, it issues a permit allowing the work to go ahead.

After controlled testing in the laboratory, 57

‘A well designed biosafety policy will ensure the safety of human health and the environment without restricting innovation or product development.’

— Andrea Johanson and Catherine Ives, Michigan State University

applicants must submit their data to the committee for a second assessment, in which factors such as pollen movement and other environmental criteria are considered before field testing can go ahead. ‘We need to know what measures will be taken in case escape occurs,’ says Thitai. Scientists wishing to conduct field testing must also answer questions about the appearance of the plant, so that it can be easily identified in the field. And they must also say how they will dispose of material once it has been grown.

Another way in which Kenya can cut the costs of regulation is to model its procedures on those of other countries.

For example, South Africa has brought its procedures into line with those of the USA. If a GM product has been approved in the USA, South African users do not need to apply for a national permit; the national committee need merely be notified. An ISAAA study has shown that North American regulatory systems are more efficient than the more complex and bureaucratic requirements of systems in Europe.

How fast to go?

Whatever the costs, the delays caused by having a regulatory process can be less than those incurred by not having one. Being the first country in the region to have a biosafety system up and running is already bringing Kenya valuable technologies that can’t be tested elsewhere. The most striking example to date is a GM banana resistant to black sigatoka disease, which is urgently needed throughout the country’s bananaproducing areas. The scientists who developed this technology had wanted to test it in Uganda, but the absence of a regulatory framework in that country has made them turn to Kenya for assistance.

In their work on the national committee, Thitai and her colleagues are conscious of the need to tread a delicate line, on the one hand ensuring procedures that are strict enough to allay public fears and on the other avoiding excessive delays and costs in the introduction of new technology that is badly needed by farmers.

Progress in dealing with the introduction of GM sweetpotato has been slow.

But Thitai believes that the committee was right to err on the side of caution in this first case. ‘As time goes on, it should be possible to move faster,’ she says, ‘partly because the procedures will become routine and people will know what sorts of problem to look out for, and partly because public fears will be allayed, no longer constituting such a brake on progress.’

In other words, the principle of familiarity will gradually allow opportunities to save time and money.

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Concepts and issues in food safety assessment The starting point in assessing the safety of GM foods is the concept of substantial equivalence. To determine substantial equivalence, food safety experts compare a GM food with its most closely related

ment of the food safety risk of GM foods and that no better concept is available.

Besides substantial equivalence, the FAO/ WHO consultation considered two food safety issues frequently raised in connection with GM foods.

conventional food to detect any differences in its constituents. These differences then become the focus of the ensuing assessment.

The first is the possibility that unintended knock-on effects may arise when organisms used to make food are modified genetically.

These effects could include, for example, changes to the expression of other proteins or the alteration of metabolic compounds.

The consultation concluded that GM foods are no more likely than conventional foods to suffer such effects. Indeed, they are probably less likely to do so, since GM is a more accurate means of transferring genes than conventional breeding.

Nevertheless, a proper safety assessment of GM foods should include methods for detecting and evaluating these hypothetical effects. To improve these methods, the consultation recommended that GM foods should be assessed using approaches that profile the whole food rather than an analysis targeted to specific components.

Such approaches are under development.

Activists have attacked the concept of substantial equivalence, but they tend to misunderstand how it is applied. It is not a characterization of risk but is merely used to structure the safety assessment. A recent Expert Consultation, jointly convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), concluded that substantial equivalence does indeed contribute to a scientifically sound assess-

The second issue is the possible long-term effects of eating GM foods. Obviously, we cannot yet know these from experience, since GM is still a new technology.

The experts considered that negative effects of this kind would be highly unlikely. They noted that some of the GM foods likely to become available in developing countries should have beneficial long-term effects on human health because of the addition of key nutrients.

‘The Consultation was satisfied with the approach used to assess the safety of the GM foods that have been approved for commercial use.’ — FAO/WHO Expert Consultation

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Food safety procedures in Kenya The food safety aspect of GM introductions in Kenya is the responsibility of the national Bureau of Standards. The bureau’s work begins only when the national and institutional biosafety committees have approved a new technology as environmentally sound.

As we have seen, food safety depends on the properties of a food product and not on the method by which those properties are created. Standard tests for assessing the food value of a product and for detecting the presence of allergens, toxins, anti-nutritional substances and harmful

micro-organisms are already in use by the bureau. These tests will continue to be applied to GM food products, just as they are to conventionally produced foods.

Thus, provided they are successfully tested in farmers’ fields, Kenya’s new GM sweetpotato varieties will be sent to the bureau for conventional tests on their nutritional characteristics and properties when cooked, tasted, eaten and digested.

As with conventionally developed new varieties, the varieties will not be officially released for production until the all-clear is sounded.

In addition to conducting standard tests, the bureau keeps abreast of international thinking on food safety—particularly the conclusions and recommendations of international bodies such as the FAO and WHO. It will seek opportunities to develop capacity in new areas, such as food profiling.

One issue facing Kenya and other developing countries is food labelling. Our food safety experts recognize labelling as an important aspect of the transparency needed to give a regulatory system credibility in the eyes of the public. However, since most foods in Kenya are still sold unpackaged, it will not be possible to introduce mandatory labelling for GM food products in the short term. Other ways of informing consumers will need to be considered.

Giving memorable ‘brand’ names to new GM varieties and advertising them as such through media such as radio and leaflets is one possibility.

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6

From Confrontation to Collaboration In Kenya as in Europe, biotechnology is under fire from environmental pressure groups.

But our national debate is getting more sophisticated and researchers are responding to criticism by becoming more open. Collaboration, not confrontation, is our best way forward.

Winning the public relations war ‘Bracing for GM foods onslaught,’ reads

a headline in Kenya’s most popular daily newspaper, The Nation. It’s typical of the negative publicity sometimes given to biotechnology by our media. The public mistrust that feeds on such one-sided coverage could, if Europe’s recent experience is anything to go by, seriously

jeopardize Kenya’s ability to benefit from biotechnology, especially GM crop varieties. The mistrust is stoked by a campaign of misinformation on the part of Greenpeace and other environmental pressure groups, which have become adept at playing on the media’s appetite for controversy to draw attention to their case.

The truth is the first victim of this unholy alliance, but African farmers and consumers won’t be far behind (see box).

Fiction in biotechnology R&D: what the Greens say Much of the media coverage of biotechnology instigated by the Greens is distorted, exaggerated or downright deceitful. On 4 September 2000, an article by a Kenyan political journalist sponsored by activists appeared in The East African. The article implied that: • Kenya’s new GM sweetpotatoes are a Monsanto product that is being forced on Africa • The safety assurances provided over GM foods are inadequate • Scientists are stuffing all manner of genes down the throats of Africans, regardless of the consequences and solely to make money • The genes that code for the manufacture of deadly venom in scorpions have been transferred to food crops, which could poison human beings • Western scientists who have warned Africans of the dangers of biotechnology have been branded as racists • GM food crops could go crazy, leading to mass poisoning, sterility or fatal asthma attacks • East Africa has no one to turn to if this happens.

The journalists who write such articles should ask themselves whose interests they are serving. Certainly not Kenya’s— and not their own either, once their reporting has been revealed for what it is: dishonest and unprofessional.

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‘It’s time our scientists fought back,’ says James Ochanda. ‘Biotechnology is too important for Kenya. A vigorous campaign is needed to educate the public about how it works, what its purpose is, what it can and cannot do. If we do nothing, we leave a dangerous vacuum.’

Ochanda is Professor of Biochemistry at Nairobi University and Chairman of the newly formed Africa Biotechnology Stakeholders’ Forum (ABSF). Launched by ISAAA and funded by an illustrious clutch of private- and public-sector foundations, companies and research institutes, the Nairobi-based forum is open to all in Africa who have a stake in biotechnology— the antis as well as the pros. ‘We aim to put a balanced point of view that will counteract the negative and sometimes misleading statements made by some commentators,’ Ochanda explains.

Sharing the conference room at the forum’s inaugural meeting, held in Nairobi in March 2000, were activists from Greenpeace and other organizations, including Kenya’s Green Belt movement, who sat together with policy makers, scientists, farmers and journalists for what

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was probably the first gathering of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘The meeting was a stormy one,’ says Ochanda.

‘There were passionate exchanges on a whole range of topics, particularly the food safety and environmental issues.’

Like other rational voices in the debate, Ochanda believes that the confrontational stances adopted at the first meeting will give way to a listening and learning phase.

‘Only after that can the real talking start,’ he says. He is optimistic that a positive dialogue can take place. ‘People here will be more restrained in their criticism than they are in Europe. A Kenyan environmentalist may denigrate GM food, but looking over his shoulder is a hungry child.’

It is hoped to follow up on the forum’s inaugural meeting by organizing other events. The first of these, a workshop for journalists, has already been held.

An ambitious education and training programme is also planned, for 17 other African countries in addition to Kenya.

The use of the media made by opponents of biotechnology isn’t restricted to giving misleading interviews. Greenpeace regularly sponsors Nairobi-based journalists to attend meetings in Europe at which the case against biotechnology is presented.

This is part of a deliberate strategy to spread resistance to GM foods from Europe to the developing countries. Ochanda notes that those returning from such meetings tend to be strident in their criticism while the meeting is fresh in their minds. But he also notes that their attitudes shift once they

confront the realities of what biotechnology can achieve on Kenyan farmers’ fields.

As part of the ABSF’s inaugural meeting, journalists were invited to visit farmers in Maragua who were growing tissue-cultured banana plants. According to Ochanda, almost all who went on the trip came back convinced that farmers should adopt the technology. They had seen for themselves the difference it makes to yields and incomes.

Editors and journalists are getting wise to the need for balance in their reporting.

Ochanda says he is regularly telephoned

by Kenya TV and invited to comment on the latest diatribe from the environmentalists. One programme manager refused to broadcast an attack on GM crops until she had obtained Ochanda’s contrasting and more positive point of view. A leading Kenyan journalist who used to lambast GM crops as a plot by the rich West to defraud the poor in developing countries has said she will stop doing so, as she feels she has been duped by Greenpeace.

‘These are encouraging signs that the media are keen to play fair now,’ Ochanda says.

apparent, tend to be spared. ‘Public opinion should react more favourably when the first biotech foods carrying vaccines become available,’ he observes.

Fighting a rearguard action on behalf of biotechnology through mechanisms such as the ABSF carries high costs. But if the forum succeeds in getting public opinion in Kenya on side, the investment will have been well worthwhile.

Attitudes are changing The confrontation between the environmental movement and the advocates of biotechnology is having some surprising, beneficial results. Both privateand public-sector research have changed for the better.

Private-sector multinationals previously aloof to public opinion and the needs of the poor have discovered a new compassion. Many now work directly with the public sector in developing countries or else Ochanda stresses that much of the flak have launched their own charifrom journalists and the Greens comes table foundations to do so. from people remote from the problems of hunger and poverty. ‘Ninety-nine per cent This is partly a public relations exercise in response to the consumer revolt in Europe. of them come from cities. As relatively But the companies have also realized that wealthy consumers, they miss the signifithe Third World represents a huge future cance of biotechnology for resource-poor market. Raising living standards and infarmers.’ Interestingly, he notes that the comes there is an investment, since today’s bulk of the criticism is directed against applications in agriculture. Human medical poor are tomorrow’s middle-class consumers, buying GM foods in the supermarket. applications, whose usefulness is more 63

A similar disregard for public opinion on the part of several companies led to the current moratorium on GM foods in Europe. But those were the bad old days— now, I fervently hope, behind us.

We really need to listen to the opposition, not simply dismiss what they say.

On some issues, I agree with them. Genes from developing countries shouldn’t be patented by private companies in the developed world.

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Recently, I was invited to sit on the external advisory board of the biotechnology company DuPont/ Pioneer USA. I join a panel that will advise the company on public opinion, help it develop a code of conduct and sensitize it to potentially explosive issues in the countries where its products are or will be marketed. This kind of outreach shows a new humility in marked contrast to the arrogant indifference that previously characterized some multinationals, one of which—I will name no names—suffered a public-relations disaster when, against the advice of myself and many others, it released the so-called ‘terminator’ technology.

Originally developed by the US Department of Agriculture, this is actually a relatively harmless ‘gene switch’ mechanism designed, among other things, to protect intellectual property rights. But you would not think so to judge by the extreme reactions of the activists, who managed to portray it as a vicious plot to defraud poor farmers, gain a stranglehold over world food supplies and turn the environment into green concrete. The company concerned was forced to withdraw the technology and to announce publically that it would not pursue it commercially.

The greatest potential for beneficial fall-out from Green criticism lies in the donation of technologies and expertise to developing countries. Such donations have increased in number and value considerably over the past decade and most are now well targeted to national needs, with the result that they should soon be reflected in lower food costs, higher incomes and more job opportunities for the poor. For example, the Novartis Foundation has provided support worth US$ 6 million to publicsector research on maize in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of this project, in which KARI will play a leading part, is to apply the use of genetic markers and GM to the development of varieties with resistance or tolerance to a broad range of stresses, including drought, Striga and maize stemborer. Applied in combination, these biotechnologies could raise maize yields to a new high of 4 tonnes per hectare from their average level of 1.6 tonnes per hectare today.

Opportunities for African scientists to go to private companies to access sophisticated facilities and expertise in strategic research represent a significant investment in the brainpower and science that Africa needs to make its agriculture more productive.

I was able to develop Kenya’s first GM sweetpotato varieties in just this way, under a collaborative arrangement between

Monsanto and KARI that was funded by USAID in the early 1990s. More recently, when KARI maize breeder Jane Ininda visited the Novartis laboratory in France, she was able, in just a few weeks, to achieve results that would have taken years using a conventional approach. Inputs of this kind are preparing the way for a giant leap forward in the payoff to Africa’s own investments in research.

Founded specifically to serve as a facilitator and catalyst, ISAAA is well placed to capitalize on the new willingness of the larger companies to serve the needs of the poor. In all its Kenya-based projects, ISAAA has organized training for national scientists and technicians in private-sector laboratories, companies and foundations, in addition to universities and publicsector research institutions.

have seen several African countries, including Kenya, react by establishing a national biosafety committee, together with procedures for vetting the introduction and testing of GM crop varieties.

Such developments greatly reduce the chances of introducing inappropriate new technology.

In contrast to public- and private-sector R&D, the attitudes of those who oppose biotechnology have as yet shifted little.

Radical environmentalists continue to preach a rigid doctrine of rejection, refusing to countenance even the limited field testing of GM crops. Yet without the data from these tests we will have no way of knowing whether these crops do indeed threaten wildlife and biodiversity.

In Europe, Greenpeace activists have demonstrated their contempt for such knowledge by destroying field trials.

‘Those with extremist views have occasionally resorted to vandalizing scientists’ research, but their greatest sabotage has been the pollution of public debate.’

— Jasper E. Van Zanten, Vice-Chair, ISAAA Board of Directors

Pressure from the environmentalists has also had a beneficial effect on national public-sector research. Scientists on the public payroll frequently have to justify their work to colleagues, managers and investors, but they have so far fought shy of explaining it to a wider audience.

Initiatives such as the ABSF are bringing them out of their shells. ‘We too can learn when journalists ask questions,’ says Ochanda. ‘We can become more open, more responsive, more inclusive.’

Another benefit of environmental criticism is the boost it has given to the development of regulatory systems. Those who argue that Africa is being used as a ‘dumping ground’ for technologies rejected by Europe 65

These Luddite acts of vandalism heighten the impression of an organization that is tilting at windmills—indulging in a futile crusade against an imaginary enemy while ignoring real threats such as air pollution and global warming.

Worse still, Greenpeace has expressed its intent to stir up similar direct action in Kenya. When challenged on the subject, its representatives state that they take no responsibility for the effects of their organization’s campaigns on the food security and livelihoods of poor people.

‘Greenpeace acknowledged no responsibility for the negative impact of its actions on the economies of the developing There is no need for Kenya to go down world.’

— Jasper E. Van Zanten, this road. Our best way forward lies in Vice-Chair, ISAAA a civilized debate based on reason and Board of Directors understanding. The aims of the debate should be to distinguish what we do know from what we do not, to forge a consensus on the best way forward,

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and to plan and implement R&D activities in which all stakeholders, including environmental groups, can feel ownership.

If we work together to develop our country’s biotechnology agenda, then that agenda in turn will work to the benefit of all Kenyans.

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Lessons for Africa Kenya has moved further and faster than most sub-Saharan African countries in developing and applying modern agribiotechnology. What can others learn from its experience?

Africa will not miss out Judging by Kenya’s experience, it seems likely that agribiotechnology will eventually take root in Africa. There are several reasons why I believe this to be so.

Biotechnology R&D in Africa is, and will continue to be, based on people’s needs rather than being supply-driven. Africa has, as we have seen, an overwhelming need to increase its production of food and other basic commodities. The greatest challenge is to raise the yields of the most

widely grown crops, since these are the mainstay of the region’s subsistence farming systems. This must be done because there is no longer any room to expand the area cultivated. The best way of raising yields is through seed-based technologies, which are relatively easily disseminated and which farmers find easy to acquire and use.

Where conventional selection and breeding to develop improved seeds hits barriers, biotechnology offers the best, if not the only, way forward.

Since biotechnology is indeed a logical response to farmers’ needs, it follows that the means for developing and delivering biotechnology solutions need to be in place. Although they are still underresourced, most national public-sector research systems in Africa are much stronger today than they were 25 years ago. One of the strengths of these systems is their close links with farmers and extension services. These links have improved markedly as farmers’ levels of education have risen, local NGO movements have gathered strength and scientists themselves have realized the need to achieve an impact from their research.

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The result is that national research systems have become increasingly receptive to farmers’ needs, which now drive the research agenda. Better agenda setting at national level has filtered up to the regional and international levels, with the result that the entire global research system now functions more effectively. Wherever it is based, biotechnology research can no longer operate in a vaccuum, divorced from the problems faced by farmers.

‘New approaches that mobilize both public and private resources and involve nongovernment bodies are needed if poor people are not to be bypassed by the revolutions in science and information technology.’

— Ismail Serageldin and Gabrielle Persley, CGIAR

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Many of the genes for resistance to the stresses that constrain Africa’s agriculture are already present in our crops, either in our traditional landraces or in the improved varieties developed by researchers. Our farmers will increasingly be able to assert their ownership of the genes found in landraces and other indigenous materials. Since 1994, this ownership has been enshrined in the international CBD, which recognizes the principles of national sovereignty over genetic resources and the need to share equitably the benefits flowing from the conservation and use of these resources.

Where sources of genetic resistance have to be accessed from outside a country, we can continue to rely on the international public-sector system of germplasm exchange operated by the CGIAR centres which—contrary to what some NGOs maintain—are our allies, not our enemies, in the drive to improve crop yields through germplasm enhancement. It is true that

much of the capital and know-how needed to add value to the genes we possess or acquire is vested in the multinational companies, whose role is more ambiguous because they are profit-driven. But, as we have seen, the climate in which these companies operate is changing. Increasingly, they will be able to develop and disseminate products only in partnership with local people and their institutions. Partnership —between the public and private sectors, between NGOs and research groups— is the key to ensuring that the benefits of biotechnology are equitably shared and that the poor really do experience improvements in their lives when they adopt biotechnology innovations. We can and will participate in such partnerships.

African countries are, with few exceptions, not in the first wave of biotechnology adopters, so biotechnology solutions are, and will continue to be, slow to reach the region’s farmers. By the same token, however, the appetite for biotechnology, among both farmers and the general public, is slowly being whetted by the positive publicity emerging from the few developing countries that have already adopted.

Africans are starting to hear encouraging reports from countries such as China and India, whose farmers and consumers are reaping the benefits of biotechnology with —so far—no ill effects on the environment or human health. A case study from China provides a good example (see box).

Just recently, it has become clear that the Chinese experience can be replicated in sub-Saharan Africa. A study conducted

Facts about biotechnology R&D: what scientific studies show Following research by various public- and private-sector partners, Chinese smallholders were growing up to 1 million hectares of GM cotton by 1999. These new GM varieties produce the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin, which is known to kill a serious pest of cotton, the bollworm. In 1999, Chinese and American scientists conducted a survey to assess the impact of the new technology.

The survey showed that farmers growing Bt varieties saved 20% of their pesticide costs, plus the high labour costs of repeated spraying operations. They also sold their harvest at a higher unit price, because Bt cotton seed is of a higher quality than non-Bt seed. Small-scale farmers did particularly well by adopting Bt varieties, seeing their incomes rise by a larger amount than did large-scale farmers. Farmers as a whole obtained around 82-87% of the economic surplus generated by the technology, while seed companies received only 5%.

The new technology benefited farmers’ health. Only 4% of the farmers growing Bt cotton reported experiencing headaches, nausea or other complaints caused by spraying pesticides, whereas 22% of farmers growing conventional varieties suffered such complaints.

There were also positive effects on biodiversity, with government extension agents finding a greater variety of insects and a higher number of beneficial species in fields with Bt cotton. The new transgenic varieties had generally replaced other improved varieties, not the more genetically diverse landraces. Competition between different companies and partnerships between different public- and private-sector agencies meant that the number of transgenic varieties available to farmers was increasing, a trend which will avoid the tendency for a single variety to become too dominant.

The study concluded that other developing countries would do well to emulate China’s example of encouraging the development and dissemination of Bt cotton varieties. Many cotton-growing developing countries, including several in Africa, experience similar problems with the bollworm, which has become more or less uncontrollable in some areas. If the widespread adoption of Bt cotton pushes yields up to the point at which prices fall, cotton consumers will start to benefit in addition to producers.

Source: Pray et al. (2000)

in South Africa (see Bennett et al., 2001) has shown that growing Bt cotton instead of conventional varieties increased yields by up to 27% while reducing the number of pesticide applications needed by four or five. Families growing Bt cotton have begun investing their extra income in education, equipment and better housing. Men have been able to search for extra employment off the farm, because less labour is needed to grow the cotton crop. As in China, the researchers found that smallholders stood to benefit just as much as, if not more than, large-scale commercial farmers.

This has positive implications throughout sub-Saharan Africa, since most of the region’s cotton is grown by smallholders, for whom it is an important cash crop.

Public acceptance of biotechnology can only grow as consumers and farmers unite around the central message of such studies: that it is possible to reduce the levels of pesticides and other chemicals, with benefits to farmers’ incomes, the price of consumer goods, the environment and human health. Indeed, findings such as these show that the concerns most 69

public, providing objective assessments to counter the disinformation put out by some of the NGOs.

frequently voiced about biotechnology— that farmers don’t need it; that multinationals capture all the benefits; that yields do not increase; that more pesticides will be needed; and that biodiversity will suffer —are unfounded.

If the facts on the ground favour the acceptance of biotechnology, so also do the words of those who shape public opinion.

Africans are starting to hear their leaders endorse biotechnology. Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olesegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Daniel arap Moi of Kenya have all lent their support in recent speeches. Credible global institutions, such as the WHO and the FAO, on which Africans depend for data, are reinforcing the message, as also are most of the region’s reputable scientists.

And several grass roots institutions, such as the ABSF, are now educating the 70

Africa’s cautious approach to biotechnology innovations, and especially to GM, should pay dividends in terms of public acceptance over the longer term. Technology containing GM organisms is as yet being tested only in a handful of countries where national biosafety guidelines and regulations are operational. The fact that neither the public nor the private sector is pushing biotechnology products means that the public feels it has a choice in the matter and is not having GM organisms ‘stuffed down its throat’, as the complaint has been in Europe.

A consumer backlash of the kind that has occurred in Europe seems unlikely to happen here, despite Greenpeace’s best efforts.

Having missed the Green Revolution, African countries know they cannot afford to pass up another opportunity to stimulate overall economic development by developing their agriculture. Biotechnology gives us that opportunity—and we are determined to grasp it. To those who say, ‘Biotechnology is too sophisticated for Africa,’ we have a twofold answer. First, ‘You’d be surprised’: a whole edition of New Scientist was recently devoted to advanced research taking place on our ‘dark continent’; in 1999, for example, a new institute devoted to biomedical research was founded in Nairobi. Second, even if we don’t yet have all the capacity we need, we are part of a global research community that does.

We are on the internet; airlines fly into Africa; DHL delivers here!

Africa’s needs-based approach, its growing indigenous capacity for research and its ability to look outwards and learn from others—all add up to a climate conducive to the adoption of biotechnology.

But what practical advice can I give to African countries as they set out to introduce biotechnology?

Golden rules If I were to restrict myself to 12 golden rules, they would be:

•

• Start with the simple biotechnologies that will make an immediate, positive difference to farmers’ lives. Tissue culture is the obvious example.

• Focus first on priority national crops of importance to poor producers and domestic consumers. To achieve impact quickly, avoid the temptation to take on too many crops at once.

• Find out whether a biotechnology innovation will meet farmers’ needs before you invest in its development.

Do not push an innovation if a majority of either producers or consumers say they do not want it.

• With the simpler technologies, make sure products reach farmers’ fields quickly, creating a show-case to convince the sceptics. Move more slowly with the more complex or controversial technologies, taking care to get public opinion on your side well in advance of technology testing.

• Integrate biotechnology innovations with current farming systems and

•

•

•

practices. Having introduced an innovation to farmers, examine its feasibility from every aspect—financial implications, labour implications, health effects, environmental effects, consumer reactions. Take the technology right through the commodity system, from producing and delivering the seed, through sowing it, raising and harvesting the plant, processing and marketing the crop, to serving the cooked meal onto people’s plates.

Build the human capacity to absorb biotechnology within the national R&D system. Invest in training, through links with donor agencies, the international centres, universities and the private sector. Train farmers and development workers, as well as scientists.

Link your national research system up to regional and international networks and consortia. These will help you access the biotechnology tools and techniques you lack at national level.

They will also broaden the range of raw materials to which you can apply the tools. Networks now exist for most of Africa’s major food crops.

Establish a credible regulatory service that not only does its job but is seen to do its job. Publicize the activities of the national biosafety committee, explaining what is meant by biosafety and how the committee upholds it.

Stimulate the development of the national private sector, since it alone can mass-produce and disseminate new biotechnology options. Cultivate publicprivate partnerships as the key to effective R&D.

The lights have gone on in Africa.

We are no longer the dark continent.

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• Build strong links with the media.

Educate journalists so that they know the truth about biotechnology and come to trust what you tell them as objective and dispassionate. Tell your success stories through the media, but don’t hide your failures. In show-casing a success, let farmers speak for you: nothing is more likely to win sceptical hearts and minds than to hear poor farmers praising new biotechnology solutions.

• Reach out to groups that are hostile to biotechnology. Energetically refute any lies and distortions, but draw them into the national debate and invite them to work with you to study areas of concern.

• Openness and transparency are vital, so explain biotechnology to everyone in society. Open the doors of the laboratory to all comers—school groups,

NGO representatives, farmers, policy makers, journalists, academics—the lot!

They are all potential allies in your work.

Once they understand what you are doing and why, they will support you.

Conclusion Africans are stakeholders in the biotechnology revolution, not victims of it.

As stakeholders, we can actively evaluate biotechnology innovations, accepting what really benefits us and rejecting what does not. I believe that, far from making us prey to global capitalistic forces that are beyond our control, biotechnology will empower us to shape the future of our continent ever more creatively. Let’s buy our tickets and board the train!

‘Just remember, for some people in the rural regions of Africa the choice is between life and death.’

— Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, KARI

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ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications) 2000. Enhancing food security and reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: ISAAA’s African biotechnology program. Revised strategic plan. Ithaca, New York, USA. James, C. 2000. Preview: Global review of commercialized transgenic crops, 2000. ISAAA Briefs No. 21.

International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications (ISAAA), Ithaca, New York, USA. Johanson, A. and Ives, C.L. 2000. An inventory of agricultural biotechnology for the eastern and central African region. Michigan State University, USA. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and WHO (World Health Organization) 2000.

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Van Zanten, J., Krattiger, A. and Hautea, R. 2000. Food biotechnology: European and North American regulatory approaches and public acceptance: A travelling workshop. Summary report for policy makers. ISAAA Briefs No. 18, International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications (ISAAA), Ithaca, New York, USA. Wainainah, S. 2000. Shut up and eat your GM soup, Africans are told. The East African, September 4-10. Nairobi, Kenya.

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Wambugu, F. 2000. The needs in Africa. Presentation for the World Food Prize, 12-13 October, Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Wambugu, F. and Wafula, J. 1999. Advances in maize streak virus disease research in eastern and southern Africa.

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Acronyms AFLP ABSF CBD CGIAR CIMMYT CIP CIRAD COMESA DGIS DNA FAO GCI GDN GM GTL ICIPE IITA ILRI INIBAP ISAAA ITSC KABP KARI KEPHIS KIOF MSV NARO NCST NGO PCR QPM R&D RAPD RFLP TC TIGR UNEP USAID WHO

Amplified fragment length polymorphism Africa Biotechnology Stakeholders’ Forum Convention on Biological Diversity Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maïz y Trigo Centro Internacional de la Papa Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (France) Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa The Netherlands Special Programme on Biotechnology and Development Cooperation Deoxyribonucleic acid Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Grains Crops Institute (South Africa) Global Development Network Genetically modified Genetic Technologies Ltd (Kenya) International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology International Institute of Tropical Agriculture International Livestock Research Institute International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications Institute of Tropical and Sub-Tropical Crops (South Africa) Kenya Agricultural Biotechnology Platform Kenya Agricultural Research Institute Kenya Plant Health Inspection Services Kenya Institute of Organic Farming Maize streak virus National Agricultural Research Organisation (Uganda) National Council for Science and Technology (Kenya) Non-government organization Polymerase chain reaction Quality protein maize Research and development Random amplified polymorphic DNA Random fragment length polymorphism Tissue culture The Institute of Genomic Research (USA) United Nations Environment Programme United States Agency for International Development World Health Organization 75

Captions to Photographs Front cover: The author, planting a tissue-cultured banana plantlet p. 2, above and below: Tissue-cultured plantlets are produced in the laboratory, then hardened so that they are ready for field planting p. 3: The fruits: a bumper harvest of tissue culture-derived bananas p. 4: Virus-resistant maize variety developed by KARI p. 5: Children in the Lake Victoria basin: hunger and poverty still afflict millions in Africa p. 6: Tissue culture-derived bananas being sold in Maragua town. Urban consumers will benefit as prices fall p. 7: Firewood is becoming scarce in Kenya. Biotechnology can boost supplies p. 8, above and below, a¡nd p. 9: The unsung environmental benefits of biotechnology: reduced pesticide use could benefit biodiversity; raising crop yields could take the pressure off our forests and save our soils from erosion p. 10: French beans being grown for export. Food safety is not compromised by biotechnology p. 11: Despite the claims of activists, there is nothing unorganic about GM food p. 13: Biopiracy is unethical, but biotechnology isn’t to blame p. 15: KARI’s research has become more participatory p. 16: Irish potato, one of the earliest crops to benefit from tissue culture research by KARI p. 19: John Wafula, Coordinator of KARI’s Biotechnology Programme p. 20: KARI’s Biotechnology Centre, in Westlands, Nairobi p. 21: The author, with a KARI lab technician p. 22: Esther Gachugu and son, outside the family’s new ‘banana kitchen’ p. 23: Maragua District is Kenya’s ‘banana land’ p. 25: Scientists and farmers have worked together to raise banana yields using tissue-cultured plants p. 26: Technology transfer: KARI’s Faith Nguthi (left) and Lucy Njuguna, consultant to the KARI-ISAAA project p. 27, above and below: Time to plant: farmers take away plantlets delivered in bulk from Nairobi p. 30: Introducing simple drip irrigation to farmers p. 31: A few innovative farmers have introduced biogas digesters p. 32: Women head-carry bananas to market p. 33: Narrowing the gender gap: the Gachugus work together on their banana enterprise p. 34: Margaret Karembu (right), with the author on a field trip p. 37: Suresh Patel, Managing Director of GTL p. 39: Hardening plantlets at GTL. Tissue culture creates jobs p. 40: Pyrethrum nursery near Molo. Thanks to tissue culture, the crop is making a comeback p. 41: Plantlets are transported in bulk from GTL to Molo p. 42: Tissue-cultured sugarcane research and sett production at Kibos, near Kisumu p. 43: Malingua Kirui, on the station at Kibos p. 44: Sugarcane yields are rising as new varieties reach farmers’ fields p. 45: Maize streak virus ravages a farm near Githunguri p. 46: Maria Wanjiku, a farmer affected by MSV p. 48, above and below: Trials on MSV at KARI, whose maize breeder Jane Ininda is using molecular techniques to develop new resistant varieties p. 49: GM sweetpotato, now under research at KARI p. 50: Roasted sweetpotatoes provide an income for street traders in Nairobi p. 51: The author (right), with a colleague in a KARI sweetpotato research plot p. 53: The parasitic weed Striga: biotechnology could provide answers where all else has failed p. 55: Grace Thitai, Secretary to the national Biosafety Committee p. 56: The NCST is responsible for biosafety in Kenya p. 59: The safety of a food product depends on what is in it, not how it got there p. 60, above and below: Kenya’s Bureau of Standards is responsible for food safety in Kenya p. 62: James Ochanda, chairing a meeting of ABSF’s Executive Committee p. 63: GM protesters uprooting a crop in the UK p. 64, above and below: Active in Kenya: a European biotech company and an environmental pressure group p. 65: Spreading fear, not facts: anti-GM activists in the UK p. 66: Rational dialogue is our best way forward p. 67 and p. 68: Africa’s farmers urgently need to increase the yields of basic food staples such as maize, if poverty and hunger are to be eradicated p. 70: Roasted maize on sale in the streets of Nairobi: if farmers’ yields rise, urban consumers will also benefit Back cover: a sight to gladden all hearts: the famous view of Kenya’s Rift Valley from the Naivasha road, just north of Nairobi. Used well, biotechnology could brighten our prospects still further. Let’s at least give it a try!

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About the author A passionate believer in the power of biotechnology to boost food production in Africa, Florence Wambugu was born one of nine brothers and sisters on a small farm in Kenya’s highlands, where her family faced a constant struggle to grow enough to eat. Her childhood memories of going hungry have nurtured a lifelong commitment to making agricultural science work to improve the lives of the poor.

Florence owes her career as a scientist to the wisdom of her mother, who sold the family’s cow to raise the cash to send her away to secondary school—a far-sighted action in those days, when women were considered unworthy of education. From school, Florence gained a place at the University of Nairobi, where she read zoology and botany. On leaving university she got a job at the Muguga research station of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). Here she came into contact with scientists from the Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), who gave her an opportunity to work on the crop she remembers as the mainstay of her mother’s farm, sweetpotato. During this period she also learned about tissue culture and became interested in its potential to improve the supply of high-quality planting materials to farmers.

In 1982, Florence went to North Dakota State University in the USA, where she took a 2-year master’s degree in plant pathology, specializing in the control of potato viruses. Throughout the 1980s she continued her work with KARI and CIP, forming strong professional ties at home in Kenya while broadening her knowledge through trips abroad. Between 1988 and 1991 she conducted thesis research on sweetpotato diseases in a joint PhD programme between the University of Bath, UK and KARI. The field research for this degree brought her once again into close contact with Kenyan farming communities, where she learned that a complex of viruses, including the feathery mottle virus, was devastating farmers’ yields. Conventional breeding research had proved powerless to develop varieties resistant to these viruses.

Providentially, Florence was soon provided with an opportunity to do something to break the impasse. Under a scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), she became the first African scientist to take up a fellowship in biotechnology at Monsanto’s Life Sciences Research Centre, in Missouri, USA. Here she worked with Kenyan colleagues and Monsanto counterparts to develop Kenya’s first ever genetically modified sweetpotato plants, which carry the gene for resistance to feathery mottle virus. The plants are now being field tested in Kenya.

In 1994 Florence returned to Kenya to take up the post of Director of the Afri Center of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotechnology Applications (ISAAA). A prominent scientist in her own home country and region, Florence has also become well known internationally for her expertise and advocacy in the field of biotechnology.

She has combined her career with a family life, raising three children at her home in Nairobi. Her belief in the value of science is balanced by an equally strong faith in the power of God to guide all human endeavour.

Price: US$ 25

Credits Text written by: Simon Chater/Green Ink Ltd, UK Design and layout by: Christel Blank/Green Ink Ltd, UK Photographs by: Trygve Bolstad/Panos Pictures: p. 67; Simon Chater: p. 2 above, p. 3, p. 5, p. 6, p. 7, p. 8 above and below, p. 9, p. 10, p. 16, p. 22, p. 23, p. 27 below, p. 31, p. 34, p. 37, p. 39, p. 40, p. 41, p. 42, p. 43, p. 44, p. 45, p. 46, p. 48 below, p. 53, p. 59, back cover; Crispin Hughes/Panos Pictures: p. 68; ISAAA-KARI photolibrary: front cover, p. 2 below, p. 4, p. 15, p. 25, p. 26, p. 27 above, p. 30, p. 32, p. 33, p. 48 above, p. 49, p. 51, p. 66; Francis Shikhubari: p. 19, p. 20, p. 21, p. 50, p. 55, p. 56, p. 60 above and below, p. 62, p. 64 above and below, p. 70; Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures: p. 11, p. 13, p. 63, p. 65 Printed by: Pragati Offset Pvt.Ltd., India (www.pragati.com) in collaboration with Sue Hainsworth

‘A book that will change minds. Biotechnologists have been their own worst enemies when it comes to public relations. The little press coverage biotechnology has had in Africa has been mainly from a “Green” or European perspective. Florence Wambugu articulates a refreshingly different vision, one that sweeps away the misconceptions that surround this much-maligned science to reveal its true value. She has done a magnificent job for Kenya and for Africa.’ – Daniel Kamanga, former Associate Business Editor, Nation Marketing and Publishing, Kenya

Modifying Africa

‘For all concerned with rural development, there are tremendous lessons in this book. Florence Wambugu argues clearly and compellingly for biotechnology as a means of benefiting Africa’s poor and hungry.

As a prominent scientist who began her life on a small farm in Kenya, she is uniquely qualified to do so.

Florence is no ordinary combatant in the biotechnology arena but someone who has experienced deprivation personally. Her commitment to the search for solutions is absolute—and a shining example to those who masquerade as representatives for Africa but lack a grasp of the real issues. Isn’t it time Africa had a few more like her?’ – Cyrus Ndiritu, former Director, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute

Modifying Africa How biotechnology can benefit the poor and hungry, a case study from Kenya

Florence Wambugu

Florence Wambugu