Africa: The Caged Continent; The GM Seeds Will Bury Her
By Kur Wel Kur, Australia
May 2, 2015 (SSB) —- Well, poisoning Africans’ politics is a played and won game by the West. Maiming Africans’ economy through trades agreements and sanctions, ìs a completed task by them also. However, controlling and enslaving Africans through agricultural production looms fast. Scary ideas such as the idea of the climate change has been discussed and lectured in Africans’ universities. The experts from the West predicted that the impacts of climate change will be worse in Africa. So they placed forward solutions such as GM seeds to these impacts. GM seeds stands for Genetically Modified seeds. I will discuss in details how GM seeds work.
In the early days, Africa never consecutively failed her inhabitants in terms of agricultural production. Times of misfortunes such as droughts would come and they would pass. The locusts would visit and they would leave. Land fertility would deplete and it would regenerate, and the crops would appreciate.
However, when the thinkers and profit chasers such as Monsanto and DuPont emerged, a new a agricultural revolution is born. They are seeking permissions to prune Africa’s last tendrils by introducing GM seeds. Readers and visitors of Paanluel Wel: South Sudanese bloggers, I will discuss one side of the cage, which is African agribusiness. After the introduction of GM seeds, Will you still believe Africans will have freedom on their farms?
*wondering!*
Let’s find out.
“The final nail in the coffin”
Africans exist because of treasures God blessed them with, their fertile lands, their forests and their exotic wildlife, otherwise the haters would have wiped them off in the face of the earth even by radiation. In isolation, humans in Africa could not be dealt away without affecting the forests and wildlife. So they waited. As the knowledge grows, scientists from the West have developed ethical ways of killing animals. Even experimental mice receive painless and dignified deaths in laboratories. So squeezing lives out of Africans by introducing genetically modified crops become the most convincing way of locking Africa into a bubble of dependence.
How can production of enough food be dependence? You may ask. This brings us to how scientists invented GM seeds. Initially, scientists experimented on genes to solve problems facing agriculture sector especially in America. Problems such as drought, weeds, pests and land fertility exhaustion, had led scientists to invent droughts resistant seeds, which need less water; manufactured fertilizers, which restore nutrients in the soils, herbicides and pesticides, which kill weeds and pests respectively. And they (scientists) have succeeded. The introduction of GM seeds in the whole Africa will be the “last nail in the coffin”.
The hidden agendum
The former world number one wealthy person, Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates founded their 30 billions foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates foundation) to combat poverty, food insecurity and diseases in Africa. Bill’s friend, the current world number two wealthy person, Warren Buffett, donated his 30 billions to Bill and Melinda’s foundation. With 60 billions, the foundation has become the richest foundation in the whole world. Bill Gates supports introduction of GM crops in Africa to solve food insecurity. However, little does he know that he is supporting the burial of Africa. Yes, solutions to current problems come with future bigger problems.
Bill Gates and other philanthropists love Africa to lift herself or be lifted off the poverty and diseases, in order for her to soar towards her glory but the haters and exploiters expect the opposite for Africa. They intend to sign off Africa the list of viable and self sustainable continents. Africans and their friends must learn from pervious examples. In these examples, they must examine Monsanto and Dupont’s actions in countries such as Argentina. Monsanto bribed locals off their lands through signing dodgy agreements so GMOs took up most of agricultural land in Argentina. Another sad truth, with this humongous (huge) scale agricultural production, Argentina still experiences hunger because 80 % of production is exported. Again, with most of land under agriculture, do you still believe in climate change? More lands for agriculture means more deforestation. Deforestation initiates droughts. The mighty Amazon forest is under the saws and it will disappear in a few years. The endemic fauna and floral will extinct.
And you know what? Whether the farms belong to Argentines or Monsanto, Monsanto controls this portion of land through supplies of seeds, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Cultured and engineered in the laboratories, GM seeds cannot do without those chemicals aforementioned.
Patents on seeds
The American giants: Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta own patents for the genetically modified seeds. As such, the companies have rights to sue farmers who sell or share seeds (seeds regarded as intellectual properties) with other farmers . Christina Sarich titled her article she posted in August 29, 2014, with the following words: ” Monsanto Sues Farmers for 16 Straight Years over GMOs, NEVER Loses.” In her article, she mentioned that Monsanto filed 145 cases, 9 cases per a year for 16 years. In another article, Darren Hauck wrote: “Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO seed patents, ability to sue” Again in Canada, Carey Gillam wrote article, posted in June 10, 2013: ” Organic growers lose decision in suit versus Monsanto over seeds”
Monsanto shoveled millions of dollars as profits by selling seeds and loyalties to farmers. In case of law suit, whose farmers always lose, farmers pay fortunes as compensations to Monsanto. However, out of cases filed by Monsanto for infringements, farmers owed a number of cases to contamination through crossed pollination. Though Monsanto scientists engineered one-life-seeds, their (GM seeds) pollens are packed with abilities of fertilising all seeds, whether GM or non GM seeds. Regardless of this fact, farmers still lost all cases against them. one-life-seeds are seeds, which germinate once. Remember, traditionally, farmers would buy seeds once and then save seeds after harvest for next planting season. All GM seeds produce barren grains, which means biolotechnologists are forcing farmers to keep going back to Monsanto for seeds.
Europeans’ countries, pilot light for most Africans’ countries
You can’t find any better or best friends to America than those Europeans’ countries in Europeans Union (EU). They fought their wars and America joined them in the battlefields. America initiated more dangerous and more expensive wars and EU backed America to the last minutes of wars. We saw that in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In trades partnerships, Europe (EU) and America paced everry step together. Even if you go back in times, centuries back, Europe initiated Slave trades in Africa and the US joined them. They partitioned Africa, and the US supported them.
However, big brothers parted ways in GMOs businesses. Europeans rejected the introduction of GM seeds in their Agribusiness. They thoroughly and strictly regulate their imports to screen commodities containing GMOs. US blames EU for the refusal of Many Africans’ countries. That EU has flooded the Internet with propaganda and with the ” the fear of unknown” messages. Some Africans’ scientists joined the American slogan: why spreading lies for the “fear of unknown?” They asked. Only four countries in Africa endorsed GM seeds. Sudan, Egypt, Burkina Faso and South Africa are practicing this new agricultural revolution. Other four countries are on trails: Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique and Burundi. Africans must know that EU is not refusing GMOs because of not knowing the science behind them (GM) but it’s rejecting the GM because of the exploitations behind GMOs. Remember, the grandfathers and grandmothers of many sciences came from Europe and Asia.
Countries like Uganda are on trials without proper guidelines. I know why Uganda is desperate to adopt the GM seeds. Some times in February this year, I saw on South Sudanese television (SStv), the destruction of banana plantations in Uganda by a ceuel parasite called nematode. In the same news a scientist from America appeared explaining the solutions to the problem. His ideas drifted towards GMOs. But if you think for a minute, won’t question such as this pops up : are scientists not poisoning crops and soils in Africa in order for GM seeds to become alternatives ?
Disadvantages of GMOs
Side effects of GM seeds range from environmental issues to humans health issues. Chemicals in herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers, poison the land, this makes it hard for traditional farming. Land becomes dependence to these chemicals. Farmers who decided to quit using GM seeds experienced difficulties because they have to leave the lands for years in order to recover. From the past knowledge in medicine area, drugs/chemicals induce organisms to develop genes that protect them from chemicals. You saw it in the malaria parasite. When scientists invented chloroquine in response to malaria cases, the parasite mutated into antimalarial drug resistance (ADR). So what makes herbicides such as roundups not to induce weeds to develop super genes and give rise to super weeds? The same apply to pesticides. The birth and rise of super weeds and super pests will devastate the environment and humans lives. The introduction of GMOs in foods have increased allergies cases.
To conclude, Studying ‘Biotechnology in Context’, a third year topic of Genetics, five years ago, I was convinced that GM seeds are modern agricultural revolution. From the history, revolution in agricultural sectors result inhumane victimisation. The 17 century agricultural revolution was the mother of slavery. The triangular trade(The Transatlantic slaves trade) fed the agricultural revolution in America. When philosophers say: ” history repeats itself.” They mean that humans refer to history as a source of inspirations. And through enlightenments from the history, humans solve tough puzzles, which remained unsolved from former generations.
As the history still fresh, Africans must armoured themselves with information from history. In a few words, the saying means: transformation of the history into the present. One thing is clear, slaves will not be strapped down in the bellies of ships and then transported to America but Monsanto will enslave Africans on their soil (Africa).
Africans must reject introduction of GMOs. To strengthen their stand, Africans must follow Europeans’ countries because they know, too well, what GMOs mean. Europeans are not rejecting GMOs because of unknown sides effects or mislabeling packages of GMOs but they are rejecting the idea of monopoly from Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. Monopoly breeds exploitation. Though we must acknowledge the efforts of sincere hearts of many philanthropists, especially Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, we must also understand that Monsanto and DuPont are using their (philanthropists’) good intentions of ending hunger in Africa as curtains. And behind the curtains is exploitation of Africans. And poisoning of Africans’ lands with fertisers, super weeds and super pests will be the saddest part.
–
The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address and the country you are writing from
About Post Author
