The Ethiopian Herald had a stay with Dr. Endale Gebre, a Senior Agricultural Biotechnology expert. Dr. Endale touched up on a range of ideas with regard to the use of Biotechnology in general and adaptation as well as utilization of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in particular in Ethiopia. Enjoy reading!
The Ethiopian Herald (HE): What is the position of use or application of GMOs in Ethiopia right now?
Dr. Endale: The use of GMO in Ethiopia has been a very controversial issue since long back.
The concept of GMO utilization is not equally clearly recognized by people in different walk of
life; laymen, novice scholars or experienced experts, researchers, etc. The arguments emerge from the background of conceiving the technology as having negative impacts on one hand and on account of its remarkable potential to resolve problems of food security and hunger on the other. However, this has been debated a lot and the country had moved forward to developing and implementing its GMO regulations since 2009 or better referred the amended law in 2015 and there is a considerable effort being made to develop useful technologies by the research since the provisions of the law and the guidelines. One good example is the commercialization of proven Bt-cotton varieties through further rigorous field and laboratory testing by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) in collaboration with international partners.
HE: Would you please explain a bit more on the GMO use?
Dr. Endale: The scientists who are for the technology explain the GM technology as profitable one as it helps countries to address their problems of hunger, poverty and product quality for instance through producing high quality, disease and pest resistant crops or agricultural products
suitable to certain industrial input. This enables countries to either solve their internal food or raw material supply problem or become globally competitive in production of desirable agricultural products with better productivity. Opponents of GMOs are heard of saying organic foodstuffs to be healthy and rich in nutrient but claim that GM technology has negative impacts and that the technology is useless or its negative merits outweighs the benefits. The concerns include potential toxicity and allergencity to human beings, potential environmental risks, such as chances of gene flow, adverse effects on non-target organisms, evolution of resistance in weeds and insects etc. But this is not based on scientifically proven findings. Had there been strong evidences, it would have been difficult to understand why scientists globally would have joined forces to work on these technologies tirelessly.
Organic products are appealing to the mind but you cannot do it on a large scale. It is also expensive and most people cannot afford to eat only organic. We have to feed the nation and also be competent economically. Our fertilizer use is among the lowest in the world and improving our fertilizer use makes more sense than advocating organic farming at this stage. We need very high yielding and responsive varieties to fertilizer or other input use. The traditional agriculture is suffering from a very low input and less productive technologies that need strong research backup for transformation.
In the middle of these arguments, we must know and notice that there is a great effort by scientists globally to develop GM products. As of 2016 over 400 different GM products were approved for commercialized and as of 2018 over 191.7 million hectares of agricultural land is cultivated with crops developed by the technology since field production began some 20 years ago. These technologies are expanding with unprecedented speed driven by at least three major causes: rapid population expansion, decrease in arable land and bottlenecks of conventional breeding. GM technologies offer a lot of promises in fighting these problems. In the meantime concerns of opponents have prompted the adoption of more smart alternative technologies like cisgenesis, intragenesis, and most recently, highly effective techniques which may revolutionize the GM technology known as genome editing. Although the proponents are not arguing with such a rational stance, however I would say the argument is shaping the GM technology for a better excellence and rendering old the GM argument itself. Most of the new alternative technologies can be utilized to develop crop plants that are free from any foreign gene hence, it is expected that such crops might achieve higher consumer acceptance.
Some also have a concern arising from the socio-economic perspectives. This emanates from the concern that the technology developers will have absolute control over their products (e.g. GMO seeds) and can harm poor farmers and thus weaken the national economy.
This concern is not about the technology but about the market monopoly and should be treated as such and not be confused with biological or biomedical harm. This can be a concern but in my opinion is a matter of proper negotiation at the technology use level and yet the best remedy is developing own capacity to make the same or alternative technologies.
These schools of thought are reflected in Ethiopia and were of paramount importance in shaping the GMO regulation (law) in Ethiopia and can be helpful if the argument is not intended to block science and technology but request for scientific justifications to sieving the chaff from the seed, which is what the country needs at the end of the day. Arguments need to be based on scientific findings and empirical evidences but not emotions and feelings. But if one takes an ideological stance and prefers not favoring GMOs, it is altogether a different story. May be there is no need for providing scientific proof for such an ideological resistance. Apart from this unfortunately the burden of proof in the GM technology is so huge due to the GM regulations and makes the products too expensive and also so prohibitive for developing countries to develop and make use of their own GM products.
HE: What is expected of Ethiopia along this line? Can it apply the GMO or take a middle ground as usual?
Dr. Endale: I do not think that is the solution. Ethiopia has approved a law to ensure the safe utilization of GM products. This has been intensively discussed for more than two years and the 2009 law was amended in 2015 after six wasted years without meaningful progress. The country
has a stake. The law stands for the society and for the nation not for this or that school of thought. Ethiopia cannot afford to sit and see the hot debate when the world is moving fast. Instead it is quite important to keep an eye on the global scenario and workout how you remain competitive in the scientific arena. When it comes to a certain product of technology to use or develop, it is essential to conduct a wide range of scientific as well as public consultation and carry out detailed research before using it so that it helps to deal with the GMO controversy. That is what the law says and provides.
I think Ethiopia is on the right track in putting the legal instruments first before starting research on GM. It had the first law in 2009 and had to be amended in 2015 because of its unusual stringency. Many African countries started research on GM crops before developing the legal ground. Of course, they utilized existing regulations in their systems as they found them fit for purpose and may be they were smarter. We have a law and comprehensive directives, but now remember we are at least 25 years late in the argument. There were heated debates during the law making and now it should have been time for reaping the benefits of the technology.
Unfortunately, you are asking me if Ethiopia should take a middle ground. What do you mean by middle ground? The world has embraced the technology long ago and moved fast and now many countries that invested on the science are benefitting. The GM crops now cover about 15 times as
big an agricultural land as the total cultivated land of Ethiopia. Do you think world lost mind?
No! It is us, sorry to say; we are not doing justice but remain fighting for already resolved issue.
On top of the regulation, the country has a clear roadmap regarding biotechnology in general including GM technologies. This has been discussed widely across the country involving all stakeholders, universities and research institutions included. The way forward is very clear.
Different countries have been utilizing GMO-oriented cotton.
HE: You have mentioned the global situation, would you please highlight more in this regard?
Dr. Endale: Surprisingly, over 70 countries worldwide have been making use of GMO technologies. This is not including industrial processes that covers a wide range of GM use mostly in Europe and the west as I mentioned to you which includes engineered micro-organisms for production of processed foods, vaccine production, chemotherapy products, and the cosmetics industries, etc. With the rapid improvement in the techniques of biotechnology including the GM, the number and diversity of products being approved is growing exponentially. On the other hand, most GM crop technology in the past were farmer-focused but now a number of new ones are emerging which are consumer or industry (processing quality) focused. As we are arguing and not moving forward, the world is shifting the gear to a more advanced state of science adding day by day more innovations and discovery to the science and more products are on the table for use. Countries that invested in science are the ones who have and will continue to have better chance of controlling the economy now and in the future. They have a lot of supper products ready for marketing and use. Obviously, due to the controversy I mentioned earlier many global studies were made to assess the safe use of GM products. For instance, the Science Advisory Council of the National Science Academies of the EU Member States in its policy report in 2013 indicated “…there is no validated evidence that GM crops have greater adverse impact on health and the environment than any other technology used in plant breeding.” Moreover, a ten year AU funded (well over £100 million) GMO research involving 500 independent research groups, basically indicated no harm is identified on GMOs and concluded GM products are not per se more risky than the conventional plant breeding technologies.” We know that the skepticism towards this technology has been more pronounced in Europe than in any other part of the world. Consumer acceptance of putting GMO food on the dinner table has remained limited in Europe but the problem is not mostly safety related. You can find many such studies with similar concluding remarks.
EH: What does the law in Ethiopia say in this regard?
Dr. Endale: The GMO law was prepared and enacted in Ethiopia taking the experience on its
worldwide development into consideration. It was prepared based on the African Model Law that originates from the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and giving the necessary regard for indigenous knowledge and socio-economic development interest. It also gives due regards to access to and utilization of biological resources as well as in the sharing of benefits derived from such activities by local communities. The law is positioned to reconcile the two schools of thoughts above as it was prepared in line with world treaties, agreements and conventions and leaves no room for harmful GMO development and use. The good thing is the law provides Ethiopia with the opportunity to regulate the safe use of GMO while providing an enabling condition to build the national capacity towards modern biotechnology for the benefit of the country, the farmers and consumers.
Therefore, the amended regulation doesn’t declare no use to the GMO products but rather it stipulates in detail the requirements for an informed decision making based on a case-by-case analysis of any technology. As a country we haven’t yet exploited the opportunity with which the proclamation provides.
EH: What should the way forward be and any concern you may have?
Dr. Endale: We are sluggish in building the necessary national capacity in this area. We, as Ethiopians, should go faster with regard to biotechnology as the world is running much ahead of us. While we are debating long whether GMO is worthwhile or not, there has been no country that sympathized and commit itself to wait for us; and the technology also has moved to a higher level thanks to round-the-clock research and inventions globally. Our farmers have to be helped to become more competitive globally.
There are many technologies out there well proven to be safe and solve key production problems and millions of farmers reap the benefits in other countries. The future is unthinkable without advancing our culture of technology use. Ethiopia has a well-structured agricultural research system that if supported properly can become globally competitive to generate and or test GMO crops and other products before they are widely used.
There are roadmaps that can guide how to mobilize resources and make an effective technology transfer to speed up the research and development. There are also well experienced scientists in universities and research institutions who can give guidance on how to make best use of proven technologies elsewhere and also develop our own best products. Remember also that we have a law that also demands the strictest scrutiny and require an advance informed agreement for implementation. Now the GM technology has advanced to a genome editing stage and GM arguments are getting older. These advanced technologies are rather very powerful in accessing and adjusting the genome according to the need or purpose and you cannot tell looking at the product if the genome has been altered for the good cause. We have to move fast to build the necessary capacity to exploit the huge opportunities opening up with the new technologies. We should not let the next generation cry of hunger. In the biotechnology roadmaps the clear direction has been set out how to develop the national capacity; where to focus most and how other countries succeeded in the field. The roadmaps were followed by appropriate strategies. It is difficult to imagine a brighter future in this country’s economy if we do not want the support and help of advanced technologies. Our indecisiveness counts against us by the day. Use of technology is not an option for us, it is a question of survival.
EH: Thanks.
Dr. Endale: Never mind.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 14 /2020
BY MENGESHA AMARE
