Naturally organic agriculture harvests belong to Africa by right

Nov 02, 2010

OVER the last two weeks, I have devoted this column to an issue that is very dear to my heart, that of preserving the control of agriculture in the hands of small farmers in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa.

By Dr Opiyo Oloya

OVER the last two weeks, I have devoted this column to an issue that is very dear to my heart, that of preserving the control of agriculture in the hands of small farmers in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa.

The issue of control came up when it was revealed in a news report that agro-giant Monsanto and others were about to begin the testing of genetically modified maize in Uganda. The issue then as now became one about the impact such a test would have on naturally organic agriculture harvests (NOAH) where farmers control indigenous seeds for planting season after season.

There are numerous examples of farmers losing control where such testing has been carried out in both the developed and developing countries. In America, Canada, Europe, India, Egypt and many others, small farmers are slowly squeezed out by the agriculture giants that patent certain seeds and will vigorously use the law to protect their intellectual rights to those patented seeds.

However, as happened in the case of India’s Nap Hal wheat which was patented by Monsanto, it is not beyond the big companies to claim to have engineered seeds that have been grown by the locals for thousands of years. The people of India had to fight very vigorously to reclaim what rightfully belonged to them in the first place. The Nap Hal patent was revoked, setting Indian farmers free to cultivate wheat as they have for generations.

In my mind's eye, should they be forced to buy seeds from a multinational, I can see the frustrations for my parents who are farmers and who inculcated the love of farming in us. As children growing up in Pamin-Yai it was expected that we would work hard on the farm during the rainy seasons, planting the seeds that had been carefully stored in the deero (granaries raised on stilts) from the previous harvests. What we put in the earth was always what was kept from the harvests from the previous years—the millet, groundnuts, simsim, maize, sorghum and the list goes on.

Occasionally one relative or another would come to borrow seeds because the prolonged dry spell had forced the family to eat up whatever was stored as seeds. My parents always obliged because that was the nature of farming; everyone helped out everyone else. In the cut-throat world of genetically modified seeds, the farmers are forced to buy seeds directly from the company that owns it, plant it just that year and repeat the same thing all over again the following year. Those who buy the genetically modified seeds are forbidden from holding a portion of the harvest for seeds or sharing the same with those neighbours who may have fallen on bad times and used the entire harvest as food.

Today, there is no issue of who owns the seeds grown by Uganda farmers including millet, sorghum, maize, rice, wheat, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, cassava, yam, bananas and many others. The farmers themselves own those seeds which they can store over the harvest months and plant again when the rains come. However, no farmer in Uganda, especially the peasant who relies on this method of preserving seeds, will ever understand why he or she cannot keep seeds to plant in the next season. Yet, this is precisely one of the issues that the testing of genetically modified maize will create if allowed to proceed.

The good news is that the news about the proposed testing of maize in Uganda, thanks to technology, has been heard around the world. There is a groundswell of support to fight off the testing, and keep NOAH as the basis of food security in Uganda. Indeed NOAH-Uganda has started a petition online (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/noah-uganda/) with a goal of reaching 10,000 signatures toward stopping the proposed testing of genetically modified maize in Uganda.

Working with local groups, the organisation plans to present the signatures to Uganda policy makers urging them to create a tight law that will always protect the small farmers. I urge everyone who is concerned as I am to immediately go online to sign the petition, and to encourage friends, relatives and peers to do the same. NOAH is an African heritage worth fighting for—it is ours to preserve or forever lose it. I say, let’s keep it alive as our ancestors before us did.

Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca





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