Can Biotechnology Save Africa?
Jamal Toye from School Without Walls in DC explores biotechnology in Africa.
The bitter battle that seed giants Monsanto Co. and Pioneer Hi-Bred wage for the hearts and pocketbooks of farmers doesn't end in the United States. They're going at it in Africa, too.
The landscape in this area east of Johannesburg, a slightly rolling plain with fields of tall corn, could almost pass for the American Midwest.
There's nothing like rain to wreck the field trial of a crop designed to resist drought.
Fog shrouds the terraced hills, and a stream is swollen from the rain that fell overnight, but the damage of a drought that left 10 million Kenyans dependent on food aid is still evident.
In Iowa, corn is king. In eastern and southern Africa, it's more important than that.
I left Africa last night with a great deal of gratitude for the people who have shared their stories with me, especially the farmers.
Thought moths were a threat to your clothes? They can devastate corn crops, too, and do in eastern and southern Africa.
Isaac Khuto, 65, got a late start at farming, but he's making the most of it. Khuto, who has an eighth grade education and lived most of his life under the hated apartheid system.
Kenyans woke to a warning in the nation's largest newspaper, the Daily Nation, that the country could face "an unprecedented food crisis" next year because of the drought that still plagues the Ri
Ask a typical American what corn means to him or her, and you're likely to get a blank stare, unless they've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's best seller, or watched a movie like Food
I know what a drought looks like, but I've never seen anything like the devastation to a portion of the Rift Valley near the Tanzania border.
I grew up in western Texas and covered the Midwest's devastating drought of 1988.
Fog shrouded the surrounding hills as a steady rain fell in the town of Machakos today, driving customers from the shops and market stalls in the middle of town.
An issue earlier this year of New African, a widely distributed monthly news magazine, carried the cover story: "GM Food: Is it good for Africa?" The headline on the story inside gave the answer: "
It remains to be seen whether genetically modified crops will ever be grown in east Africa, but in the meantime scientists already are reporting some success with improving the drought tolerance of
In some parts of the world, biotech companies have had to worry about keeping environmental activists out of their research plots.
What happens here in Kenya could change the way the world views genetically modified food. Whether it really makes a positive difference in the lives of Africans remains to be seen.
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Philip Brasher is Washington, D.C., correspondent for The Des Moines (Iowa) Register and specializes in coverage of food, agriculture, energy and climate policy. He has been a lead writer...