Imperialism: Genetically modified crops and their possible hazards

By Henry A. Onwubiko

“A nation that cannot control its own seeds cannot decide its destiny.”

–Captain Ibrahim Troure

Genetic engineering, the manipulation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the hereditary macromolecule and universal code that determine the characteristics of all organisms, has given rise to altered traits that produce distinct varieties in crops such as size, quantity, quality, taste, colour, herbicide and pesticide resistance, among others. It has also tightened the economic, racial and neocolonial noose of dependence of Africans on Western imperialism in its hunt for sovereignty over African natural resources, profit, surplus value and cheap black labour to revive its declining hegemony.

Through the incorporation of scientific research and the activity of powerful multinational corporations, Western imperialism has monopolized genetic engineering as a tool of manipulation and the neocolonization of African life and as declared by brother Ibrahim Troure, President of Burkina Faso to decide their destiny and evolutionary outcome; to play god to black people. They have initiated into many African states their imported genetically modified seeds crops and gene products to displace the indigenous cops with their naturally selected traits adapted to their local environment in symbiosis with the African inhabitants. The development of the alien traits and their new transgenic crops, the resulting new patterns of consumption in the African population and their possible health hazards conditioned by regular advertisement to the people, guarantee to Monsanto and other Multinational Genetic Engineering Firms, a stabilized source of profit and increase in Gross Domestic Products for their parent western nations.

The spurious claim by Western imperialism to globally apply this promising technique of gene modification of seeds to end the present ravaging world hunger, that is most acute in Africa is a subterfuge to their complicity in the NATO directed genocide of black people, and the

profitable engagement of their Industrial-military complexes in inducing the myriad wars and jihadist terror bubbles in Africa inflated by western money. Among the dual strategy of destabilization, the anti-imperialist struggle by Africans to regain sovereignty over their minerals and resources must include without equivocation agricultural life, which require the recovering of sovereignty over its seeds, traits, crops, soil and gene products, and the development of its own genetic engineering industries.

Should foreign nations or multinational industries be able to introduce and manipulate new traits, seeds or crops into the African environment without confronting the most stringent rules, regulations and utmost vigilance to protect our native seeds and crops against their naturally selected traits? Should foreign agents freely operate Genetic Engineering based laboratories and research in Africa as was the case during the AIDS, Ebola and COVID-19 pandemic, syphilis, malaria in Africa when there are documented evidence of using Africans as experimental guinea pigs in the development of their drug industries.

While the technology of genetic engineering is useful, its earlier stages most often are compounded by difficulties inherent in its methodology. Recombinant DNA Technology often requires the utilization of antibiotic resistant genes with bacteria often but not exclusively as

host, viruses as vectors of the new trait of interest, and sequence promoters for initiating transcription, all required to convey the desired gene or trait of interest into the DNA of the particular crop to be transformed.

Among the antibiotic resistant genes are those that code for proteins that inactivate common but important antibiotics, the central weapon in Africa in treating most bacteria infections such as Tetracycline, Ampicillin, Penicillin among others. In numerous experiments of

genetic engineering, the antibiotic resistant genes are attached in tandem to the desired gene or trait of interest, while respective antibiotics are used to select only those host bacteria which contain the transforming gene of interest, locked with the selecting antibiotic resistant genes protecting its own bacteria from being destroyed by antibiotics in the surrounding medium.

Consequently, only those bacteria host containing the desired foreign genes in tandem with an antibiotic resistant genes will survive and be selected in the surrounding antibiotic rich medium. What happens when the relevant bacteria host or plasmid containing the antibiotic resistant gene are not sorted out from the transformed seeds or developing crop and are inadvertently consumed by either humans, pastoral animals such as goats, cattle, pigs, sheep including birds, fed with products from seeds of these genetically modified crops?

Multinational corporations such as Monsanto with their leading tycoons as Bill Gates pose as philanthropist and lovers of Africans, determined to eradicate poverty, hunger and famine in Africa. They lobby with dollars, politicians in the executive and legislative branches of our state and national assemblies. They link up with big time private farmers made up of retired generals such as Olusegun Obasanjos, Danjumas and David Marks and others who are in search of investment. They spread their genetically modified seeds, reflecting their appealing and magical new traits but hidden hazards while the local native crops and seeds with their local traits gradually faze into extinction, together with their medicinal values with the native African population no longer protected by the new alien seeds.

The growing multinational firms, through grants to leading Agricultural institutes continue their campaigns through grants to selected researchers to over-emphasize the benefits of genetically modified crops and seeds. They hardly rise above their economic, national and racist interests to publish papers that show the negative effect of genetically engineered crops on human health; their impact on the extinction of African indigenous crops and their impact on native traits such as drought resistance and other environmentally friendly traits.

For instance, few scientific research works in the last three decades have correlated the increasingly ineffective capacity of the most common antibiotics used in Africa to treat most bacteria infections with the growing unregulated use and consumption of Genetically Modified crops, seeds such as the polluted common maize that constitute much of our diets and their value added products.

A leading hypothesis is that the antibiotic resistant genes that enable the selective transfer of the desired traits of interest also contaminates the modified crops and gene products further consumed by poultry, livestock and humans thereby inducing antibiotic resistance among members of the African population. As a result of the increasing consumption of the genetically modified crops, common antibiotics such as Ampicillin, Tetracycline and Penincillin become increasingly ineffective as treatment against bacteria infections.

Other serious hazards that have resulted from genetically modified crops is engineering them with traits to protect them against viruses, weeds, and insects which otherwise will attack the normal crops and limit their yield. But there is evidence which indicates that ordinarily harmless viruses may acquire virulent traits from transgenic crops, making them virulent and dangerous to humans. Researchers from Michigan State University have found that the genetically altering of plants to resist viruses can induce mutations with viruses to take on more virulent features. The Germini viruses that were once harmless now destroy tomatoes, cotton and cassava causing serious plant diseases as had been noted by Mofat, A.S in 1999 Science, Vol. 286, page 1835.

Another aspect of crop genetic modification is the tailoring of the promoter sequence which enables the mutation and replication of the foreign gene (or trait) within the bacteria or host factory. A recent work by British scientists at the Rowet Institute has shown that genetically engineered potatoes obtained with a commonly used viral promoter – the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMv) – are poisonous to mammals, with damage of organs and immune systems of laboratory fed rats.

The technique of genetic modification to generate useful traits for humanity in health and agriculture in Africa cannot be surrendered to Western imperialism for the manipulation of Africans for profit in their interest to rescue their declining hegemonic empire. Indeed, crop yield has improved significantly by the production of genetically engineered seeds that resist pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. Transgenic crops containing the Bacillus thuringiensis toxic gene which protects crops against pests, and also the transgenic maize which contains the chicken gene for the egg-white protein avidin become resistant to insect pests. However, transgenic crops engineered against certain pesticides and herbicides, not only ultimately lose their capability to resist the diverse encounters of pest and weeds, but ultimately encourage the emergence of new forms of pests and weeds that will ultimately overcome their genetically engineered resistance.

In conclusion, the present Pan-African revolution of the unity of Africans for the uncompromising fight against Western imperialism for the sovereignty over their mineral wealth and other natural resources is incomplete without African sovereignty over her seeds, crops, and agricultural life. Africans must rise to protect their soil, native crops and seeds with their indigenous traits selected by nature to protect African people. Now is the time in the present drive for Pan-Africanism and the fight for sovereignty over African resources for more stringent local national and continental rules, regulations and vigilance by Africans to guard their seeds, crops, plants and soil with the new revolutionary genetic modification technology. Western imperialism still manipulates this technique of genetic engineering in the various centres of infectious diseases, where Africans remain the experimental guinea pigs, agent and targets of infections, often initiated by Western imperialism for the profitable gain of their vaccine and agricultural industries, leaving Africa to remain ridiculed, manipulated for profit than to be subjects in-charge of their agricultural life and destiny.

• Onwubiko, PhD, Professor of Biochemistry, University of Nigeria, Nsukka