How Mark Lynas swayed East Africans on GMOs

How Mark Lynas swayed East Africans on GMOs

By Charles Kazooba

He may be seen as a traitor by his former colleagues in the anti-genetically modified foods camp but his new mission to re-write the damage done by his former movement appears to be succeeding. 

Mark Lynas, a journalist-cum-climate change activist, who has in past successfully de-campaigned the use of GM technology in crop planting, has embarked on a global tour to boost biotechnology he once reviled most, reversing his earlier position.

His East African tour of Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya-the newest hosts of biotechnology research and development, is billed as one his most successful sojourns.

Sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he gave lectures in the three countries on GM foods under the auspices of Open Forum of Agricultural Biotechnology in July.

In Kampala, Uganda where there has been vehement opposition of GMOs from food activists, he made a moving presentation that swayed even those that had little hope in biotech.

“I have a moral responsibility to put right some of the damage I have done.  I am a small potato farmer in the United Kingdom but my garden is affected by blight and since GMOs are not allowed I remain at loss,” Mark, also a British author of several books on global warming including Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, told an audience of scientists, farmers, the media, students and Members of the Uganda Parliament at Makerere University during the first biosafety conference on July 29.

Mark said he was sorry he had maligned genetically modified crops; sorry that he had helped start the anti-GM movement and sorry he had demonized the technology.

“I myself am culpable of the misleading information. That was a long time ago, and I have apologized for that. I was the original instigator of the anti-GMOs crusade. I personally destroyed GMO crops in the fields with activist groups,” he said.

In his presentation, “Unmasking the global conspiracies against agricultural biotechnology advancement in developing countries: what way out of Africa?” during the conference, Mark said there was strong scientific consensus that GM foods were entirely safe.

“There have been several hundred safety studies now on GM crops around the world, the vast majority clearly supporting the scientific consensus. And people in the US, South Africa and many other countries have consumed something like 2-3 trillion meals containing GM ingredients with not a single substantiated case of any negative health effects, not even so much as a headache,” he said.

He said he prioritized his East African tour because of the alarming situation—in Uganda where activists vowed to block a biotech and safety law under scrutiny by parliament and in Kenya, where there is a ban on importation of GMO products.

“Staple crops like cassava and banana here in Uganda and elsewhere in the region are under severe threat from new diseases which could wipe out much of the domestic food supply. Scientists here in Uganda, Kenya and elsewhere, in partnership with international collaborators at the best universities and plant science institutes in the world have come a long way towards developing crops which will be able to resist these diseases,” he explained.

While in Kenya, Mark was asked to clarify whether GMOs were another weapon being used by neo-colonialists to control the global market.

“I can tell you that if you look at the world only through the eyes of a victim, and you believe that everyone is an enemy and yourself should never change, and then you will indeed end up marginalized and exploited.

So my message to you is to be properly anti-colonial and believe in yourselves, he said, adding, “The way out for Africa is not to dance to the tune of others, and to ignore the conspiracy theories from abroad which the professional NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have downloaded from the internet.”  

Tanzanians, during Mark’s public lecture peddled lots of myths about GMOs causing cancer or taking genes from fish and putting them in tomatos, or making seeds sterile or whatever.

He encouraged African scientists to spread their pro-GMO gospel to Europe and America-the origins of GMOs-in order to garner global support for their research in Africa.

“Please come and tell the British public just how important crops like maize, banana and cassava are, and about how they can help address the challenge of food security in their disease-resistant and drought-tolerant varieties. It would also be useful for you to see that Europe is not a successful model to follow. European policy on biotechnology is in fact in a state of near collapse. Nothing has moved for over 10 years, and now major companies are pulling out,” said Mark.

Who is Mark Lynas?

Mark Lynas is a visiting research associate at Oxford University and environmental campaigner. His reputation and knowledge on climate change later earned him a position of advisor to the President of Maldives on climate change. A British author, he has written several books on global warming including Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, which was made into a movie by National Geographic. Other titles are; 'High Tide' and, his latest, the ‘The God Species: How the Planet can Survive the Age of Humans’

Lynas first heard about the notion of genetically modifying crops in a Brighton squat in early 1996, at a meeting of about six activists that was lead by Jim Thomas, a campaigns director for Greenpeace. Lynas lead the early workshops that spread the message further. 

A critical fracture between Lynas and his movement occurred after London's 2000 May Day riots, which he helped organize. “Everything we'd been trying to achieve was undermined by all the violence and window smashing. It just alienated people. I thought I'd be honest about it. Everyone looked at me in complete horror, shock and contempt," he later confessed.

 “So, contrary to what some of his critics have said, I applaud his conversion and urge him to continue his education. He has discovered high school biology. Now it’s time to go to college,” John Vandermeer of Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan says of Mark.