CASSAVA NEWS to follow www.slowfood.com The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the BioCassava Plus project in Nigeria and Kenya to manipulate an increased production of beta-carotene, iron and protein in cassava which is an important crop in many parts of the world. Several communities in Kenya depend on cassava as a staple food as it survives in adverse conditions. The introduction of BioCassava will interfere with and wipe out farmers’ extensive and tireless efforts to preserve and exchange traditional varieties of cassava that are well adapted to particular local agro-climatic conditions.
CASSAVA NEWS from Trinidad & Tobago Express . In two months cassava and sweet potato fries will be served at KFC and Royal Castle, Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath said yesterday. "We have just gotten our foot in the door with KFC and Royal Castle to actually sell cassava chips over their counter," Bharath told the media during the tea break of the Senate sitting.
Gates Backs GM
CASSAVA NEWS from Trinidad & Tobago Express . In two months cassava and sweet potato fries will be served at KFC and Royal Castle, Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath said yesterday. "We have just gotten our foot in the door with KFC and Royal Castle to actually sell cassava chips over their counter," Bharath told the media during the tea break of the Senate sitting.
Gates Backs GM
Kenya - 20 Apr 11 - John Kariuki
Efforts to expand the use of genetically modified (GM) crops in Asia and Africa were given a major boost last week with the announcement of a significant investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged $US18.6 million. The grant will fund projects aiming to develop modified varieties of rice and cassava, intending to produce greater quantities of one or more nutrients to tackle malnutrition. Since its beginnings 30 years ago, GM technology has claimed to be able to feed the world and eradicate malnutrition. However in this time, we have only seen the number of hungry and malnourished grow, along with new problems and ramifications of a technology that we do not yet fully understand. While we can transplant a gene from one species to another for its desired characteristics, we cannot yet know how to predict or contain its results.
In Kenya and many other African countries, more and more people are turning to the traditional knowledge of communities as the key to solving problems of nutrition, and see the spread of GM crops as a new sickness of the land. Traditionally, communities have reduced their vulnerability to the effects of climate change and crop failure by relying on biodiversity in food supply. A dry season might destroy maize one year so instead we survive on cassava. With GM crops, which require large surface areas for planting and an intensive monoculture system, we don't have this safety blanket. Diversity in food choices also ensures that diets are varied enough to contain the required macro and micronutrients for good health, reducing the incidence of malnutrition.
As part of the funding, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the BioCassava Plus project in Nigeria and Kenya to manipulate an increased production of beta-carotene, iron and protein in cassava which is an important crop in many parts of the world. Several communities in Kenya depend on cassava as a staple food as it survives in adverse conditions. The introduction of BioCassava will interfere with and wipe out farmers’ extensive and tireless efforts to preserve and exchange traditional varieties of cassava that are well adapted to particular local agro-climatic conditions.
Furthermore, by influencing farmers to grow the same variety, the introduction and proliferation of GM crops also pose a problem of freedom, reducing producers’ autonomy by creating economic dependence on seed suppliers. In most cases, GM crops also require high external inputs such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers, which, as well as generating their own threats to human health and the environment, are often out of the financial reach of poor small-scale farmers. This creates a cycle that further impoverishes the farmers and turns them into slaves who are no longer in control of their own destiny, having to turn to the shops at every planting season.
The funding will also have a massive impact on farming autonomy and sustainability in Asia, where it will support the Philippine Rice Research Institute and the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute to engineer GM strains of “golden rice” to provide high levels of beta-carotene to decrease vitamin A deficiency in the local population.
To solve the problems of our times, we need to support and build on indigenous food systems, not stamp on them and wipe them out. The answers lie in the traditional agricultural knowledge that is held in the hearts, minds and hands of our small-scale farmers.
John Kariuki is vice-president of Slow Food International and currently works in his homeland of Kenya on Slow Food’s projects for biodiversity and food sovereignty.
Minister: Cassava, sweet potato fries at KFC shortly
By Anna Ramdass anna.ramdass@trinidadexpress.com
In two months cassava and sweet potato fries will be served at KFC and Royal Castle, Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath said yesterday. "We have just gotten our foot in the door with KFC and Royal Castle to actually sell cassava chips over their counter," Bharath told the media during the tea break of the Senate sitting.
He said the final rounds of "testing and tasting" are underway, so in two months customers will be able to taste fries made from locally grown staples. His Ministry is working to cut the $4 billion annual food import bill by half in two to three years, he said. Wheat, corn and soya bean, he noted, are the main items imported. He said although we cannot grow wheat and soy beans here, we can substitute them with other foods.
Bharath said plans are also on stream for mega farms to produce rice, tomatoes and sweet corn in Felicity, Edinburgh and Orange Grove respectively. He said ketchup is imported into this country when we can grow our own tomatoes and make our ketchup here. He said this will be a $100 million industry.
In the Tucker Valley mega farm, he added, a pilot project will be initiated to cultivate onions and carrots, which are also imported. He said the Tucker Valley farm was never under the Agriculture Ministry but under the Housing Ministry, and therefore never received the focus it needed. He added that the soil at that farm is the best to grow crops and green houses were established on fertile land.
Questioned on how the consumer would benefit from mega farm crops, Bharath said "Farm Gate" will be put in place as exists in other countries, where consumers can drive to the farm and buy directly. He said produce will also be sold directly to the wholesale market and supermarkets.
"We are looking to produce crops that don't compete with our existing farmers and put them out of business because they have been the backbones of our communities," Bharath said.
Questioned as to why were food prices so high, Bharath pointed out that there was a decrease in basic commodities such as tomatoes and cucumbers.
"The issue is that there has been no infrastructure put in place for 50 years. That's what we are putting in place now, the 300 irrigation ponds, the access roads, the praedial larceny programme," he said.
Bharath said by the next three to four months consumers will see the benefits of these initiatives.
