Researchers root for agricultural biotech to tackle food insecurity in Africa

With Africa being the continent with the highest food insecurity in the world, leveraging agricultural biotechnology potential is one of the ways the continent can meet the food needs of its increasing population, researchers have shown. As of 2023, one in every five people in Africa was hungry, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024, a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which estimated that more than 298 million people faced hunger on the continent in 2023, up from slightly over 284.1 million in 2022. Worldwide, around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally, the report showed. The researchers said agricultural biotechnology can contribute to addressing hunger and malnutrition on the continent, through producing crops that are resistant to diseases, pests and drought, and safely introducing vitamins or proteins into crops that lack them for nutrition improvement, among other ways. They were speaking during a three-day researchers’ strategic dialogue on research and biotechnology in Africa's agricultural and food systems, which concluded on August 30, in Kigali. It was organised by African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) in partnership with the Government of Rwanda. ALSO READ: Rwanda to begin GMO trials for potatoes by February 2025 Speaking to The New Times, Prof. Richard Oduor, a professor of genetic engineering, and Registrar of Research, Innovation and Outreach at Kenyatta University in Kenya, said that agricultural biotechnology including GMOs is important to Africa, even with availability of vast arable land. “I know there is fear that we don’t need to adopt biotechnology or GMOs because we have large arable land, but we must also appreciate that even if we have arable land, if there is drought, that arable land becomes useless because it will not grow. Even if you plant in the entire Africa and there are diseases because of climate change, and there are pests that are eating your crops, the land issue doesn't matter because it becomes useless with all that,” he pointed out. For him, there is a need for Africa to invest in GMO technology to produce seeds that can be used in case the already available [conventional] ones cannot survive the environment. AATF Executive Director Canisius Kanangire said Africa has been left behind in bringing science to the people, which is why agricultural productivity is low, and farmers grappling with low yields amid climate change shocks. African farmers are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Researchers have the potential to help them increase productivity by using tools and adopting appropriate technologies, such as biotech, for better production, he observed. Currently, some countries in Africa grow GMO crops, including South Africa which produces genetically modified maize, and Nigeria where a cowpea variety resistant to a leguminous destructive pest called pod borer, is under commercialisation. In Rwanda, confined field trials for GM cassava with resistance to cassava brown streak virus disease (CBSD) locally called ‘kabore’ were still being carried out (in the districts of Huye at RAB’s Rubona research station, in Nyanza and Bugesera) and the yields were promising, according to Athanase Nduwumuremyi, the Coordinator of the Roots and Tubers Programme at Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB). CBSD is a major destructive disease which threatens cassava production in the country. Nduwumuremyi is also the coordinator of the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) Rwanda Chapter. OFAB is a project of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF). Nduwumuremyi said that while producing GMO crop varieties through biotechnology, scientists make sure that they are safe for human consumption, such as by only introducing a gene with desired traits such as resistance to drought, diseases, or increase in yield. The technology, he added, can contribute to addressing malnutrition such as stunting among children. “Through genetic engineering, you can produce crops that are more nutritious, which contain iron and zinc, vitamin A, among others,” he said.

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Researchers root for agricultural biotech to tackle food insecurity in Africa