Researcher Haidee Swanby travelled to Dar es Salaam in November 2020 to attend the following event: “Open Dialogue. Towards Seeds and Agricultural Biodiversity.”

Since the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops on the international market in the 1990s, Africa has been sceptical about their adoption. African governments (with the exception of South Africa) were at the forefront of pushing for caution in the roll-out of GMO crops and at a similar time, also fighting back against ever-tightening intellectual property regimes on seed. A trip to Tanzania in November 2020 revealed that these controversies have not been resolved in the past 30 years. Indeed, as we begin to feel the effects of climate change on every aspect in our lives and as we deal with possibly the first of many pandemics to come, decisions about the trajectory of our food systems are at a critical cross-road. While the global north has largely ceded their food sovereignty to corporations, African farmers still steward incredible agrobiodiversity resources and related knowledge. Can that invaluable treasure survive imperatives to industrialise, modernise and “develop”?

Tanzanian organisations, Tanzanian Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM) and the Tanzanian Alliance for Biodiversity (TABIO), are of the opinion that industrialising agriculture is a clear threat to resilient and socially just food systems in Tanzania. They hosted a lively multi-stakeholder dialogue in November 2020 at the University of Dar es Salaam entitled Open Dialogue. Towards Seeds and Agricultural Biodiversity. Relevant government departments, farmers, scientists, private sector, media, activists and students were in attendance to respond to inputs in two panels – one on experiences with GM crops and another on farmers’ seed systems. Colleagues from Switzerland, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso also joined to share their country experiences. The aim of the dialogue was to advance the notion of food and seed sovereignty in Tanzania and the conservation of indigenous seed.

The University of Cape Town was invited to present on South African experiences with GM crops due to the fact that the country was an early adopter of the technology. The presentation was titled 23 Years of GMOs in South Africa. When will the promises be fulfilled? The presentation exposed the brittle nature of South Africa’s food system, which has never transformed out of its apartheid roots. The continuation of industrial agriculture, post-apartheid, through early adoption of high-tech GM seeds, maintained a large-scale production system feeding into a centralised and concentrated value chain. The result has been a lack of land and agrarian reform, entry barriers to the food system for small producers and entrepreneurs, and further loss of agricultural biodiversity and related knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, persistent hunger, nutritional deficiencies and growing obesity are indicative of a broken food system. Issues that have been consistently raised by civil society over the past 23 years on GM crops include, government decision-making based on unpeer-reviewed and often shoddy science submitted by GMO developers; inappropriately narrow risk assessment parameters that purposefully ignore socio-economic risks, ethical concerns and the behaviour of new genes and novel organisms in real-life contexts; and confidential business information clauses that can hide ‘inconvenient’ findings and hamper public access to information and participation in decision-making processes. Civil society groups argue that South Africa’s policy allegiance to Green Revolution technologies needs to be reassessed in an era where the call for food sovereignty and agroecology is growing louder as the destructive nature of large-scale, capital intensive, highly toxic agricultural production systems is recognised.

As a South African participant, it was fascinating to hear the panel presentations on indigenous and traditional seed. There was overwhelming agreement from farmers, civil society and government that seed sovereignty and indigenous seed is under threat from the formal seed industry and GM crops. Government representatives were of the strong opinion that smallholder seed systems have not received the kind of holistic support necessary to make them viable, despite the fact that these seeds are the basis for food and nutrition security in the country. These seeds hold much greater potential than GM varieties and therefore, before GM crops are adopted, more effort is needed to employ conventional breeding methods. It was fascinating to hear this enthusiasm for indigenous seed from a South African perspective as in South Africa, scant public resources are available for work on indigenous varieties, which are in rapid decline along with the associated production, processing and preparation skills. Further, Tanzanian policy is in direct contradiction to government presentations at the Dialogue, given that Tanzania is one of the only Least Developed Countries (LDC) in the world to have signed the controversial framework on intellectual property rights on seed under the Union for Protection of New Varieties (UPOV) 1991. The framework is notorious for protecting the rights of private breeders in the formal seed industry to the detriment of small-scale farmers.

Three strong takeaways from the trip were that 1) Tanzanians across the board have a great love for indigenous seed and see the need to further develop their use; 2) there is a fierce battle within government regarding the future trajectory of GM seeds while civil society remains steadfastly cautious and sceptical of the technology; 3) there is a great passion for agroecological production on the continent.

Given the rigorous debate during this meeting, it was interesting to see further developments emerge on GM crops and seed in Tanzanian news in early 2021: Tanzania’s Minister of Agriculture, Prof, Adolf Faustine Mkenda, issued a directive to halt all GM research trials in the country, expressing the government’s concern about creating seed dependence on foreign-based corporations. He said, “Tanzania does not allow GMOs, because we have enough better seeds. We will protect our natural seeds, and the government will work together with our research centres to ensure we get better seeds.” Further, President Magashuli directed Tanzanian prison services to begin a programme of seed production in a bid to avoid the need for GM seed. In yet another attack on GM seeds, government noted that it would step up monitoring of the entry of illegal GM cotton seed into the country and severely punish those responsible. However, we have seen similar government statements in the past about ending trials and banning GM seed which were not implemented. There is clearly a very deep divide within government regarding the future trajectory of agriculture in the country and of course extensive pressure from powerful GM producers and philanthrocapitalists such as Bill Gates. To tip the scales in this tussle, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) immediately came out in support of the governments’ decisions, saying, “Africa is the cradle of humanity; the continent that has fed its people the longest. Africa’s body of knowledge of seed, food and agriculture is rich and diverse. Smallholder farmers are the bearers and protectors of time-tested expertise and practice of farmer-managed seed systems. Tanzania’s decision recognizes the resilience of African smallholder farmers, particularly woman farmers, who are the pillars of seed conservation in Africa”.