VIDEO INTERVIEWS
JACK WAFULA
Jack Wafula is Programme Coordinator of the SMART Initiative (Sustainable Mobilisation of Agricultural Resource Technologies) in Kitale, Kenya. One of the main myths promoted by biotech spin doctors is that GM farming has the potential to end the world hunger problem. This is pure nonsense, as GM crops often fail and there is already a global food surplus. In this short interview, Jack Wafula shares his view that GM is not the answer for developing countries, who can quite easily feed themselves with traditional organic methods.
TRANSCRIPT: (slightly edited for clarity)
Michael O'Callaghan
What is your name, where are you from, and what do you think of GM crops?
Jack Wafula
I'm Jack Wafula from Kenya. I'm a farmer and also a trainer of farmers in organic agriculture. I believe that genetic engineering is not the solution to the world's food problems, because farmers will always depend on corporate institutions like Monsanto for their seeds, and will always be a victim. And that's why I can say that to save the farmer, farmers need to have their own healthy seeds. They need to save their seeds on their own farms. They need to use compost as fertilizers. And they need to use ecologically sustainable systems in order to feed themselves.
I don't think that genetically modified organisms can feed us.
Biotech seedlings of blue gum trees from South Africa have not done well, though they say they are fast maturing, but they don't do well. So I don't think that it's going to help the farmer in Africa. I also have heard about the farmers in Zambia, where a couple of years ago they were given GM food aid from the US, but they refused. And the following year they used organic methods to grow their own food and they are now exporting GM-free food! So I mean, it's a contrast.
And are they exporting to Europe, or America, or just within Africa?
Oh yeah, they're exporting to Africa and also exporting to Europe. So it's something that is sustainable. If they're using the best practices, the success stories of organic farming methods, I am sure they are going to feed themselves. And I believe that Kenyans also can feed themselves the way some Zambians are doing.
Would you like to send any message to farmers in Ireland?
If there is any farmer in Ireland who is listening to me, I want to make a very special appeal that they avoid GM seeds, that they avoid GM technologies because GM is going to ruin their lives. They should borrow a leaf from a farmer in Canada, Percy Schmeiser, who had problems with the Monsanto GM company in the USA. He had court cases against him for about three or four years, he lost his canola seeds, and he cannot save his seeds. [Percy Schmeiser is a leading advocate of GM-free farming – Ed.]
So if Ireland's farmers follow Percy Schmeiser and farmers like us in Africa, we are going to save our own seeds and we are going to feed the whole of the world.
