Equatorial Guinea has kicked off a year-long investment campaign aimed at driving capital investment into the country’s bankable projects; Major U.S. firms have pledged to increase their investment in Equatorial Guinea in 2020, along with Nigerian banking and financial institutions; Notable investment-ready projects include the construction of two modular oil refineries, an ammonia plant, a […]
Month: January 2020
The Truth about GMO foods.

GMO: Hero or Villian?
Let me explain a few things about the GMO myth/ scam, since a few strong, emotional reactions against GMO crops were brought out by a previous post, Edible GMO cotton could supply protein to 600 million people daily — Genetic Literacy Project . The “NonGMO” food packaging label implies that GMO crops are somehow dangerous, but are they? Most of the fear is based on propaganda by anti-technology advocacy groups such as Green Peace and “Big Organic” organizations. Many companies that sell agricultural produce have been intimidated by these groups into adding the “NonGMO” label to their products for fear of bad publicity, protests and reduced sales. Even products such as salt and water sometimes bear the label, even though they could not possibly have used or contain any GMO crops. This intimidation strategy was adopted by activists when they failed to get the government to require “contains GMO” labels.
What is GMO and why are people afraid of it? Genetically Modified Organism, GMO, means that gene editing bio-technology has been used to insert or remove a specific gene in the DNA of an organism, (plant, animal or microbe) to enhance or add favorable characteristics, such as added vitamins or protein, insect and disease resistance, enhanced yield or drought resistance; or to remove genes for unfavorable traits such as bitterness or toxins. The previous post cited above is about removing a gene that produces a toxin in cotton seeds in order to make them available as a much needed high protein food source for man and animals alike.
For example, if a plant lacks a certain needed vitamin, a gene can be added so it produces the vitamin. None of the other characteristics of the plant are changed. Unlike conventional breeding, which crosses or irradiates entire genomes, sometimes with unexpected negative results, GMO only affects the specific trait needed. It’s the difference between a shotgun approach and a precision insertion.
Conventional breeding has been used for centuries to produce the food supply we have today. Cross breeding over generations changed corn from a plant with a few seeds to one yielding the robust ears we know today. Wheat, by similar method has increased yields, reduced time to harvest and improved disease resistance from the original tall, low yield, disease prone, area-and-season-specific original plant, so that multiple crops can be harvested each year in a variety or environments. Rice has been improved in similar ways. These improved high yield varieties (HYV) have saved millions of lives. Beginning in the 1950s this Green Revolution changed countries like India, Pakistan and Mexico from near-starvation, foreign aid crop importers into net exporters. None of the rights to these high yield varieties have been controlled or retained by “Big Ag” companies or nonprofit organizations.
So, why are GMO improved crops needed? Precision agriculture, (a better term than GMO), can go beyond conventional means to produce specific changes while leaving the other characteristics untouched. One special advantage of GMO is that genes from a different species can be inserted to add nutrients or other traits not present in the original varieties. Golden Rice is a good example of this. By inserting a gene for beta carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A, from corn or similar species, the much needed but absent Vitamin A can be produced in rice. This is very important because Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness and death in people who use rice as the staple foundation of their diets. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A deficient children go blind each year, half of whom die.

Source: Black, Robert E, “Maternal and child undernutrition: global and regional exposures and health consequences,” Maternal and Child Undernutrition Study Group, Lancet, January 17, 2008
Why Do People Fear GMO? Unfortunately, anti-technology groups, led by Green Peace, have opposed these improvements that could save the lives of millions, against any logical reasoning. They claim that Big Ag companies, specifically targeting Monsanto and later Bayer, retain the patent rights to these crops as a way to control farmers. Stories of low yields, crop failures, suicides of farmers and law suits by corporations against farmers abound; as are tales of serious allergies, health effects and GMO pollen “infecting” other crops. When investigated, they are all found to be false, unproven and irreproducible anecdotes aside. GMO crops are the most thoroughly researched and certified as safe plants on the planet. Any that are found to cause even mild health reactions are quickly weeded out and rejected.
At present, there are over 40 companies and nonprofit organizations producing precision biotech enhanced plants around the world. Over 40 countries have approved genetically enhanced crops as safe, including the US Food and Drug Administration, FDA.
The rights to most these seeds are freely given away to impoverished peoples, without any strings attached. The seeds can be saved from year to year, so that even control through economic means is false. Only hybrids require purchasing new seed from the producer each year. Hybrids are crosses between dis-similar varieties that do not breed true in subsequent plantings. GMO crops are not hybrids, and neither are the Green Revolution high yield varieties, which were originally crosses of very similar varieties, that breed true in subsequent plantings.
Environmental groups such as Green Peace have adopted this anti-GMO rhetoric as a cause celebre to cripple modern agriculture, which they oppose on questionable environmental grounds. The European Union has also taken up the banner in order to block agricultural competition to their subsidized farmers by agricultural imports from other countries like the USA, as well as by poor South and Central American, Asian, and African countries that grow any GMO crops. The internet is awash with outrageous half-truths, outright lies, and conspiracy theories so that the average person doesn’t know what to believe. Most people will choose the cautious approach and avoid GMO products without really understanding why. Remember, it’s all about economics and ideology, not science or actual harm. Meanwhile, it serves to keep impoverished countries poor, thus furthering the overpopulation and genetic inferiority myths.

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” —Mark Twain
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“… shake off all Prejudice, nor harbor any favorite opinions: for, if you do, it is not unlikely Fancy will betray you into Error, and make you think you see what you would wish to see. Remember, that Truth alone is the Matter you are in Search after; and if you have been mistaken, let no Vanity reduce you to persist in your Mistake.
From chapter XV of Henry Baker’s Of Microscopes and the Discoveries Made Thereby, 1785.
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Additional Information:
Saving Africa from Lies that Kill, Chapter 11, “The Green Revolution and Precision Agriculture …,” has more information that could not be included here for brevity.
Over 110 Nobel Laureates sent a letter to Green Peace re: their support of Precision Agriculture in general and particularly Golden Rice. See “Laureates Letter Supporting Precision Agriculture (GMOs)”
Check out the Genetic Literacy Project, Golden Rice Project and ISAAA, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications for databases, facts and news articles.
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My new book, Saving Africa from Lies that Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is now available at bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, in print and eBook. If you like the book, please review it at any of the above online sites. Thank you.
Updated from original post Nov. 15, 2018
Investments, not handouts are needed in African countries
New Hope for Africa through Investment and Freedom from UN interference
There are two worlds in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and many other underdeveloped countries, the urban world of development, investment and progress, and the rural world that is isolated, poor and struggling to survive. Between these two are the more developed agricultural areas near cities and the slums surrounding cities where rural people who come to cities for more opportunity, end up living in deplorable conditions without proper infrastructure. The areas with modern agriculture have many of the amenities of the city such as access to electricity, clean water, sanitation and roads, but the slums have more in common with the rural poor, without access to clean water, sanitation and sometimes electricity.
In most developing countries the leaders tend to concentrate infrastructure development in urban areas while largely ignoring the needs of the isolated rural poor. Because the businesses of the cities attract investment, and bring in both market value and taxes, they are given priority. This is natural since the cities are the hope of future economic development, and attracting investment from other countries is one of the main means of improving the lives of all of their countrymen in the long run. However, part of the funds available from this economic development should go into extending electrical distribution and transportation over time to the rural communities. In the short term it makes sense to support the cities, but in the long term extending support to the rural poor can further raise the overall economy and attract more investment. Rural electrification, transportation and opportunities through markets and business investments will raise many of those in extreme poverty to a higher economic level.
Investment, not aid, is the answer to raising developing countries out of poverty. See next section for information about the investment climate in Africa. Aid should only be a temporary measure for support in emergencies and for infrastructure building in the form of loans that can be repaid when conditions have improved. Aid should never be used for permanent or long term support of generationally poor populations. What you subsidize, you get more of. The rural poor don’t need hand-outs; they need jobs, electricity and roads so they can climb out of poverty.
The worst type of aid is government to government foreign aid, which should be ended as soon as practical. Typically less than 2% of this type of aid goes to improving the lives of ordinary people. Most of it goes to corrupt leaders and their administrations. Ending the practice of government to government foreign aid will reduce or end much of the government corruption and make leaders more responsible to their constituents. If they are dependent on the tax base and not foreign donors they will have incentive to build the infrastructure in order to attract business investors and grow the economy, and thus the tax base. Building the transportation and energy sectors into more rural areas would then make practical sense in order to attract investors and open markets to rural agricultural production.
China is investing heavily in African energy projects such as hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants. While I would like to assume that China has only benign motives, that has not been their history. The Western world would be wise to invest in similar projects and not just throw money at corrupt governments in an attempt to stave off Chinese communist incursions and power.
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The book: Saving Africa from Lies that Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries was published in September, 2018. Print and ebook are available online.
My first book, Perverted Truth Exposed: How Progressive Philosophy has Corrupted Science was published in 2016. It is available in print and ebook, on line only, through Amazon, Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. See the companion blog at www.realscienceblog.com for related posts and pages.
If Africa adopts biotech crops, will anti-GMO Europe retaliate against the continent’s most important trading partner? — Genetic Literacy Project
How would Europe react if GMO crops became commonplace in Africa?
Nigeria gears up for two GMO crops in the 2020 planting season — Genetic Literacy Project
Nigeria made significant progress in agricultural biotechnology in 2019, approving two genetically modified (GM) crops — pest-resistant Bt cotton and cowpea — that are very important to the country’s economic development and food value chain. Now it is gearing up to get those crops in the ground for the 2020 planting season.The adoption of Bt […]
via Nigeria gears up for two GMO crops in the 2020 planting season — Genetic Literacy Project
USAID launches ‘Water for Agriculture’ Activity promotes livelihoods for farmers in the Northeast — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded a three-year, $8 million Cooperative Agreement to Catholic Relief Services (CRS) that will boost the livelihoods of crop and livestock farmers in the conflict-affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe by improving the water supply in crisis-affected zones in northeast Nigeria. ‘Water for Agriculture’ will also […]
Activists escalate efforts to stop Indian farmers from using GMO seeds — Genetic Literacy Project
African Development Bank approves €8 million technical assistance grant to support preparation of Ruzizi IV Hydro Power Project in the Great Lakes region — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
The Board of Directors of African Development Bank Group (https://www.AfDB.org) has approved an €8 million grant drawn from the European Union’s Africa Investment Platform (EU-AIP) to support the preparation of the Ruzizi IV Hydropower Project. The plant will be situated on the Ruzizi River between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and will supply […]