8 ms·

Why Nigeria accepted GMOs

70 points by surprisetalk 1y ago

xchip 1y ago
Because they are poor and you can easily bribe the politicians
- maddmann 1y ago
  Did you read the article? I think this case study shows why gm is likely to be key to avoiding mass starvation as climate change becomes a bigger issue.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    The government can't even make a dent into wars between farmers and livestock herders. Any political control or statement on GMOs are largely theater. They have next to no means to prohibit it nor subsidize it.
- ryoshoe 1y ago
  Regardless of potential bribes to politicians, its easy to look at the increased yields from GMO foods as a benefit for a country where ~20% of the population are undernourished https://www.globalhungerindex.org/nigeria.html https://www.globalhungerindex.org/nigeria.html
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    It is an artificial dichotomy tbh. When you say GMO foods, you usually refer to foods that have been introduced to populations across the globe in environments they are not suitable to be grown in. Yes GMO rice will probably grow better and feed more people in drought prone regions of India, but so would the indigenous millets that were replaced by rice. They require less water (and fertilizers and pesticides that GMOs require), are more resilient to climate events and more suitable to local climate. Not saying GMO foods are A solution, just that they aren’t the ONLY solution if the goal was to feed enough people. Some additional reading: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10695985/#:~:text=Area%20and%20production%20of%20important,2010%20to%202021%20%5B32%5D.&text=Proso%20millet%20is%20gluten%2Dfree,becomes%20possibly%20drier%20%5B34%5D. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10695985/#:~:text=A...
    - kjkjadksj 1y ago
      Behavior follows costs. There is probably some stumbling block regarding millets. That being said, seed companies are very interested in land races, do not be mistaken. They are a good source of phenotypic variation and potential traits that might be favorable to introduce into the elite cultivars.
  - imtringued 1y ago
    You're making the fallacy that these people can afford greater quantities of more expensive food.
dzonga 1y ago
maybe we need to ask why was Nigeria in a place to accept GMOs being pushed by the Gates Foundation ? what are the conditions that led to that outcome ?
- trallnag 1y ago
  Because GMOs are superior
  - pidgeon_lover 1y ago
    No, GMOs are hazardous and inferior
abdullahkhalids 1y ago
From the TFA > In general, a higher democracy index correlates with greater GM acceptance, although large differences exist between individual nations.5 South America contains both pro-GM and GM-skeptical nations. When comparing the two using the Democracy Index, however, the pro-GM countries have a consistently higher Democracy Index (6.8) than those that ban GM (4.4). Similarly, the mean Democracy Index for Sub-Saharan African countries that cultivate or are currently legislating towards GM crop cultivation (4.7) is higher than those that ban it (3.5). > This suggests that fostering democratic accountability is not simply a political good in itself, but also a precursor for enabling science-based agriculture. For countries looking to promote GM, the priority may not be exporting “democracy” wholesale, but supporting governments in building credibility, transparency, and public trust — the very conditions under which new technologies can take root. This makes this piece sound like a political propaganda post. There is no concrete causal mechanism posited here, just vague assertions. Two seconds of thought would reveal that all non-democratic countries have adopted technologies of all sorts. And people in those countries use technologies extensively in daily life. I would assume it is easier for corporations to spread bribes around in a decentralized decision making system like representative democracy, than it is in centralized authoritarian systems.
- hollerith 1y ago
  I agree: at first glance it is a very flimsy argument -- made by an organization whose entire purpose seems to be to advocate for what they consider to be technological progress specifically in the biological domain.
  - kranke155 1y ago
    GMOs allowed for the huge expansion on the use of pesticides in America, since the crops are "pesticide ready".
    - Symmetry 1y ago
      They've allowed for a huge expansion of the use of herbicide but drastically reduced the use of insecticide. I'd much rather have the former than the later.
redwood 1y ago
I'm a believer in taking advantage of GM crops but also believe that some kind of regulation should be put in place to ensure that those crops yield seeds that can be used to plant future generations. If these crops are designed to require you to buy from a producing company each year, that just seems so fundamentally artificial and going against the grain of all of our agricultural history. And I can see how much of a slippery slope it can represent... ayou read about farmer suicides in India related to this topic. I bring this up because the fact that none of this is discussed in the article makes me fear it's got a profit agenda.
- bootsmann 1y ago
  I feel like this kind of discussion hinges on a misguided belief that farmers are not very smart businessmen. The idea that a farmer would abandon their current crop for GMO crop that they cannot replant without making a cost-benefit analysis in their head just strikes me as very odd. These peoples life depend on making such decisions, we should trust them to make them themselves.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    If your neighbor planted a GMO crop in their field, and then sprayed them with the compatible chemicals, two things might happen: 1. The chemicals are carried by the wind onto your crop field, killing your non-GMO crops 2. The seeds from the GMO crop spread into your field, and corporate hired goons show up at your door threatening you with a lawsuit. Or maybe if your neighbor doesn't like you, they spread some GMO seed in your field, then report you to the company. This led to neighbor versus neighbor conflicts in ag communities, in some cases turning violent. https://youtu.be/CxVXvFOPIyQ?t=1567 https://youtu.be/CxVXvFOPIyQ?t=1567
    - bootsmann 1y ago
      Valid points but this seems more simple to address using regulation rather than removing the seed patents (which are essential to some degree to make this whole process worthwhile for manufacturers). The argument is that without seed patents most of the genuine advancements would not be worth pursuing.
bluGill 1y ago
The real question is why anyone would not. Before you reply remember random mutation is common - normal in nature. what is the difference between a random mutation and one a scientist comes up with. So far the only one I've found is random mutation isn't studied for safety.
- jackbravo 1y ago
  One common drawback of GM crops is the monopolistic nature of their seeds. They come with a license and a cost to use, you cannot save seeds and use them later. So it seems like a threat to the sovereignty of a Country. The article briefly mentions that initially some seeds are given with royalty free licenses, but for how long?
  - gruez 1y ago
    1. as others have mentioned in a sibling thread, "saving seeds" isn't really a thing that can be done with modern crops, GMO or not. 2. If you get a productivity boost from GMO, and but then GMO company goes rogue, can't you still go back to planting regular seeds?
    - abdullahkhalids 1y ago
      Re 2: on this software engineering forum, the following example will help. If you have core dependency goes rogue, and you have to switch to an alternate library with similar features, is that a free switch? Think of how many thousands of hours of work are often needed? How many businesses have gone under because of such issues? Growing a particular variety requires a lot of knowledge gained by each individual farmer from experience. You can't just go back to an old variety for free. It may take several years for yields to go back to previous levels and by then the farmer may have gone under.
      - gruez 1y ago
        Ok but going back to the library analogy, GMO bans are like the government banning react.js because they're convinced angularjs (or jquery) is good enough and facebook might go rogue. Shouldn't it be up to individual farmers to decide?

70 points by surprisetalk 1y ago

xchip 1y ago

Because they are poor and you can easily bribe the politicians

maddmann 1y ago
Did you read the article? I think this case study shows why gm is likely to be key to avoiding mass starvation as climate change becomes a bigger issue.
- mothballed 1y ago
  The government can't even make a dent into wars between farmers and livestock herders. Any political control or statement on GMOs are largely theater. They have next to no means to prohibit it nor subsidize it.
ryoshoe 1y ago
Regardless of potential bribes to politicians, its easy to look at the increased yields from GMO foods as a benefit for a country where ~20% of the population are undernourished https://www.globalhungerindex.org/nigeria.html https://www.globalhungerindex.org/nigeria.html
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  It is an artificial dichotomy tbh. When you say GMO foods, you usually refer to foods that have been introduced to populations across the globe in environments they are not suitable to be grown in. Yes GMO rice will probably grow better and feed more people in drought prone regions of India, but so would the indigenous millets that were replaced by rice. They require less water (and fertilizers and pesticides that GMOs require), are more resilient to climate events and more suitable to local climate. Not saying GMO foods are A solution, just that they aren’t the ONLY solution if the goal was to feed enough people. Some additional reading: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10695985/#:~:text=Area%20and%20production%20of%20important,2010%20to%202021%20%5B32%5D.&text=Proso%20millet%20is%20gluten%2Dfree,becomes%20possibly%20drier%20%5B34%5D. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10695985/#:~:text=A...
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    Behavior follows costs. There is probably some stumbling block regarding millets. That being said, seed companies are very interested in land races, do not be mistaken. They are a good source of phenotypic variation and potential traits that might be favorable to introduce into the elite cultivars.
- imtringued 1y ago
  You're making the fallacy that these people can afford greater quantities of more expensive food.

dzonga 1y ago

maybe we need to ask why was Nigeria in a place to accept GMOs being pushed by the Gates Foundation ? what are the conditions that led to that outcome ?

trallnag 1y ago
Because GMOs are superior
- pidgeon_lover 1y ago
  No, GMOs are hazardous and inferior

abdullahkhalids 1y ago

From the TFA > In general, a higher democracy index correlates with greater GM acceptance, although large differences exist between individual nations.5 South America contains both pro-GM and GM-skeptical nations. When comparing the two using the Democracy Index, however, the pro-GM countries have a consistently higher Democracy Index (6.8) than those that ban GM (4.4). Similarly, the mean Democracy Index for Sub-Saharan African countries that cultivate or are currently legislating towards GM crop cultivation (4.7) is higher than those that ban it (3.5). > This suggests that fostering democratic accountability is not simply a political good in itself, but also a precursor for enabling science-based agriculture. For countries looking to promote GM, the priority may not be exporting “democracy” wholesale, but supporting governments in building credibility, transparency, and public trust — the very conditions under which new technologies can take root. This makes this piece sound like a political propaganda post. There is no concrete causal mechanism posited here, just vague assertions. Two seconds of thought would reveal that all non-democratic countries have adopted technologies of all sorts. And people in those countries use technologies extensively in daily life. I would assume it is easier for corporations to spread bribes around in a decentralized decision making system like representative democracy, than it is in centralized authoritarian systems.

hollerith 1y ago
I agree: at first glance it is a very flimsy argument -- made by an organization whose entire purpose seems to be to advocate for what they consider to be technological progress specifically in the biological domain.
- kranke155 1y ago
  GMOs allowed for the huge expansion on the use of pesticides in America, since the crops are "pesticide ready".
  - Symmetry 1y ago
    They've allowed for a huge expansion of the use of herbicide but drastically reduced the use of insecticide. I'd much rather have the former than the later.

redwood 1y ago

I'm a believer in taking advantage of GM crops but also believe that some kind of regulation should be put in place to ensure that those crops yield seeds that can be used to plant future generations. If these crops are designed to require you to buy from a producing company each year, that just seems so fundamentally artificial and going against the grain of all of our agricultural history. And I can see how much of a slippery slope it can represent... ayou read about farmer suicides in India related to this topic. I bring this up because the fact that none of this is discussed in the article makes me fear it's got a profit agenda.

bootsmann 1y ago
I feel like this kind of discussion hinges on a misguided belief that farmers are not very smart businessmen. The idea that a farmer would abandon their current crop for GMO crop that they cannot replant without making a cost-benefit analysis in their head just strikes me as very odd. These peoples life depend on making such decisions, we should trust them to make them themselves.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  If your neighbor planted a GMO crop in their field, and then sprayed them with the compatible chemicals, two things might happen: 1. The chemicals are carried by the wind onto your crop field, killing your non-GMO crops 2. The seeds from the GMO crop spread into your field, and corporate hired goons show up at your door threatening you with a lawsuit. Or maybe if your neighbor doesn't like you, they spread some GMO seed in your field, then report you to the company. This led to neighbor versus neighbor conflicts in ag communities, in some cases turning violent. https://youtu.be/CxVXvFOPIyQ?t=1567 https://youtu.be/CxVXvFOPIyQ?t=1567
  - bootsmann 1y ago
    Valid points but this seems more simple to address using regulation rather than removing the seed patents (which are essential to some degree to make this whole process worthwhile for manufacturers). The argument is that without seed patents most of the genuine advancements would not be worth pursuing.

bluGill 1y ago

The real question is why anyone would not. Before you reply remember random mutation is common - normal in nature. what is the difference between a random mutation and one a scientist comes up with. So far the only one I've found is random mutation isn't studied for safety.

jackbravo 1y ago
One common drawback of GM crops is the monopolistic nature of their seeds. They come with a license and a cost to use, you cannot save seeds and use them later. So it seems like a threat to the sovereignty of a Country. The article briefly mentions that initially some seeds are given with royalty free licenses, but for how long?
- gruez 1y ago
  1. as others have mentioned in a sibling thread, "saving seeds" isn't really a thing that can be done with modern crops, GMO or not. 2. If you get a productivity boost from GMO, and but then GMO company goes rogue, can't you still go back to planting regular seeds?
  - abdullahkhalids 1y ago
    Re 2: on this software engineering forum, the following example will help. If you have core dependency goes rogue, and you have to switch to an alternate library with similar features, is that a free switch? Think of how many thousands of hours of work are often needed? How many businesses have gone under because of such issues? Growing a particular variety requires a lot of knowledge gained by each individual farmer from experience. You can't just go back to an old variety for free. It may take several years for yields to go back to previous levels and by then the farmer may have gone under.
    - gruez 1y ago
      Ok but going back to the library analogy, GMO bans are like the government banning react.js because they're convinced angularjs (or jquery) is good enough and facebook might go rogue. Shouldn't it be up to individual farmers to decide?