A campaign to push more public money into GMOs has received a major boost with the appointment of a leading GM proponent to help oversee the international aid programmes of Britain's Department for International Development (DFID).
The campaign has been underway for some time on both sides of the Atlantic. Only last week, for instance, the Rockefeller-funded Center for Science in the Public Interest called for extra public investment into GMOs.
In the UK, as the biotech industry has gone into almost total retreat, the pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science has been seeking to fill the vacuum via a lengthy campaign in support of "public good plant breeding". The aim of this campaign, backed by the John Innes Centre amongst others, is to help raise more public and foundation money for the introduction of plants developed through biotechnology into the developing world.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=151
Sense About Science works in close coordination with the Royal Society, the UK's pro-GM national academy of science. The RS has strongly lobbied for a post of "chief scientist" to be established at DFID to oversee the UK government's international aid programmes.
When in July 2004 DFID announced that it was to appoint the Chief Scientific Adviser the Royal Society had been lobbying for, the Society's President, Lord May warmly welcomed the news, declaring, "Science has a massive contribution to make to international development work",and giving "drought resistant crops" as an example.
May also declared that the person appointed as DFID's first Chief Scientific Adviser "must have the standing and power to be taken seriously both within DFID and across other departments, as well as with the scientific community at large."
Within the last few days DFID's first chief scientist has been appointed. He is Gordon Conway, President from April 1998 until recently of the pro-GM Rockefeller Foundation.
In 1999, Conway, the author of "The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for All in the 21st Century", was able to tell a meeting organised by Monsanto that "the Rockefeller Foundation has funded over $100 million dollars of plant biotechnology research and trained over four hundred scientists from Asia, Africa and Latin America". Not all of that money was spent on promoting genetic engineering but a sizeable amount was, with Golden Rice being notable among the Foundation's pet projects.
That said, Conway is far from being a crude GM propagandist and under his direction the Rockerfeller Foundation has often pitched for a "middle ground" in the GM debate, eg opposing Terminator genes and condeming the industry's public relations exploitation of golden rice.
However, Conway's strong general support for the technology is in no doubt. He told his Monsanto audience, for instance, that as a result of the opposition to GMOs, "There is now a real danger that research will be delayed, field trials will be stopped and irrational restrictions will be imposed on the use of foods produced by new technology." According to Conway, "the potential damage resulting from the political controversies [over GMOs] cannot be overstated".
http://www.biotech-info.net/gordon_conway.html
Conway is likely to reinforce what is already a pro-GM culture within DFID. The department has faced fierce criticism both for the extent of its support for projects involving genetic engineering and for its lack of openness about such research.
In 2002, The Independent on Sunday reported that DFID had been running a "GBP13.4m programme to create a new generation of GM animals, crops and drugs throughout the Third World." The unpublicised programme had financed research in more than 24 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe
into at least 80 GM projects.
In a Leader, the Independent on Sunday said that the revelation that DFID had funded such a huge programme of GM research across the Third World was deeply disturbing. "The whole programme legitimises and promotes technology still opposed by many Third World governments and their peoples. Britain has no business doing this. And it certainly should not continue without subjecting the work to the kind of public debate that ministers have rightly decided must be completed before any decision is taken to commercialise the technology at home."
A significant number of DFID GM crop projects have been undertaken by the John Innes Centre which has also enjoyed tens of millions of pounds in investment from Syngenta.
Conway is also not the first staunch GM supporter to hold a key position within DFID. The current Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation, Andrew Bennet, was previously DFID's Director of Rural Livelihoods and Environment, directly advising UK government ministers on issues like environmental protection and sustainable development. He went straight from DFID to work for Syngenta.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=175
But although he's far from the first GM proponent within DFID, Conway's backers have brought him as a big hitter who will fill a post which, as Lord May has put it, can help the department fully capitalise on the new post to give itself greater leverage across the whole of Whitehall.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4073
Conway has used his first public speech as chief scientist at DFID to call on scientists and politicians to listen to the needs of the world's poor (second item below). What this means in practice remains to be seen.
Amongst DFID's GM-connected schemes to date have been projects linked to a controversial GBP65m DFID aid programme in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh - a programme which critics have alleged would help push 20 million subsistence farmers off their land.
When this controversial DFID-backed aid programme was unanimously rejected by a citizens' jury with 'scenario workshops' (or 'prajapeertu'), conducted among poor farmers and landless labourers in the State, a campaign of attack on the researchers was launched from within DFID in an effort to silence a report that gave a bigger voice to poor and marginalised communities. DFID's support for the controversial aid programme continued unabated.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=175
1.Royal Society response to DFID Chief Scientific Adviser announcement
2.Six components for science in poor nations
------
1.Royal Society response to DFID Chief Scientific Adviser announcement
7 July 2004
Today's (7 July 2004) announcement by the Department for International Development (DFID) that it is to appoint a Chief Scientific Adviser has been warmly welcomed by the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science.
The Secretary of State for International Development, Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, announced the creation of the new post which will help put science at the heart of the Government's international development work while giving evidence at the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
Lord May of Oxford, President of the Royal Society, said: "Science has a massive contribution to make to international development work from developing robust vaccination programmes to drought resistant crops. It is essential that DFID fully capitalises on this new post by ensuring that the post holder has the same status as in Government departments such as DEFRA where the introduction of a Chief Scientific Adviser has had a significant impact. This individual must have the standing and power to be taken seriously both within DFID and across other departments, as well as with the scientific community at large."
Notes for editors The objectives of the Royal Society.
For further information contact: Sue Windebank, Tel: 020 7451 2514 Bob Ward, Tel: 020 7451 2516 , Mob: 07811 320346
------
2.Six components for science in poor nations
Ehsan Masood
Source: SciDev.Net, 2 February 2005
http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=1897&la
Gordon Conway, the newly appointed chief scientist at the UK Department for International Development (DFID), used his first public speech to call on scientists and politicians to listen to the needs of the world's poor.
Speaking at a meeting on capacity building in Africa yesterday (2 February) in London, United Kingdom, Conway said that it was imperative that development agencies such as his own listened closely to the demands of the poorest in developing countries - and not only to scientists and politicians there.
"DFID is a demand-driven agency and we respond to what Africa wants," said Conway. "But who defines that demand?" he asked the delegates. "Is it the science and technology elites who are represented in this room? Or is it the parliamentarians who are also here?" he asked.
"Where is the voice of those who are poorest and most excluded? My experience is that once you start working with poor people, they have a very clear idea of what they want."
Conway, the former president of the Rockefeller Foundation who has been in his new job for just eight days, revealed that he has been charged with developing a new science, technology and innovation strategy for DFID. He said that in his experience, science and technology in developing countries needed to have a minimum of six components.
These were: having the right equipment in the field or in laboratories; the ability to construct appropriate mathematical and computational models; a capacity to conduct experiments; workable policy and decision-making structures; effective management; and good communication.
Conway stressed the importance of 'centres of excellence' and promoting more public-private partnerships for research in developing countries. And he said that developing countries needed to invest more in their higher education. He acknowledged that funding higher education was not a priority for DFID, however.
He said that countries in Africa would need to expand their higher education in response to the increasing numbers of schoolchildren going to primary and secondary schools, and who will want to continue their studies in universities.
Conway also said that agencies such as DFID needed to have a core of in-house expertise in science, technology and innovation. "We often talk about capacity building, but donors too need to have capacity in science and technology, as well as good links between research councils and those who fund development research."
In his closing remarks to the conference, John Mugabe, scientific advisor to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), said he hoped that renewed interest to support science in Africa by industrialised countries would lead to concrete action, and not just vague political commitments.
"The [2003] G8 meeting adopted an action plan for science in Africa, but we have not seen much more about it," he said. "We hope that this new G8 plan will not be forgotten."
Mugabe also recommended that international donor agencies integrate their aid to Africa with the many indigenous development schemes in science and technology that were already taking place.
He said that several African countries had taken it upon themselves to reform their science and technology systems and were not necessarily looking for international aid to fund this.
Click here fgor SciDev.Net's coverage of the 31 January - 2 February meeting 'Building Science &Technology Capacity with African partners'
http://www.scidev.net/africancapacity