By David Ewing Duncan
In 2003, I met Geoffrey Arinaitwe, a Ugandan plant geneticist training
at Belgium's Catholic University of Leuven--one of the early research
centers developing genetically modified (GM) crops. Regardless of what you
think about GM food, Arinaitwe had a compelling story: without genetic
modification, the main food source of his country and many others in the
tropics would die off, impacting the diet of 10 million Ugandans and
hundreds of millions more poor people from Brazil to Indonesia.
Now Arinaitwe is back in Kampala, where he is poised to test the first
modified bananas to be planted in Ugandan soil. A researcher at Kawanda
Agricultural Research Institute,, this shy scientist with a gentle voice and
slight build is waiting for GM plants to arrive from Leuven; they are
expected within the month.

In 2003, I wrote a story for Seed magazine about the plight of the
edible banana. Since it's seedless and therefore sterile, all bananas come
from mutant plants discovered some 8,000 years ago, probably in Papua New
Guinea. They have been grafted, or cloned, ever since, and developed into
dozens of varieties, colors, and sizes. Bananas are ideal for the developing
world because they are compact, easy to grow and transport, and highly
nutritious. In these parts of the world, they are eaten raw and cooked and
used to make beverages. In Uganda, they are so important that the word for
banana, matooke, also means "food."

Unfortunately, with an 8,000-year-old genome, the edible banana hasn't
evolved to keep up with new pests. These include the black sigatoka, a
leaf-destroying fungus, which has devastated vast acres of bananas. It
cripples plants and reduces output by 50 percent. Close to half the banana
crop in Uganda has been afflicted as this fungus spreads around the world.

Scientists at Leuven have been working to combat the problem. Led by
Rony Swennen, a team discovered that inserting a gene from rice provides
significant protection for the banana with apparently no danger to either
humans or the environment. Because the banana is sterile, it can't get loose
in the environment, nor is there a seed allowing Monsanto or other
corporations to sell it. In fact, Swennen and banana organizations around
the world are prepared to provide the initial plants to farmers at a cost.
Once a farmer has the plant, he or she can graft more.

Another advantage, according to Swennen and Arinaitwe, is that the GM
banana greatly reduces the need to use pesticides that fend off the black
sigatoka in export crops going to markets in the West. Most Ugandan farmers
growing bananas for local consumption can't afford expensive pesticides, but
on huge plantations in Africa and Latin America, growers use some of the
highest levels of chemicals sprayed in the world to fend off fungi and other
pests. This has led to reports of higher than normal instances of leukemia
and sterility in growers.

By the way, organic bananas sold in the West are grown without
pesticides. They are raised either in areas unaffected by the black sigatoka
or are harvested out of the reduced yields of afflicted plants, further
reducing the amount of fruit available to locals.

None of this convinces opponents of GM foods, who responded to my Seed
article with astonishing vitriol and even some personal attacks. I'll leave
it to readers to decide if inserting a rice gene into a cloned banana is
repugnant and undesirable.

Almost certainly, though, critics are correct that acceptance of the
modified banana may make other forms of GM foods more palatable, so to
speak, particularly in much of Africa, which has largely opposed GM crops.
As modified corn, cotton, and other crops become more prevalent in the West
and elsewhere, it's obvious that GM creep has already begun.

As for safety, the scientists at Leuven say that their GM bananas are
harmless. Now Arinaitwe will test them in Uganda to see if he and the
Ugandan government agree. Hurdles remain before a rice-banana hybrid is
approved and accepted. Protests are also expected, although in the end the
withering, decimated crops that cover hill after hill in this country, which
has an entire culture built on the banana, may make this banana update
stick. We'll see.


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