Go Bananas!

I am quite certain few readers are familiar with the popular camp song “Go Bananas” where participants dance and sing to the lyrics “go bananas, go go bananas, go bananas, go go bananas”, makes you want to jump up and dance right now doesn’t it?

No? Well Bill Gates is dancing or at least he is going bananas with his spending as he has allocated $10 million in funding from his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for research into genetically modifying bananas.

Researchers are developing a genetically modified banana which has the potential to dramatically reduce infant mortality and blindness in children across Africa and is to undergo its first human trials in a major step towards becoming a staple for millions of people. They have grown test varieties in Uganda, where about 70 per cent of the population rely on the banana for the bulk of their nutrition.

The GM banana developed by Australian scientists is enriched with vitamin A to combat a nutritional deficiency which leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and children losing their sight across the world every year.

Researchers hope that the bioengineered crop, which increases the level of beta-carotene in a particular type of cooking banana grown in East Africa, will go into commercial production in Uganda by 2020 if proven to be effective at producing increased levels of vitamin A.

But, as you might expect, the project is not without its opposition. The website sustainable.com[1] reports of a campaign launched opposing GM bananas stating that the project is a waste of money, and a waste of time. It will take 10 years and millions of dollars to complete the research.”

The group Navadanya[2], whose “No to GMO Bananas” campaign is essentially a protest against what they term the “creation myth” where they oppose rich guys like Gates having the ability to, as they say it, own life through patents and intellectual property and tinkering with nature’s complex evolution over millennia and claim their trivial yet destructive acts of gene manipulation “create” life, “create” food, “create” nutrition.

Even though I have empathy for the anti-GMO movement, in reality I don’t get it. I don’t understand how one can stand in the way of progress of such importance. I understand the need for oversight. I understand the concern about misguided Government and private sector projects. But this is clearly a case of turf protection on behalf of misguided special interests who went Bananas long ago.

[1] http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/05/02/campaign-launched-to-stop-bill-gates-funded-gmo-bananas/#.U6GJUvPD8u4

[2] http://www.navdanya.org/news/338-navdanya-launches-no-to-gmo-bananas-campaign