At my school dining hall in 1970s Scotland, tapioca was sometimes served as pudding. It has since fallen out of favor as a culinary treat, and I can’t say I’m surprised.

This, along with a recent (and vastly more enjoyable) brush with bubble tea in New York City, are my sole encounters with cassava: tapioca and the bubbles in bubble tea are made from cassava root flour. But for the hundreds of millions of people in tropical and subtropical Africa, it is the staple food. For many good reasons. Cassava grows well on a variety of soils, requiring little fertilization or water. The harvest window is wide and the yield is steady over many years. Only sugarcane provides more food energy per hectare. And, despite my less-than-gourmet experiences, it is a versatile foodstuff.

Cassava can be consumed by the growers or sold as a cash crop in urban centers, bringing much-needed income to the countryside. And since it isn’t traded internationally, the price isn’t prone to wild fluctuations. Not surprisingly, production is booming in many African countries, tripling in the last 20 years.

It is no coincidence, however, that the same population that takes one-third of its daily calories from cassava is also most prone to micronutrient malnutrition. Cassava root has only trace amounts of iron, zinc, and Vitamins A and E. To make matters worse, it is rich in cyanide, which is not always fully removed in processing; a cyanide breakdown product, thiocyanate, interferes with iodine processing in the very group of people most likely to be iodine deficient.

The brutal impact of micronutrient malnutrition has been properly recognized only in the past decade. Not for nothing is it known as the “hidden hunger.” Iron deficiency affects half of the young children in the developing world and accounts for one-fifth of early neonatal death and one-tenth of maternal deaths. Lack of Vitamin A compromises the immune system, contributing to the early deaths of a million young children per year. And up to 20 million mentally impaired babies are born every year to iodine-deficient mothers. In the poorest countries of the world, the economic burden of vitamin and mineral deficiencies is equal to 2% of the GDP.

Now, imagine that scientists could develop cassava varieties that provide the necessary micronutrients. Surely such a remarkable breakthrough would be wholeheartedly embraced by governments in the developing world, advocated by international aid agencies, and supported by the governments of Western Europe.

Well, it probably would be if the wonder crops, or “superfoods,” as Bob Grant terms them in his feature "Where's the Super Food?", weren’t “genetically modified organisms.” As Grant reports, Vitamin A–rich cassava is among a range of biofortified crops ready to satisfy the hidden hunger. Each costs $20–30 million over 10 years to develop, around 2% of the cost of industrial supplementation of basic foodstuffs with micronutrients.

Yet progress toward regulatory approval of enhanced cassava and other “superfoods” is painfully slow. African governments, many of which outright rejected GM maize as food aid in the past, remain leery of transgenic crops, for a complex mixture of reasons. These include chronic neglect of agricultural science, both by national governments and international donor agencies. Sadly, the reasons also include the postcolonial posturing by the citizens and governments of Europe, consisting of the promotion of European-style precautionary regulations and of low-yield organic farming, backed by the threat of bans on GM food exports. I highly recommend Robert Paarlberg’s book “Starved for Science” for a detailed analysis.

Grant’s feature illustrates the promise of transgenic crops for Africa. They could go a long way to eradicating micronutrient malnutrition over the next quarter century, so long as the well-meaning but cruelly flawed thinking that is delaying their deployment is righted. Africa is not Europe.

I look forward to the day that we’re importing GM cassava from food-sufficient Africa. In fact, I already have a new tapioca pudding recipe picked out.

rgallagher@the-scientist.com

LINK

There have been two excellent documentary films in France the last two years, one of which is cited below (French fluency might be required).

► Monsanto, une entreprise qui vous veut du bien de Marie-Monique Robin - diffus￩ le 11 mars sur Arte.
► Le Monde selon Monsanto de Marie-Monique Robin - ￩d. La D￩couverte - parution le 6 mars.

LINK

You may also have a look at:
LINK

Last, but not least, Google.

Anonymous, you say:
"everyone should be aware now of the destructive impact of GM maize in Canada, on plants, environment and animal health (when fed with GM maize). "

Sadly for me I guess, I'm not aware. From what I know and have read there is absolutely no destructive impact of GM maize on plants, animals or the environment. Indeed, any and all impacts could be said to be positive or neutral at this point. Perhaps I'm reading the wrong things. Could you point me in the right direction. Thanks.

We are led to believe the very short-sighted view motivated by profit by the agri-businesses and associated scientists that GM crops are greater in yield without compromising safety or nutrition. However, the greater yield definitely comes at a greater price of producing the GM foods which offsets the claimed cost-benefits, including the R&D cost. One cannot get something from nothing! Also, the long-term safety or nutritional quality of GM foods is still inconclusive or lacks sufficient data to determine their degree of safety or quality. The uncertainties with GM crops are the reasons why many countries around the world, including some in European Union, still ban the production and consumption of those.

anon says she hasn't seen any benefit to African farmers from GM crops, but then fails to mention that African farmers don't have access to GM crops, as the article clearly pointed out.

And to weep and wail because those evil seed producers put in sterile genes is to "forget" that the reason those genes were put in is because the chicken littles insisted on it to prevent the genes from moving to other plants.

And to blame poor soil on fertilizer use means that you don't know soil science. Fertilizer doesn't degrade soil, the way the soil is farmed does. I notice that no one disputes that the three to four fold increase in food production on roughly the same amount of land brought about by irrigation and fertilizer use saved millions of lives.

The magical thinkers who sing the praises of organic farming have forgotten, or never knew, that organic farming was responsible for the famines previous to the Green Revolution. Before the Green Revolution, almost all the world's farming was done organically and production was so low that it didn't create any surpluses for when the weather didn't cooperate. That means millions of Africans, Chinese and Indians died every time the rains didn't come.

Listening to the antiGM's is very similar to listening to the creationists dispute evolution. Both groups are faith based and distort facts and reality to support their position instead of changing their position to fit the facts. The flower power generation did a lot of good, but it also produced an ethic of magical thinking that continues to this day.

I agree with most previous posts that GM plants are no solution to the world hunger problem. Others, here, have explained why.
It happens I worked long enough in the past for a top biotech firm.
What I can say is that data is filtered cleanly : bad results are never published.
Moreover, everyone should be aware now of the destructive impact of GM maize in Canada, on plants, environment and animal health (when fed with GM maize).

In another place I remarked about the 'alien' syndrome so characteristic about scientists. While they are very wary of statements in their own disciplines, they are willing to pass or even make very substandard statements on other disciplines.
Should I remark that I have degrees in medicine, a Ph.D. biochemistry and headed a biotech department for nearly two decades? There is a mathematical/statistical definition of poverty without poverty line named after me (not my own doing). I guess I could express at least a modest, qualified opinion.
Firstly, comparison of people who eat GM and who do not is meaningless. After all, protein is protein and there could be nothing wrong in making cows eat sheep offal! We know what happened. We know of the aggressive sale of fertilizers that denuded low grade soils world over. We agree agri business must make money. Where will we be without them?!
We agree that terminator technologies that keep seeds out of the farmers' hands are a good thing because standardized cropping will be helped even if we violate the principle of individual decisions. Of course, above all,the ignorant peasants in developing countries who have been tilling lands without having flown in a jet liner even once unlike an average scientists...what do they know about statistics? We know what is good for them!
After all, the same agri commpanies are known to fly the scientists for cushy conferences. At least in medicine, some outrage has been expressed. Is it needed in the agro area? Probaly not.. it is about the igorant farmers any way. After Union Carbide fled India after thousands were affected by methylisocyanate poisoning, India is yet to learn the lessons.
Problems of this kind require some strong feeling for the major factors that determine destitution of which hunger is but one measure. We know that aid actually hurts because the do gooders address to aspects that divert the attention from the main problems. The African hunger has been a product of the West. At least, the solutions should not add on to more of the same. A little knowledge of history would help.

Although some posters called for evidence-based analysis, their comments are not evidence-based at all. I must tell, I am a biotech researcher.

I agree that any GM crops produced should be for the benefit of the consumers and/or growers, and the benefits of the corporation should be a consequence benefit while they are bringing the benefit to the consumers.

In business, we should never expect someone to bring us benefit without theirs. I do understand the problem on the approval process. But who else should take the lead?

I believe that corporate wont create an GM crops that after approval do not bring back their benefit, that's business. So who will create the bio-fortified crops for the poors? The agri-corporate wont do if they dont see the potential of getting back the investment, business is business, we should not expect a business to do charity. If they want they have separate foundation for the charity works. And many of them do have.

So people and politicians, you have to listen and open up your mind for fact-based analysis. If your government funded scientists are not capable of creating bio-fortified crops for the poors, hire an agri-corporate from the developed world to do that for you!

Do a statistical analysis on the population who have been eating GM foods to see if they are having any problem. If you have to refuse an GM crop, it should be because of a safety concerns (which are always cleared before they submit the paper works, and you can conduct an independent study too).

I must add, I do not support BT corn anyway!

For the first time, I am happy to see a consistent response to a theme that ought to be dying. It will. GM crops will not allay hunger or malnutrition.
While the article per se lacks any insight or an understanding of the issues involved except an armchair view, the comments are however more pointed.
Galbraith wrote in the Age of Uncertainity that India escaped that senator from Kansas with his advice on agriculture while Africa did not. The high tech agriculture destroyed the fragile soil at a a time when the idea of sustainable agriculture was yet to be born.
A greater pity is that initiatives on plant breeding by FAO etc. reflect a uniform dominance of views of this kind where the breeders are also brainwashed into thinking that 'molecular breeding' is the future. False gods have always been the bane of our existence. When we were testing for drought tolerance in cultivars, the plant physiologists' classification always failed (something that has not changed) while the ecologically validated and traditional varieties always scored with our studies based on plant energetics. And yet, most cannot come out of the rut of thinking based on internal osmolytes. Why the fascination with internal osmolytes? Clearly they hope to introduce proline genes and all will be well. It never was. So when we worrry about teaching agriculture to African farmers, why do we not compare it with evidence-based medicine rather than the molecular voodoo and mumbojumbo? Can we natives survive imposed progress, thanks to agri businesses?

Nothing more to add except that the GM and older industrial lobbies have been infiltrating opinion-forming bodies for a very long time.

Why else would there be such ferocious and orchestrated opposition to the project to adjust US healthcare standards and costs to those prevailing in the rest of the developed world?

Sir,
I cannot believe that a trusted scientific magazine like yours is repeating the lie that science will solve the hunger problem.

The hunger problem is a political and social problem, not a food problem. How else do you explain why only undemocratic societies experience food shortages and famine? This has been demonstrated time and again and should be obvious to everyone.

As for the "philanthropy" of the multinational companies that develop and research GM organisms and foods, are you serious? The're primarily in for the money, nothing else and certainly not for the welfare of the poor and hungry. It just happens that they need science for their business, but it's business that drives the science.

These two caveats being made, as one previous commentator suggested, GM foods will be accepted the day it is clear that they are being developped for the welfare of everyone, that they clearly profit to the poor and that they don't trigger unwanted and undesirable side effects.

I am sorry to say that we cannot count on the bio-agro-pharma business for this. It is impossible. Research needs to be independant, publicly funded and radically separated from production.

The arguments have been gone over again and again so it is rather boring:
1. GM crops have not been proven to not harm people so the precautionary principle makes people cautious.
2. GM crops have not been created for the good of wider populations but (as the previous post says) for the sole advantage of a few very large corporations. Otherwise they would not be sterile and would allow seed saving.
3. The real challenges of Africa are not going to be solved by expanding the reach of industrial agriculture which has already caused soil degradation, water shortages (cf. recent work on the Punjab), the promotion of highly unhealthy diets in the West (cf. Michael Pollan)and the suicides of hundreds of Indian farmers (cf. work of Vandana Shiva and LINK
4. There is real doubt that GM can produce more food. Significant research shows GM crops to produce less when compared to conventional crops.
5. Why are people inconsistent? If we create a new molecule to treat cancer all kinds of tests are performed. If we create a new plant that is going to be ingested by millions, we trust the companies to tell us that it is safe.

In conclusion, while in theory it sounds like a good idea, in practice so far it has not been. If instead there were GM crops available which were:
a) fertile so as to be able to be re-used by local farmers
b) shown to have no side effects using the methods of blind trials used to test a new pharmaceutical drug
c) shown to contribute to small scale, local agriculture rather than industrial monoculture,

then there would be much greater potential for acceptance by everyone.

Well, as for GM foods, obviously it would be easily and widely accepted by us Europeans if they would show any benefit for the consumers.
The main benefit I see is for the agri business, not for me as a consumer.
I am not aware, in addition, that the availability of GM foods in some African or Asian countries has significantly decreased malnutrition.
I am quite aware that the availability of GM crops has very significantly increased the income and margins of US crop companies.
Of course all good US guys will continue to lament about stupid Europeans refusing GM foods. Goood guys. America is proud of you.
Well, we never refused any GM-produced drug, since there a clear benefit is obvious.