Abstract
ABSTRACTThis paper examines the highly contested and ongoing biotechnology (Bt) policy-making process in Ghana. We analyse media content on how Bt is viewed in the context of Ghana’s parliamentary debate on the Plant Breeders Bill and within the broader public policy-making literature. This paper does not seek to take a position on Bt or the Bill, but to understand how policy actors influence the debate with political and scientific rhetoric in Ghana. The study reveals that in the midst of scientific uncertainties of Bt’s potential for sustainable agriculture production and food security, policy decisions that encourage its future adoption are heavily influenced by health, scientific, economic, environmental and political factors dictated by different ideologies, values and norms. While locally pioneered plant breeding is visible and common in the Ghanaian food chain, plant breeding/GMOs/Bt from international corporations is strongly resisted by anti-GMO coalitions. Understanding the complex and messy nature of Bt policy-making is critical for future development of agricultural technology in Ghana and elsewhere.
Highlights
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is disproportionally affected by climate change with 27.7% of the 795 million undernourished people globally residing on the continent (FAO, IFAD, & WFP, 2015; Garza & Stover, 2003)
In contrast with long standing opinion that the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) debate was about “international GMOs” and Bt, our results indicates that only about 27% of the claims referred to GMOs originating from beyond Ghana and bordering countries
While health concerns were the dominant discourse in claims against “local GMOs”, politics dominated the rhetoric in claims opposing “international GMOs”
Summary
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is disproportionally affected by climate change with 27.7% of the 795 million undernourished people globally residing on the continent (FAO, IFAD, & WFP, 2015; Garza & Stover, 2003). Food security, various agriculture technologies have been proposed, including biotechnology (Bt), innovations in machinery, chemicals, agronomy and information uptake (Godfray et al, 2010; Rosegrant & Cline, 2003). Deployment of Bt has been highly contested and remains one of the most publically debated technical solutions to food security in some of these countries including Ghana. Bt involves an alteration of the genetic make-up of plants through the extraction of desired DNA traits from one organism and introducing it onto another (McAfee, 2003; Stilwell & Van Dyke, 1999). Whereas plants have been going through natural modification or mutation, the present technology of moving individual genes through Bt is.
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