MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Transgenic rice once again proposed as solution to bacterial blight outbreaks, this time in Africa

Published

8 months ago

September 6, 2023

Scientists with an international rice initiative have been raising the alarm about a strain of bacterial blight causing outbreaks in rice fields in East Africa, and they say the patented transgenic varieties they have developed are the solution.

The scientists are with the Healthy Crops Project, a non-profit consortium funded by the Gates Foundation that brings together US and German universities, the French national research institute (IRD), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and others. In a scientific article published in June 2023, the team claims to have identified an outbreak of a Chinese variant of bacterial blight in Tanzania, which was previously unknown on the continent, and then to have employed gene-editing techniques to confer broad resistance to bacterial blight in rice grown in Africa.

The scientists plan to first introduce their transgenic rice in Kenya, where recent regulations allow for the introduction of gene-edited crops. They have already crossed their resistant line with a variety called Komboka, which was developed by IRRI and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation. While team leader Wolf Frommer told GRAIN they have “no interest in making profits from small scale producers”, he acknowledged that there is a patent on their gene-edited rice lines. He also said outbreaks of the Chinese bacterial blight strain have now spread to Kenya and Madagascar.

This is not the first time that IRRI and its partners have proposed GM rice as a solution to bacterial blight. Twenty years ago, farmer and consumer groups in Asia protested against the introduction of a rice known as “BB rice”— IRRI’s first transgenic rice to be field tested at its research centre in the Philippines. The Healthy Crops gene-edited rice varieties would be the first transgenic lines to be commercialised in Africa, if the project moves forward.

Groups in Asia that were opposed to IRRI’s “BB rice” argued that bacterial blight outbreaks are a product of IRRI’s green revolution model. The disease only began to be a major problem when IRRI’s semi-dwarf varieties were planted over large areas, replacing diverse local varieties with vast, uniform monocultures. The uniformity and reliance on huge amounts of chemical fertilisers created the ideal breeding grounds for bacterial blight and other diseases. IRRI’s response, beyond the promotion of chemical pesticides, was to try and integrate resistant genes from farmer varieties into its varieties, but this single gene resistance (or even multiple gene resistance) was inevitably overcome by the disease, leading to an endless race to try and identify and integrate new genes, and an escalation in pesticide use. Those opposing BB rice argued that the GMO rice would also not provide durable resistance, and that the only effective solution was to bring back diversity in the fields by restoring farmer seed systems and by moving away from chemical fertilisers and pesticides to practices that keep disease pressures down. IRRI never did manage to gain approval for the release of “BB rice” in Asia.

The situation is similar in Tanzania and Kenya. For decades now, farmers have resisted constant efforts by IRRI and other agencies to get them to abandon their farmer varieties and switch to the so-called high-yielding varieties (HYVs), including the Komboka variety of rice that the Healthy Crops team is now gene-editing. Farmer seeds still account for the vast majority of rice grown in Tanzania, one of the only countries in Africa that is self-sufficient in rice. This push for HYVs has been especially heavy in the “epicentre” of the recent bacterial blight outbreak identified by the Healthy Crops team: the Dakawa irrigation scheme in Tanzania’s fertile Morogoro Region.

It is noteworthy that the outbreak appears to have first affected fields planted to a variety called Saro 5, which has been promoted by numerous donors including the World Bank, USAID, AGRA and the Gates Foundation, despite its requirement for high levels of chemical fertilisers. For several years, the Norwegian fertiliser company Yara heavily promoted Saro 5, in combination with its fertilisers, under the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) programme. Saro 5 seeds were given out to farmers for free and were multiplied at the Chollima Rice Institute in Dakawa and distributed to farmers in other parts of the country. These different agencies and companies have thus spread a variety of rice highly susceptible to a new strain of bacterial blight across many farms in Tanzania, creating the conditions for the disease to amplify and spread.

Several rice farmers in Dakawa contacted by Tanzania’s national farmers’ organisation MVIWATA confirmed that the disease is present in their fields. They said that the government has been promoting Saro 5 to deal with the disease, but that this has failed dramatically, since Saro 5 is highly susceptible. “Saro 5 is the type of seed that is mostly affected,” says Saumini Hamisi, a rice farmer at Dakawa.

The farmers also said that the national research agency and the extension agents in the area have been telling farmers to use various pesticides against the disease, which has done nothing to help either.

Some speculate that this new strain of bacterial blight came to Dakawa via the Chinese province of Yunnan, since this strain of the disease is only found there. They say that infected material was likely brought over by the Chongqing Zhongyi Seed Company, which took over the Chinese Agro-technology Demonstration Centre built in Dakawa in 2009 with cooperation funds from China. Like the other foreign funded programmes at Dakawa, the Chinese initiative aimed to displace local varieties, in this case with Chongqing Zhongyi’s patented hybrid varieties. The Chinese seed company has not comment ed on these speculations, and did not respond to GRAIN’s inquiries either. The possibility raises serious concerns, given that Chinese seed companies are engaged in hybrid rice programmes in many other countries across Africa and the world.

But whether or not the Chinese seed company is the source, the disease is now spreading without it, as the Chinese project shut down last year. The question now is how to deal with the outbreak.

In Tanzania and other rice growing regions of the world, farmers have long managed bacterial blight and other diseases. Farmers in the Philippines with the farmer-scientist network MASIPAG, for instance, do regularly select for disease resistance within their farmer varieties of rice, but their main focus is not on breeding for resistance but in using farming practices that negate the factors that favour pest or disease population build-up and outbreaks. According to MASIPAG scientist and founding member, Dr. Chito Medina, this includes planting at least three different rice varieties on each farm “so that the differential resistance of each variety prevents the development and outbreak of any biotype or any continuous increase of population of any biotype or kind of pest or pathogen” (a technique that is also used to control rice diseases in Yunnan). They also deploy certain water management techniques and avoid the use of chemical fertilisers, especially nitrogen fertilisers, which increases the reproductive rate of insects and pathogens, including bacterial blight. Medina says that, because of this approach, “there have been no reports among MASIPAG farmers of any outbreaks or recurrent pest or disease problems for a long time”, despite the presence of many strains of bacterial blight across the country.

The local varieties favoured by farmers in East Africa may be susceptible to the bacterial blight strains now circulating in the region. But this does not have to lead to major crop losses. Rather than use the outbreak as another excuse to destroy farmer seed systems, efforts must focus on helping farmers to build up resistance within their local varieties through selection and seed sharing, and to utilise farming practices that can control the disease. It is bad enough that a foreign-funded programme brought a disease outbreak; it will be much worse if this paves the way for another foreign-funded programme to displace local varieties with patented, transgenic rice seeds.

Original Source: Grain.org

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

A 29th Insurance Company withdraws support for controversial EACOP Project.

Published

5 days ago

April 30, 2024

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio team

In another positive development for climate activists fighting against the financing of the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) due to its environmental impacts and human rights violations, Witness Radio has learned that a 29th insurance bank has withdrawn its funding from the project.

On 4th March 2024, major insurer Probitas1492 confirmed that it won’t insure a major ‘carbon bomb’ project – the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.

Probitas’s Chief Executive Officer, Ash Bathia, has publicly pledged that his company will never insure in the project. Speaking to Extinction Rebellion, a non-partisan movement advocating for action on the Climate and Ecological Emergency through non-violent direct action and civil disobedience, Bathia confirmed that Probitas currently does not provide any insurance support for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline and has no intention of doing so in the future.

Critics of the project have been advocating for the cessation of funding and support to the EACOP project due to its significant climate impacts, large-scale displacement of communities, and grave risks to protected environments, water sources, and wetlands associated with the project and would transport oil generating over 34 million extra tons of carbon emissions each year.

“Underwriting these projects would not be following our ESG policy. We would like to clarify that our stance on the above was already a matter of company policy and has not changed following the recent protests and criminal damage caused during the XR protests.” Bathia maintained.

Shortly after Probitas declared its withdrawal from funding the EACOP project, the #StopEACOP global campaign swiftly responded on its X account, “We want to congratulate Probitas on choosing not to insure the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. This pipeline, if it goes ahead, will devastate local habitats and create highly dangerous levels of carbon pollution.

Probitas becomes the 29th insurance company to rule out EACOP and the 6th insurance company to do so in the same project in this year 2024. In January 2024, leading (re)insurance companies SiriusPoint, Riverstone International, Enstar Group, and specialty insurers Blenheim and SA Meacock; officially ruled out involvement in the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project citing, pollution and human rights risks it poses.

The EACOP project has triggered significant concerns among communities and civil society groups due to its detrimental impacts on thousands of individuals in Uganda and Tanzania. The most affected have been the Project Affected Persons (PAPs) and human rights activists who stand against the project.

Reports have highlighted numerous cases of land grabbing, the displacement of host communities, inadequate compensation, poor resettlements, and the troubling trend of harassing and arresting community leaders and rights activists.

The East African crude oil pipeline (EACOP) runs 1,443km from Kabaale, Hoima district in Uganda, to the Chongoleani Peninsula near Tanga Port in Tanzania. The main backers of the multibillion-dollar project are the French oil company TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Ugandan Activists Face Criminal Charges Following Pipeline Protest

Published

3 weeks ago

April 17, 2024

witnessradio.org

More than 30 environmental and human rights defenders, many of them students protesting the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, have been arrested in Kampala and other parts of Uganda since 2021. Photo courtesy of Phototheque AT.

Human rights watchdogs sound alarm on crackdown on environmental advocates in the East African nation.

IN UGANDA, the climate crisis poses a real and present threat to citizens. So too does the act of protesting against climate-polluting projects, due to the state’s brutal crackdown on climate activists.

That threat is being felt by 11 young climate activists, all of the them Kyambogo University students, who have been embroiled in Uganda’s criminal-legal system since late last year. The students were arrested while protesting against the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a 1,443-kilometer pipeline that will transport crude oil produced in Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to Tanzania’s port of Tanga for export.

The most recent crackdown came on Dec. 15, when four activists, members of Justice Movement Uganda, were arrested — and, they say, beaten — by security forces during a peaceful march to deliver a petition to the country’s parliament. The petition asked parliament to halt the pipeline project and free seven of their colleagues who were arrested in November and locked up in the country’s Luzira Maximum Security Prison.

“My friends and I, numbering over 50 students, marched from our hostels of residence to parliament, but only a few us managed to reach the gate of the parliament because we were attacked by police from the start,” Bwete Abdul Aziiz, one of the four students arrested on Dec. 15, told Earth Island Journal. The 26-year-old Kampala resident was separated from the main body of protesters along with a few other marchers. Although this separation helped the smaller group reach the grounds of the parliament, it led to their alleged assault and arrest by Ugandan security forces.

“They kicked us all over our body and slapped us repeatedly,” Abdul Aziiz said of the assault. The security forces then drove the activists to the Central Police Station, where they were detained for four days. On Dec. 19, the same day the first group of seven protesters gained their freedom, Abdul Aziiz and three others, Lubega Jacob, Lutabi Nicolas, and Kalyango Shafik, appeared in court on the charge of causing public nuisance, which carries a maximum sentence of one year imprisonment. From there, they were remanded to Luzira, where they spent the holidays. It was not until Jan. 10 that they able to obtain a bail. They appeared in court on March 11, and are due back on April 17 for further hearing.

Since their release on bail, the activists say they have been receiving anonymous calls often accompanied by threats of physical harm unless they stopped campaigning against TotalEnergies. The French energy company, together with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Tanzania State oil companies, is currently building the pipeline.

“Ever since we got bailed out, life has not been the same, due to continuous threats from unknown people, and we have been shifting our places of residence over and over due to fear for our safety,” says Abdul Aziiz. He has since lost his job, which he relied on to support himself, his two siblings, and his mother, and to pay his tuition at Kyambogo University where he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Arts and education.

THEIR ORDEAL, analysts say, demonstrates the incredible odds faced by Ugandan climate justice activists trying to stop a massive fossil fuel project in a continent that is on the frontlines of the climate catastrophe. “What has been happening is that the judicial system is harsh for those against the project, like any other advocates who asks question about governance issues in the country,” a Ugandan oil and gas expert, who wishes to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, told the Journal.

Under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni, a staunch backer of EACOP, climate activists in Uganda regularly report being threatened, harassed, and prosecuted. At least 30 environmental and human rights defenders, many of them students, have been arrested in Kampala and other parts of Uganda since 2021, according to a November report by Human Rights Watch, which was published before the November or December arrests.

“The illegal arrests and fake trials of activists who are protesting against EACOP is part of the government and oil companies’ strategy to instill maximum fear among Ugandans so that no one questions the excesses happening in the EACOP plans,” Dickens Kamugisha, CEO of public policy research and advocacy group AFIEGO-Africa Institute for Energy Governance, told the Journal. “In effect, the arrests and trials have no legal basis but just evil objectives to continue shrinking the civic space.”

Once described as a mid-sized carbon bomb by the Climate Accountability Project’s Richard Heede, the EACOP, which will cost an $5 billion to construct, comes with six pumping stations to maintain the oil flow and pressure in the pipeline (two in Uganda and four in Tanzania). It will terminate at Tanzania’s coastal city, Tanga, with a terminal and jetty from which crude oil will be loaded onto tankers. It is expected to be operational by 2025, and if completed, would be responsible for 34 million tons of carbon emissions per year for some 25 years.

Human Rights Watch has warned that the oil pipeline has already “devastated thousands of people’s livelihoods in Uganda” by displacing them from their homes “and will exacerbate the global climate crisis.” The project passes through multiple ecologically sensitive areas in Uganda and Tanzania and requires land acquisitions covering some 6,400 hectares. Consequently, villagers have reported cases of land grabbing, displacement, disruption to families and villages, and unfair and inadequate compensation for losses.

Impacted communities say the Ugandan state has enabled TotalEnergies in violating their rights. Nyakato Magreat, a single mother from Kasinyi village in Buliisa District, which had previously rejected TotalEnergies plan to make use of their lands, provided an example of the government’s role. Speaking at a mock tribunal organized by a coalition of civil societies, Make Big Polluters Pay (MBPP), last May, she recounted how soldiers invaded their village to force them to back down.

“The Hon. Minister for lands came to our community with many soldiers who were carrying guns, and most of us accepted the compensation amount of UGX 3,500,000 ($905) per acre, which we had earlier rejected out of fear. Total then gave me a small one-bedroom house on a small plot of land, despite my large family,” she said.

A December report by international NGO Global Witness also outlines evidence that TotalEnergies has been involved in efforts to intimidate impacted communities to accept offers for their land. The report documents cases where community members say they were forced to sign agreements without a chance to read them, as well as cases where armed security forces accompanied company and government officials making the compensation offers, pressuring them to sign.

TotalEnergies has denied involvement in the arrests of climate activists or pressured disposition of lands. In response to request for comment, the energy company said that it is committed to respecting internationally recognized human rights and standards anywhere it operates. A similar request for comment sent to the Ugandan Police Force went unanswered as at press time.

But activists continue to insist that the company is an accessory to violations committed by the Museveni government. “I think that the actions of Total and others amount to aiding and abetting injustices. By virtue of contract with the government, they have powers and can walk away if the other party/government violate people’s rights,” Kamugisha said via text. “But they are enjoying the outcomes of violence, displacements, and fear created.”

The Ugandan activists are not alone in their experience. Around the world, environmental activists face serious threats of violence as they defend their lands and the climate. What’s more, governments are increasingly criminalizing peaceful protest by climate protesters. That includes through the enactment of new anti-protest laws in places like Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and the enforcement of existing ones in places like Germany, Italy, France, India, and Egypt.

“EACOP IS A TIME BOMB which needs to be stopped as soon as possible due to the environment hazards and social violations it encompasses,” Mpiima Ibrahim, a climate activist and student of Kyambogo University, told the Journal. The 22-year old, who escaped arrest during the march in December, believes that although “many people say it is a pathway to development, EACOP is actually a pathway to extinction, since science has made it very clear that we have approximately one decade to cut down our global emissions before we face severe climate catastrophe.”

Despite contributing only 2 to 3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Africa continues to experience extreme weather events ranging from floods to droughts and to heatwaves, which leave a trail of destruction and fatalities. Last year, Libya’s storm-fueled flood claimed over 11,300 lives in September.

At around the same time, more than 3,000 people lost their lives due to flash floods in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and at least 860 people were killed in Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which affected Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, Malawi, Réunion, and Zimbabwe, according to reports. Today, over 29 million people continue to face unrelenting drought conditions across Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Mauritania, and Niger.

All of which is why, amidst the brutal crackdowns, Ugandan climate activists are not backing down. “Everyday we make sure that we are doing something to stop this deadly project,” Abdul Aziiz says, “and our goal is to see that climate justice prevails and climate destroyers must be punished.”

Original Source: earthisland.org

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Insurance firms should shun the East African Crude Oil Pipeline

Published

3 weeks ago

April 17, 2024

witnessradio.org

Police officers detain a Ugandan activist during a demonstration on September 15, 2023, over plans to build the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), in Kampala, Uganda [File: Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters]

The project is already devastating local communities and will contribute to climate change if completed.

Last year was the hottest on record, with extreme weather events in many corners of the globe. It was also the year in which countries reached a landmark agreement at the UN Climate Conference (COP28) to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels”.

If governments are to comply with this agreement and avert global climate collapse, there cannot be any new expansion of coal, oil and gas production. This includes the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), one of the largest and most controversial fossil fuel projects currently under development.

Financing for EACOP is yet to be secured, but if it is and the project moves forward, a 1,443km (897-mile) pipeline will stretch from oil fields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in eastern Tanzania.

The project’s completion would not only contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions which fuel climate change but also harm local communities. That is why, Human Rights Watch is calling on insurance firms to stop providing support for it.

The pipeline is planned to traverse some of Africa’s most sensitive ecosystems, including Murchison Falls National Park and the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Ramsar site. Pipeline ruptures, inadequate waste handling, and other pollution impacts would cause significant damage to the land, water, air and the species that rely on them.

Our research found that the project’s initial land acquisition process has already devastated thousands of people’s livelihoods in Uganda, causing food insecurity and household debt that has resulted in children dropping out of school.

During our interviews with local communities, many described being largely self-sufficient before the project began, using revenue from coffee, bananas and other cash crops to pay for school fees and other household expenses. When their land was allocated for the pipeline construction, they were not compensated immediately for it.

They waited an average of three to five years after the land evaluation process took place, and interviewees repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that the payments they received were not adequate to purchase replacement land. They said they were worse off than they were previously.

While they were waiting for compensation, many farmers understood that they were not permitted to access their land to tend perennial crops, and were therefore deprived of crucial income.

Residents described how the payment delays impacted their food security, pushing them to sell household assets, including livestock, or borrow money from predatory lenders at excessive rates to buy the food they would have previously grown on their plots and cover other expenses. This has left many families poorer and more insecure about their future.

If the pipeline is completed, more than 100,000 people in Uganda and Tanzania will permanently lose land to make way for it.

Civil society groups in Uganda and Tanzania have called for the pipeline not to be built, citing climate, environmental and social risks. Ugandan civil society groups say that, instead of building the pipeline, the Ugandan government should develop its abundant renewable energy resources – particularly solar and hydropower – to drive economic development and secure access to energy without further contributing to climate change.

Their demands have been met with hostility from the Ugandan authorities. Our research documented the Ugandan government’s systematic harassment, arbitrary arrests of and threats against environmental defenders and anti-fossil fuel activists for raising concerns over the pipeline project and oil development.

In this context, it is deeply troubling that insurance companies are enabling this and other big fossil fuel projects by providing insurance for them. This is despite the fact that new oil projects are wholly inconsistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.

In late 2023, Human Rights Watch wrote to 15 insurance and reinsurance companies and shared our findings on the grave environmental and human rights risks associated with the pipeline. Only two companies – Lloyd’s of London and Chubb – responded to us, and neither agreed to reassess their involvement in the project.

In early March, civil society groups across the world organised a global week of action to end fossil fuels, including confronting insurance companies about their role in the climate crisis and asking them to rule out support for fossil fuel projects. Anti-fossil fuel activists held peaceful protests at regional offices of the insurance companies still involved in the East African project with the message: “Insure our futures, not fossil fuels.” Increasing numbers of insurers have made public commitments to not underwrite the pipeline, but others have persisted.

Continued support for EACOP is a mistake. By underwriting the project, insurers are helping to build the longest heated oil pipeline in the world at a time when the world is warming at dangerous levels. Insurance companies should refuse to support this project.

Original Source: Aljazeera