GMO's and food security

It has been argued that we need GMOs in order
to solve food security problems in Uganda, but I
think this is a delicate matter that demands
serious debate.
I agree that farmers everywhere have
manipulated and continue to manipulate seeds,
soils, crop species and animal breeds to achieve
improved food qualities and quantities. Therefore,
I am not addressing the question of rejecting or
accepting GMOs in Uganda. Instead I question the
possibility of GMOs delivering food security given
the contexts of the market, policy framework and
rights regime.
So I ask three questions: who owns GMO
technologies and their resulting products? What is
the nature of the market through which Ugandan
farmers will acquire the technologies and sell their
products? What kind of government policy
framework will use GMOs to deliver food
security?
First, let me shed some light on the concept of
food security. It simply means that food must be
available at all times in the right quantities and
qualities and it must be culturally acceptable to the
consumers.
Food security cannot be considered in isolation
from 'human security', which relates to all
individuals in a society enjoying food, health,
personal, economic, political, community and
environmental guarantees. Human security can
be viewed as a better alternative to state/national
security.
Ownership is determined by whose interests are
embedded in the design of a GMO. In Uganda, for
example, National Agricultural Research
Organisation (NARO) is developing a strain of
genetically-modified matooke which is expected
to be rich in iron and Vitamin A and is resistant to
a few known pests.
Much as this particular effort targets increased
matooke on the national market and child
nutrition in banana-growing areas, we would like
to know who will benefit from the GMO
commercially. This in turn is determined by who
owns the rights for creating this new matooke.
Will a farmer in Bushenyi, where there is a lot of
malnutrition, for example, have the right to
propagate and gift to his friends and neighbours,
the plant?
Will he and his friends and neighbours always
have to buy each and every seed or sucker from
a hitherto unknown investor?