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FIRST GM COTTON PLANTED

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NSOKO – The first genetically modified (GM) cotton in the country is currently being grown at Nsoko and is anticipated to be ready for harvest around April.


GM organisms, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) website, are plants or animals whose genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination. The website goes on to explain that it allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another.


Locally, GM cotton is being grown by Nisela Farms and it has been established that the farm currently has about 100 hectares of it. This is much against the advice of PELUM Swaziland which advocated for GM cotton not to be grown in the country.


Narrating


Narrating about the GM cotton was Linda Msibi, the Nisela Sugar General Manager, who said they started growing the cotton in mid-November last year. Linda said they planted the 100 hectares as a trial and if they yielded the expected results, they might eventually plant about 800 hectares. He said it was too early to tell whether they would yield the desired results but they would be happy to get about four tonnes per hectare as that would maximise their chances of making profit.
Linda narrated that the trial was in response to the drought that had affected the country for about three years.

He said they had to think out of the box as sugar cane and maize were no longer viable in their region due to water scarcity. He said cotton had the advantage of not needing a lot of water and added that it was ideal for the weather conditions in their area.
“Conventional cotton gave us a lot of problems in the past until we discovered this new technology which was then that we applied for a permit,” Linda said.


illegal


Linda said they were aware that there were certain people who were against the idea of GM cotton in the country but they believed it was the way to go. He said it was not illegal to grow GM cotton in the country but there were certain conditions which had to be adhered to. He said as an organisation they ensured that they followed all regulations to avoid undesired environmental consequences.


“To see the challenges associated with something you have to grow it and see for yourself. It is only then that you will learn how to prevent outbreaks and other accompanying factors,” Linda said.
Linda stated that they took environmental issues very seriously and explained that they had a car disinfector by the gate.


ensuring


He explained that this was for purposes of ensuring that no foreign material was brought into the cotton farm and none was carried out of it as well. He said they also knew the exact number of GM seeds they bought, how many they planted and how many were not used.
Linda mentioned that they stored the unused seeds safely and there were proper controls in place to ensure that they were not misplaced.
Linda shared that they were aware that there were certain challenges to the environment that came with dealing with GM crops. Research done by this publication revealed that this included the planting of GM cotton within proximity of conventional cotton which was risky and should not be done. It also established that pesticides used for GM cotton were harmful to the environment.

 


Linda narrated that there was no conventional cotton farm anywhere close to their farm. He said residents of that area stopped farming cotton years ago due to pests that affected their crops. He also said the pesticides they used were the ones they used for conventional cotton.


planted


He said they were therefore not harmful to the environment. He added that since they planted their crop, they had only used the pesticides once; something he said was good in the sense that had they been dealing with conventional cotton, they would have used the pesticides at least three times by now.


Linda narrated that with GM cotton the pests died when they fed on it. He said this, however, had the danger of making the pests eventually immune to the chemical that killed them when feeding on the crops as their systems would adapt it. He shared that to curb this; they mixed the GM crop seeds with five per cent of conventional cotton seeds.


“When the pests feed on the conventional crop, they will continue to survive but they will die when they feed on the one that is genetically modified,” Linda shared.
Linda also narrated that another advantage of mixing the two crop seeds was that there would not be any grave effects to the ecosystem. He said the intention was not to bring the pests to extinction but to ensure that they did not affect their crops. He said the five per cent conventional crop was known as a refuge.

 

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