Peter Theuri
Head of Digital Communications, ISAAA AfriCenter
Asked what GMO was, one of the ladies attending the 2019 National Devolution Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, said, “I do not know. But I know about kuku za sindano.”
‘Kuku za sindano’ can be roughly translated to ‘injection chickens’, or ‘chickens that have been injected’. You get the drift.
She was among the guests who walked by The Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology’s (OFAB) exhibition booth, and her answer was not even among the most ridiculous. What was a bit disconcerting about it, however, was how she suddenly admitted she knew little about GMO, then went on to link it to the most bizarre, unorthodox idea that she could manage.
It showed precisely what she thought about GMO. She clearly lacked motivation to know more about it. Her beliefs were paramount at that point.
Another man called it “a certain thing they mix in the lab”.
As the responders went on and on, it was clear the discussion on genetic modification, decades old technology, often lacks depth. What follows is unwarranted activism, unfounded campaigns against it, great repulsion by people who barely understand what they are fighting.
That is just one facet of science.
In his bestselling book Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies, Prof Calestous Juma, an internationally recognized authority and leader in science, technology, and innovation, noted that since time immemorial, people have had an ingrained tendency to frown upon new technologies.
Impatient and naturally wired to staying put in their comfort zones, human beings have fought to avoid any disruptions of status quo, and some of the historical declarations towards this effort are laughable.
For instance, noted Prof Juma, drinking of coffee was prohibited in Mecca in the 16th century because it caused “radical thinking”. It seemed leaders in that era feared a revolution, and anything that could lead to subjects shaking their heads out of the sand – and smelling the coffee – was strongly repelled.
Soon after, coffee became a famed drink, stimulant and energy boost for millions across the globe. You are probably hunched over a steaming mug of this beverage as you read this.
Prof Juma observed that perceptions about immediate risks and long-term distribution of benefits influence the intensity of concerns over new technologies. Not a wild idea.
Many other technologies have been opposed at first, with the reasons given for the discomfort around them proving nothing but hot air once the technologies prove helpful and are therefore widely accepted.
When it was first developed, skeptics thought the steam locomotive to be quite impractical because of a belief that no human could survive traveling at the insanely high speeds of about 50 mph. Today, trains cruise at hundreds of miles an hour and are widely used for human and cargo transport. Driving at 50 mph on a freeway feels like very comfortable speed: to some, a slow trot, snail’s pace.
Some anti-technology pronouncements were actually plain weird.
For physiological reasons, obstetric anesthesia, an idea of Crawford Long and William Morton, faced early resistance. Surgeons argued that pain served as a survival mechanism as well as a diagnostic signal to help surgeons determine how far pain had progressed.
Today, I doubt you would have a very comfortable moment with a dentist trying to pull out your canines without anesthesia. Or you would remain smiling watching an enthusiastic surgeon drive tongs into your abdomen, again without anesthesia.
Many more technologies faced resistance. And that was okay, and human, only that the resistance was not informed by any solid evidence. It was just a fear of the unknown. Handwashing, aspirin, smallpox vaccine- even the automobile was rejected because unlike horses, cars could never give birth.
ISAAA AfriCenter Director Dr Margaret Karembu said, speaking at The National Dialogue on Biotech and Planetary Health in Nairobi in June, “For progress, we need to embrace the best of the old and the best of the new. While traditions may offer a sense of comfort, the risks of doing nothing can outweigh the potential risks of experimenting with new ideas.”
Historically, misinformation and disinformation in all of science have cost countries and continents a great deal, especially socioeconomically. Running battles between scientists and anti-scientists (and pseudoscientists) delay progress, and for biotechnology, adoption is dependent on how ready different players across the value chain are to collaborate.
And while it may not look that significant, these two could completely ruin livelihoods and damage economies. The World Economic Forum, in its Global Risks Report of 2025, ranked misinformation and disinformation the top short- to medium term risks for the second consecutive year.
In Africa, as in the rest of the world, the proliferation of mobile phones, penetration of the internet and an increase to access of social media platforms have exacerbated the rate at which misinformation and disinformation are passed. This is not about to reduce. Paid activism, that derails the progress of science and aims to rubbish years of hard work from researchers, is on the rise.
Someone has to sit and plan how to stop this ruin. Deliberate action is needed to prevent utterances that are based on emotion, and not fact, from slowing down an entire continent’s march to a better, healthier, food secure future. Your voice is needed in this discourse, and that is why our ABBC 2025 symposium in Lusaka, Zambia this August matters as much to you as it matters to us.