Knowledge politics and the Bt cotton success narrative in Burkina Faso
Section snippets
Knowledge politics, success narratives, and GM crops
In the contemporary moment of “post-truth” politics, in which deconstructionist logics have been deployed to question all kinds of truth claims, many scientists – including those who study GM crops – have sought to defend the idea of neutral, disinterested, and apolitical science. Yet part of the practice of science is continuous scrutiny of scientific knowledge. Neimark et al. (2019) argue for the renewed importance of careful social scientific study of the relationships between power and the
Data and methods
This paper draws on multiple datasets, including an extensive review and content analysis of existing literature on Bt cotton in Burkina Faso. We also draw on two sets of long-term, qualitative data collected by the authors in Burkina Faso, indicating, where appropriate, upon which data we are drawing.1
The first author conducted eight months
Portrait of a young success story
To briefly review, Burkina Faso conducted its first confined field trials of Bt cotton from 2003 to 2005. These trials were of two imported American Bt cotton cultivars (Coker 312 and DP50), which included the patented host material of their international partner, Monsanto. These original field trials reported an average yield increase of 14.7% (Vitale et al., 2008). Burkinabè cotton sector officials, however, wanted to use a Bt cotton cultivar that retained the agro-climatic adaptation and
The political economy of knowledge production
We now turn to analyzing the political economy of the knowledge production process, highlighting the structures and incentives that shaped Bt cotton evaluation research in Burkina Faso. As Stone has argued, “we are naïve in swallowing empirical claims without a careful consideration of how vested interests affect the creation of facts” (2012, p. 64). We focus on the conflicts of interest inherent to the Bt cotton evaluation process, and in particular how Monsanto funding and control over the
Apolitical knowledge production
In this section we examine how the knowledge produced to evaluate Bt cotton was partial and in some aspects even wrong, largely because it was framed by an apolitical view that technology can – and should – be evaluated separately from the world in which it is embedded (Flachs, 2019, Glover, 2010a, Luna, 2020a, Schnurr, 2019). This builds on our earlier analysis of the problematic methodologies and narrow epistemologies of the Bt evaluation literature. Here, we add an analysis of power, showing
Apolitical knowledge exacerbated power imbalances
In this last section, we explore the material consequences of the evaluation literature, which bolstered a broader success narrative that reproduced and exacerbated power imbalances. In other words, the success narrative not only relied upon and invisibilized relations of power, it also served to produce material outcomes that benefited those with vested interests. Optimistic yield claims produced by early studies were used to calculate royalty prices for Monsanto, and to promote the expansion
Conclusion
In the context of highly politicized GM crop introductions, many scientists and politicians assert that impartial scientific knowledge should drive decision-making (Gilbert, 2013, Herring and Rao, 2012). This may explain why knowledge claims have been a cornerstone of GM crop advocacy. The ISAAA home page in 2020 features the heading, “We feed the world with knowledge.” Similarly, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Undersecretary of Agriculture rhetorically asked at a 2004 GM
Funding
Research for parts of this article was supported by the Fulbright; the National Science Foundation [Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant numbers 1602495 and 0902588]; the University of Colorado Boulder Dean’s Office, the American Association of University Women, the Center for Tropical Research in Ecology, Agriculture and Development (CenTREAD), the Henry Luce Foundation, UC Santa Cruz’s Graduate Division, and the Environmental Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jessie K. Luna: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing. Brian Dowd-Uribe: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing.
Acknowledgements
Important contributions to the research and ideas presented here came from deep engagements in the field with Hamadou Issa Diallo, Ousmane Ouedraogo, Douboue Andre, and Matthew Schnurr. Additional contributions came from Abdoulaye Sanogo, Gabin Korbeogo, Mike Simsik, and the many individuals who offered their time during our fieldwork stints in Burkina Faso. We also thank insightful comments from two anonymous reviewers.
References (91)
Capturing the margins: World market prices and cotton farmer incomes in West Africa
World Development
(2014)Engineering yields and inequality? How institutions and agro-ecology shape Bt cotton outcomes in Burkina Faso
Geoforum
(2014)Nongovernmental organizations and genetically modified crops in Kenya: Understanding influence within a techno-civil society
Geoforum
(2014)- et al.
Anticipating the future: “Biotechnology for the poor” as unrealized promise?
Futures
(2009) - et al.
Africa’s inevitable walk to genetically modified (GM) crops: Opportunities and challenges for commercialization
New Biotechnology
(2013) - et al.
Farmers’ knowledge and opinions towards Bollgard II® implementation in cotton production in Western Burkina Faso
New Biotechnology
(2018) Inventing Makhathini: Creating a prototype for the dissemination of genetically modified crops into Africa
Geoforum
(2012)Micro (soft) managing a ‘green revolution’ for Africa: The new donor culture and international agricultural development
World Development
(2018)Field versus farm in Warangal: Bt cotton, higher yields, and larger questions
World Development
(2011)- et al.
Addressing the dynamics of agri-food systems: An emerging agenda for social science research
Environmental Science & Policy
(2009)
Memorandum sur la production et la commercialisation du coton genetiquement modifié au Burkina Faso
Genetically modified diplomacy: The global politics of agricultural biotechnology and the environment
Taking stock of national agricultural R&D capacity in Africa South of the Sahara [ASTI Synthesis Report]
Beyond the impasse: The power of political ecology in Third World environmental research
Area
Conversations with Bourdieu: The Johannesburg moment
Biotechnological cotton in Burkina Faso: An innovation trajectory in a development context
Analyse des facteurs psychosociaux de la démotivation des cotonculteurs au Burkina Faso: Cas de la région des cascades
Engineered Outcomes: The state and agricultural reform in Burkina Faso
Liberalisation failed: Understanding persistent state power in the Burkinabè cotton sector from 1990 to 2004
Development Policy Review
GMOs and poverty: Definitions, methods and the silver bullet paradox
Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue Canadienne d’études Du Développement
Briefing: Burkina Faso’s reversal on genetically modified crops and the implications for Africa
African Affairs
White science and indigenous maize: The racial logics of the Green Revolution
Journal of Peasant Studies
The value of trust in biotech crop development: A case study of Bt cotton in Burkina Faso
Agriculture & Food Security
The anti-politics machine: “Development”, depoliticization, and bureaucratic power in Lesotho
Cultivating knowledge: Biotechnology, sustainability, and the human cost of cotton capitalism in India
Monsanto Bt cotton FAQ document
Impacts du coton-Bt sur les bilans financiers des sociétés cotonnières et des paysans au Burkina Faso
Cahiers Agricultures
Critical political ecology: The politics of environmental science
Forest guardians, forest destroyers: The politics of environmental knowledge in northern Thailand
Undone science: Charting social movement and civil society challenges to research agenda setting
Science, Technology, & Human Values
Fields of knowledge: Science, politics and publics in the neoliberal age
Reversing the tide of progress, Burkina Faso’s cotton story
April 26)
Intellectual property, scientific independence, and the efficacy and environmental impacts of genetically engineered crops
Rural Sociology
Exploring the resilience of Bt cotton’s “pro-poor success story”
Development and Change
The corporate shaping of GM crops as a technology for the poor
Journal of Peasant Studies
Imperial nature: The World Bank and struggles for social justice in the age of globalization
What kind of intensification? Agricultural practice, soil fertility and socioeconomic differentiation in rural Burkina Faso
Geographical Journal
Cotton production in Burkina Faso: International rhetoric versus local realities
A political ecology of socio-economic differentiation: Debt, inputs and liberalization reforms in southwestern Burkina Faso
Journal of Peasant Studies
Weaving cotton-led development? Liberalization, cotton producer organizations, and uneven development in Burkina Faso
Journal of Agrarian Change
The unquiet woods: Ecological change and peasant resistance in the Himalaya (Expanded)
Cited by (25)
Is there a future for smallholder farmers in bioeconomy? The case of ‘improved’ seeds in South Punjab, Pakistan
2024, Forest Policy and EconomicsAre genetically modified and genome-edited crops viable strategies for climate-change adaptation among smallholder farmers?
2022, Current Opinion in Environmental SustainabilityCitation Excerpt :Transplanting first-generation GM crops to smallholder farming systems has proven problematic. Major challenges include the transfer of GM traits into host varieties [14], spiraling levels of debt [15], confusion around proper growing practices [16], and challenges in maximizing trait performance in smallholder farming systems [17]. This has led some to label first-generation GM crops as technologies of designed obsolescence, which lock-in farmers on a technology treadmill, thus serving to undermine, rather than bolster, resilience to future climate shocks [18].
Exploring national trajectories of organic agriculture in Africa. Comparing Benin and Uganda
2022, Journal of Rural StudiesCitation Excerpt :For example, as structural adjustment policies have drastically reduced the number of civil servants, contemporary State capacities in agricultural extension services and agricultural research are particularly small in Sub-Saharan Africa (Beintema and Stads, 2019). This also results in increased dependence on external funding (Luna and Dowd-Uribe, 2020). The second perspective we propose to explore to explain organic agriculture trajectories in African countries relates to foreign actors intervening for (or against) organic food and farming.
Charisma and agrarian crisis: Authority and legitimacy at multiple scales for rural development
2021, Journal of Rural StudiesCitation Excerpt :Initially introduced as a continuation of capital-intensive industrial agriculture (Charles 2001; Fedoroff 2011), the seeds took on charismatic appeal in India and elsewhere as proponents stressed the promise of GM crops to assuage crises of food security (Paarlberg 2001), pesticide use (Huang et al., 2003), and nutrition (Qaim 2010). In India, Latin America (Leguizamón 2020; Hetherington 2020), and across Africa (Dowd-Uribe 2017; Luna 2019; Luna and Dowd-Uribe 2020; Rock and Schurman 2020; Schnurr 2019), GM crop marketing plays off the green revolution as a “gene revolution” that can harness improved genetic science to create better agricultural outcomes within the infrastructure of markets and inputs established in the 1960s. Although the vast majority of GM crops planted are commodity crops modified with insecticidal or herbicide resistance planted by large farmers in Brazil, Argentina, or the United States (ISAAA 2017), arguments stressing GM crops’ potential to cure hunger and improve lives in the developing world persist.
Anticipating farmer outcomes of three genetically modified staple crops in sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from farming systems research
2021, Journal of Rural StudiesCitation Excerpt :Ex-ante evaluations are unable to conceptualize adoption as a practice-oriented process of technological change, which requires broader categories of intended and unintended impacts documented over longer periods of time (Glover et al., 2019). Finally, in terms of impacts, ex-ante approaches often obscure differential benefits by the reporting of results in averages; when differential impacts are identified, they are seldom foregrounded in the reporting of results (Glover, 2010; Stone, 2012; Luna and Dowd-Uribe, 2020). The result is an underappreciation for how intersectional categories of difference including gender, ethnicity, land size, land tenure arrangements, and previous experience with new technologies shape farm-level outcomes.
Cotton Monocultures and Reorganizing Socioecological Life in Telangana, India
2024, Journal of Ethnobiology