216 CHAPTER 8


The final channel of external influence is cultural. Most policymaking


elites in Africa have much closer cultural ties to Europe than to the United States, so they are naturally inclined to view European practices as the best practices. For example, the Kenyan author of a 2004 article (published by the European-financed nongovernmental organization Participatory Ecological Land Use Management Association) that was titled “Twelve Reasons for Africa to Reject GM Crops,” later explained to a newspaper reporter, “Europe has more knowledge, education. So why are they refus- ing [GM foods]? That is the question everybody is asking” (Paarlberg 2008, 145). Policymaking elites in Africa have often been educated in Europe, they send their children to European schools, and they travel to Europe fre- quently both on official and unofficial business. It is not surprising that they would be inclined to adopt European-style regulations for GMOs, even though Africa’s needs and circumstances are so different from those of Europe. External influence of this kind is not unique to Africa, of course. In Latin


America, within the sphere of influence of the United States, government poli- cies toward GM crops have usually been closer to the American approach than to the European approach. As of 2008, 7 out of the top 10 countries around the world with significant plantings of GMOs were located in the Western Hemisphere. It is also telling that the only Asian country to have approved GMO maize, the Philippines, is a former American colony. In this case political leaders in Africa pay a price for simply “doing what


Europeans do.” Europe has placed stifling regulations on GM foods and crops because Europe itself has little need for this new technology. European farmers are already highly productive without it, and European consumers are already well fed. Indeed, like consumers in the United States, Europeans are increas- ingly overfed. In Africa, where farmers are not yet productive and where so many consumers are not yet well fed, the potential gains that GM crops can provide are more costly to do without. Rather than deferring to outsiders, either Europeans or Americans,


Africans might usefully look for ways to make independent judgments of their own regarding how to regulate GM crops. Other countries in the develop- ing world that still have large farming sectors and operate relatively free from external influence—such as the People’s Republic of China—have so far seen high value in this technology and have been investing significant public bud- get resources of their own to develop this technology, for their own distinct and independent benefit.


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