Ghana’s genetically modified organism (GMO) debates are still raging. They have focused on whether or not GMOs and genetically modified (GM) foods have any health risks.

But there are other concerns, including whether farmers can save seeds from their GM crop harvests and replant them in subsequent growing seasons. This piece focuses on this latter issue.

The argument that farmers are unable to replant GM seeds from their previous harvests because these seeds are sterile is not correct. It is one of the enduring myths about GM crops.

Seeds from GM crops can be saved and replanted. That is why seed companies usually ask farmers to sign agreements that they will not replant harvested seeds. This ensures that the companies remain in business.

Now, it should be mentioned that some anti-GMO campaigners appear to confuse hybrid seeds with GM seeds. A chunk of commercial seed varieties are hybrids, and genetics teaches us that hybrids don’t usually breed true.

Therefore, when you develop a new crop variety (to be disease-resistant, or high-yielding, for example) through hybridization, whether it is genetically modified or not, hybrid vigour soon goes down, and if harvested seeds are replanted, many may fail to germinate.

Those that germinate may not flower. Low yields will result. Where fruits are produced, they will lack the uniformity that consumers and supermarkets desire. Whilst some fruits will look like the parent, many will assume other characteristics.

Buyers will therefore have nothing to do with the produce. Consequently, the farmer is compelled to go back to the commercial seed dealer each growing season. This behaviour of hybrid seeds has nothing to do with genetic engineering. It is not because the seeds are “engineered not to reproduce”. The genetics of hybrids explains the behaviour.

It is true there is a technology known as terminator technology, more appropriately called “gene use restriction technology”, which enables the development of GM crops that produce sterile seeds, labelled “suicide seeds” by GM critics.

While this may be the basis for the allegations that farmers who practise GM agriculture cannot replant harvested seeds, it should be submitted here that the technology has never been commercialized. In the 1990s, fears that seed companies could introduce the technology into commercial agriculture led to widespread unrest in Latin America, South-East Asia, and India where peasant farmers burnt down GM cotton fields in the process. In 2000, growing fears led to an international moratorium on the use of the technology, under the auspices of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The moratorium was backed by 193 countries, and was further strengthened in 2006.

Therefore, the stories to the effect that GM crops produce sterile seeds are unfounded.

It is a fact that for years, farmers have been selecting the best seeds from harvests of their traditional crop varieties (known as landraces) and replanting them in subsequent seasons. But in the last several decades, they have been going for commercial seed varieties instead, because when landraces are grown for years, yield eventually tails off. Unfortunately, plant breeding and seed production are skilled art, so that the average farmer is not able to develop new planting materials that are high-yielding and disease-resistant again.

This is where plant breeders and seed companies come in. They have the expertise to develop new crop varieties and to multiply the planting materials for sale to farmers. This so-called “agribusiness” is one of the major turning points in the history of agriculture. For good or bad, agribusiness has forever changed our world; it has changed the face of agriculture since it became established, giving birth to an entire discipline known as agricultural economics. Therefore, multinational seed companies will remain an integral part of agriculture, whether they are accused of being in business to control the food sovereignty of nations or not.

If only we are willing to interrogate why Ghanaian traders always go for tomatoes produced by Burkinabe farmers, leaving virtually no market for those produced by Ghanaian farmers, we will appreciate the point that agriculture has come of age. Burkina Faso reportedly has a ‘superior technology’, enabling her production of better quality tomatoes that will not perish for many days and weeks, allowing traders enough time to distribute them to retailers. Can anyone then accuse Burkina Faso of controlling Ghana's tomato market? Although Burkina Faso practises GM agriculture, and is well known for her GM cotton, it is unclear to me what technology she uses for her tomato production.

In Anloga in the Volta Region of Ghana, for example, farmers prefer to buy and grow commercial tomato seed varieties during tomato growing seasons. This is because these seeds, compared to traditional varieties, give them high quality produce that stay fresh for several days, thus emulating the Burkina Faso story.

In conclusion, the arguments that it is desirable for farmers to save and replant seeds from their harvests are no longer sustainable. Those arguments belong to history. Agriculture is no longer a culture, where farmers must by all means save and grow seeds. Agriculture is now agribusiness.

The writer holds a First Class Honours BSc degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and an MSc degree in Plant Biotechnology (specializing in Molecular Plant Breeding and Pathology) from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He works at the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Contact: iagorsor@ucc.edu.gh