Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa - Matthew A. Schnurr

Schnurr & Mujabi Mujuzi. (2014). No one asks for a meal they’ve never eaten’; Or, do African farmers want Genetically Modified crops? Agriculture and Human Values, 31(4), 643-648.

This article reflects on the relative silence of African farmers within debates around the potential for GM crops to transform agriculture on the continent. It proposes two strategies for amplifying these voices – one focused on research methodologies, the other on outreach – in order to transform the conversation around GM’s potential in Africa into …

Dowd-Uribe, Glover, & Schnurr. (2014). Seeds and places: The geographies of transgenic crops in the global south. Geoforum, 53, 145-148

This editorial forms the introduction to a collection of papers that links geographical perspectives on science, knowledge, and practice, to debates around hunger and transgenic crops. We argue that the dynamics of agricultural production and patterns of food consumption are inescapably local and solutions to the problem of world hunger must be tailored to specific …

Schnurr. (2013). Bio-hegemony and biotechnology in Uganda: Unraveling the strategies used to promote Genetically Modified crops into new African market. Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(4), 639-658.

My aim in this article is to uncover the network of corporate actors, development agencies, policy officials, and research scientists that support the unquestioned dominance of GM in Uganda. I rely on Gramscian insights reveal how these constellations of power align to support biotechnology at the expense of other technological possibilities, and how this consensus …

Schnurr. (2012). Inventing Makhathini: Creating a prototype for the dissemination of Genetically Modified crops into Africa. Geoforum, 43(2), 784-792

This article emerged out of research investigating the case of smallholder cotton farmers in the Makhathini Flats, South Africa, who were among the first early adopters of Monsanto’s Bt cotton.. I emphasize the disconnect between the dominant representation of Makhathini that is celebrated in the scholarly and popular literature and the realities faced by its …

Witt, Patel, & Schnurr. (2006). Can the poor help Genetically Modified crops? Technology, representation, and cotton in the Makhathini Flats, South Africa. Review of African Political Economy, 33, 497-513.

This article emerged out of a collaboration with Dr. Harald Witt and Dr. Raj Patel, funded by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. Our project investigated the adoption of Genetically Modified (GM) cotton in South Africa’s Makhathini Flats, which was heralded as a case in which agricultural biotechnology could benefit …