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Maize Production in Africa

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what assessment his Department made of the accuracy of the statement by the Chief Scientific Adviser broadcast on 27 November 2007 that the push-pull system of maize production in Africa involved genetically modified crops; what steps his Department took to correct the elements of the statement which have been demonstrated to be inaccurate; and if he will make a statement. (219249)

[holding answer 16 July 2008]: In the Daily Mail on 18 December 2007, the then Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King was reported as acknowledging that he had made an honest mistake about the push-pull system of maize production. The technique, which has been developed by Rothamsted Research and local research institutes in Africa, does not currently involve genetic modification of the crops. Under the technique, repellent crops are planted between the rows of maize to drive the stemborer pests away from the maize (“push”) in combination with plants around the field that attract stemborers away from the maize (“pull”). Rothamsted Research reports that trials in Kenya and Uganda have helped participating farmers increase their maize yields by 20 to 50 per cent.

One of the “push” plants also controls a parasitic plant, the African witchweed, that otherwise causes even greater crop losses. The genetic basis of the mechanism is being studied by Rothamsted Research and its African collaborators under new funding from the Department for International Development and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.