Culturing Development: Bananas, Petri Dishes and ‘Mad Science’

Abstract

This paper analyses a biotechnology-focused project which aims to promote the development and adoption of tissue culture bananas by small-scale farmers in Kenya. The paper highlights the generation of several important narratives that are used to justify the development and dissemination of this technology. First, a disaster narrative, a series of claims regarding rural livelihoods and banana production in Kenya, is generated. This creates a political and technical space for the creation of a new science that can solve these problems. Finally a series of claims regarding the efficacy of the technology in alleviating poverty are made. The project wields these various constructs to create a particular projection of rural Kenya and banana production, deploying data, statistics, economics and ‘facts’ in order to continually redefine the project as a success. The project can, through a process of defining its own boundaries and limits, justify a technology-led solution to a complex and nuanced set of problems – the biological subsuming the political. The project thus succeeds as a generator of discourses as much as a generator of technologies.

Notes

1. Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’, vii.

2. Action Aid, ‘GM Crops’.

3. New Scientist, ‘Feeding Africa’.

4. Smith, ‘Povertà, potere e resistenza’, 158–72.

5. Bientema, Murithi and Mwangi, ‘Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators’.

6. ILRI, New Biosciences Facility.

7. ASARECA, ‘Development of a Long Term Strategic Plan’.

8. See work of Escobar, Kothari, Power and Ferguson,. or Latour or Woolger.

9. Escobar, ‘Beyond the Search for a Paradigm?’, 11–14.

10. Latour, Aramis, 23.

11. Latour, Aramis, 133.

12. Mosse, Cultivating Development.

13. Mosse, Cultivating Development. 157.

14. Escobar ,‘Beyond the Search for a Paradigm?’

15. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge.

16. Watts, ‘Development I’.

17. Escobar, ‘Beyond the Search for a Paradigm?’

18. Ferguson 1990, 18.

19. Mosse, Cultivating Development.

20. Ferguson 1990

21. Sturgis, ‘Science in Society’.

22. Kirk, ‘Pottering with Incorporation’, 32.

23. Brandt, North–South, 193.

24. Brown, ‘Making Globalisation Work for All’.

25. Latour, Aramis, 143.

26. Clark et al , ‘Research Capacity Building’.

27. Chambers, Challenging the Professions.

28. OECD, Shaping the 21st Century, 13.

29. Fowler, ‘Building Partnerships’.

30. Clark, ‘Innovation Systems’.

31. Kiome, ‘Development and Application of Science’.

32. Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’, 7.

33. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.

34. Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’.

35. INIBAP, Regional Network for Eastern Africa.

36. Qaim, Assessing the Impact of Banana Biotechnology.

37. Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’.

38. Freeman, Ellis, and Allison, ‘Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction’.

39. Evans and Ngau, ‘Rural–urban Relations’; Daniels and Mead, ‘The Contribution of Small Enterprises’.

40. Ferguson, 1990.

41. IITA.

42. Qaim, Assessing the Impact of Banana Biotechnology, 5.

43. Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’, ii.

44. Frisson et al. , Mobilizing IPM.

45. See Robinson et al., 1993; Robinson and Anderson, 1992; Qaim, 1999, 2000; Wambugu et al., 2000.

46. As far as I am aware the FAO datasets are the only reasonably accurate, systematic analyses of agricultural production and human consumption in Africa. As far as banana yields are concerned, no FAO datasets exist.

47. Qaim, Assessing the Impact of Banana Biotechnology; Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’.

48. Wambugu and Kiome, 2001., vii.

49. Wambugu and Kiome, 2001., 3.

50. Bananas are unusual in that they are propagated only from suckers from a ‘parent’ plant and not from seed.

51. Davies, ‘Banana and Plantain’.

52. Qaim, Assessing the Impact of Banana Biotechnology.

53. The issue is further muddied by the almost mystical ‘potential’ yield of 60 t ha^-1 that is often quoted. This is a yield not achieved anywhere in the world, yet it is often quoted as evidence that the growth of traditional suckers is being constrained due to disease.

54. Robinson, Fraser and Eckstein, ‘A Field Comparison’, 831–36.

55. Prof. Esther Kahangi, the principal investigator for a Jomo Kenyatta University tissue culture project, reported increased yields of three to four times in favour of tissue culture bananas in an interview at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, 30 October 2003.

56. During a study visit with Prof. Ester Kahangi, I was surprised that these questions were not addressed as part of her tissue culture projects post ante socio-economic survey. Indeed, her sociological research appeared to focus purely on why farmers were sometimes resistant to the new technology. In particular, it was a surprise that no assessment of tissue culture yields in an on-farm resource-poor setting was made.

57. Qaim, Assessing the Impact of Banana Biotechnology.

58. Parton, ‘Household Goals’, 327–28.

59. Which, tellingly, includes the recommended plant spacing for tissue culture bananas in Kenya of 3×4 metres, 450 plants per acre, which is more than double the amount of mats per unit area compared to traditional plant spacing. This in effect doubles TC yields automatically.

60. Qaim's study has been cited frequently by biotechnology institutions such as ISAAA, BioEarn, AfriBio and the World Bank amongst others as powerful evidence of the applicability of biotechnology to small-scale African farmers.

61. Latour, Aramis, 142.

62. Wambugu and Kiome, ‘The Benefits of Biotechnology’.

63. Smith, ‘Context-bound Knowledge Production’.

64. Latour, Aramis, 142.

65. Escobar, ‘Beyond the Search for a Paradigm?’