“GNR (gene, nano, and robotics) technologies can cure the earth but they can also turn out to be more destructive than all the weapons on earth” says Birgit Schwarz, an investigative journalist.
“GNR (gene, nano, and robotics) technologies can cure the earth but they can also turn out to be more destructive than all the weapons on earth” says Birgit Schwarz, an investigative journalist.
Schwarz is the Project Director of the online publication, frayintermedia and was invited to facilitate a workshop held at Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies on 4 August. She particularly emphasises the need for journalists to be able to inform the public about scientific findings, so that people are able to make their own choices. The scientific language is unintelligible jargon to most people, and journalists are not able to explain these findings in a language that the layman will understand.
The workshop was sponsored by the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement and explored “From toxic water to profitable ponds or buds into the battle” was chaired by Schwarz. It was geared towards opening communications between scientists and journalists on biotechnology and environmental biotechnology issues and how processes could be communicated to the public.
Picking up on what Schwarz said: “Two thirds of South Africans do not know what GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are and what this concept is, and because of this, they are not able to make informed decisions about the kind of foodstuffs to eat or not and why they have to make those decisions” said Prof Keith Cowan, the director of the Institute for Environmental Biotechnology at Rhodes University (Ebru).
Schwarz handed out information to the workshop participants to generate a debate on GMO foods. GMOs are edible plants such as maize and soya, which are genetically modified by scientists to produce crops that are tolerant to drought, insects and disease and weeds. This also includes scientifically manipulating certain strains of the organism to produce super hybrids such as, for example, bigger, redder tomatoes. Therefore, farmers don’t need to apply herbicides to GMO crops as they have been genetically programmed to produce their own herbicides to kill off weeds. These crops can be good in the sense that more crops such as maize for example, can be produced in large quantities which appears to solve the problem in drought ravaged nations and countries. However, the down side is that GMO seeds cannot reproduce without more genetic modification taking place. Thus it is not clear what effect eating GMO foods could have on consumers in the long term.
On the panel were Dawn Barkhuizen, leader page editor for the Daily Dispatch; Prof Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Murray & Roberts Chair of Environmental Education and Sustainability at Rhodes; Irene de Moor, chairperson of the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa (Wessa) and Janice Limson, senior lecturer in biotechnology at Rhodes.
After a visit to the sewage management site at Ebru, they tackled issues such as how sewage and industrial waste could be processed using low cost environmental biotechnologies. Through allowing sewage to undergo a process of fermentation, biogas called methane is produced. The gas can be used for heating houses or running small engines such lawnmowers. After the methane is extracted, some solid matter is left over which mostly consists of algae that can be used to fertilise gardens and lawns. This low cost fermentation process also produces recycled water which according to Dave Render, water engineer at Ebru is drinkable but at the moment is being used for fish farming until further tests are done to test whether it is fit for human consumption
