---
title: "The real GMO issue is whether farmers are allowed to compete"
description: "Beyond the clash over corporate power lies a simpler truth: denying technology to South African farmers won’t fix food insecurity – it just makes them less competitive globally."
type: "OpinionNewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Opinionistas"
author: "Tobias Doyer"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/tobias-doyer/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-08-16-the-real-gmo-issue-is-whether-farmers-are-allowed-to-compete/"
published: "2026-08-16T22:24:09"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1366
---

# The real GMO issue is whether farmers are allowed to compete

> Beyond the clash over corporate power lies a simpler truth: denying technology to South African farmers won’t fix food insecurity – it just makes them less competitive globally.

By Tobias Doyer · Published 17 August 2026, 00:24 SAST

## Content

![Signpost-Opinion](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/ToEp388PygKxbVnnboBpUQ3buys=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/label-Opinion.jpg)

A recent Daily Maverick [article by Ed Stoddard](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-01-gmos-and-precision-farming-bring-food-prices-down/) argued that GMOs and precision farming have contributed to lower food prices and improved affordability. A subsequent [Opinionista by Mariam Mayet](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-08-05-the-gmo-myth-cheaper-food-deeper-hunger-greater-corporate-power/) challenged that conclusion, arguing that the real issue is not lower prices for consumers, but corporate power and control over the food system.

Both articles raise important issues, but the question is not whether someone is pro-GMO or anti-GMO. The question is not whether one supports biotechnology or opposes it.

How do we build a food system that is productive, affordable, sustainable, inclusive and globally competitive, while ensuring that farmers remain economically viable?

Because without viable farmers there is no food security. To be viable, farmers must compete successfully on the global stage. Without competitiveness, there is no sustainable future for South African agriculture. Mayet is correct on one important point: hunger in South Africa cannot be solved by technology alone. Hunger is deeply linked to poverty, unemployment, inequality and economic exclusion. Any serious discussion about food security must acknowledge that reality.

But we should not confuse structural social challenges with the tools farmers use to produce food. Food insecurity is primarily an income and access problem. People go hungry because they cannot afford enough nutritious food. That is a profound societal challenge. Yet making agriculture less productive, less innovative and less competitive will not solve poverty. It will simply make food more expensive, food security more fragile, and farmers less able to compete. That is why we must keep everybody focused on the real issue – do farmers have access to safe, effective tools that help them remain profitable, produce food sustainably and compete globally?

### Two questions

The GMO debate often suffers from a fundamental confusion. There are two separate questions. The first is whether concentration, inequality and market power exist in food systems. The second is whether farmers should have access to technologies that improve productivity and competitiveness.

Those questions are related, but they are not the same. One can be concerned about corporate concentration while still recognising the value of innovation. One can support stronger competition policy while also supporting access to technology. One can advocate for fairer markets without expecting farmers to compete with fewer tools than their international competitors.

Technology becomes the target because it is easier to attack than the underlying structural problems.

A competition problem requires a competition solution. Market concentration should be addressed through competition law, market oversight and appropriate policy interventions. Technology should be evaluated through robust, science-based regulatory processes focused on safety, efficiency and stewardship. Conflating the issues creates poor policy and poorer outcomes.

What often gets lost in these debates is the lived reality of farming. Farmers do not operate in theory. They operate in biological, environmental and economic reality. Every season they face rising input costs, weather uncertainty, pest and disease pressure, tightening margins and increasing regulatory requirements. Every season they face the possibility that a poor production year could erase years of hard-earned progress.

Access to technology is not a luxury; it is often the difference between staying on the land and exiting agriculture.

We cannot reasonably expect South African farmers to compete globally while denying them access to the same categories of innovation available to producers elsewhere. This becomes even more important when we consider the broader competitive environment in which South African farmers operate.

### Limited institutional support

Unlike farmers in many developed economies, South African producers often compete with limited institutional support. They compete against producers in countries that benefit from extensive subsidies, stronger infrastructure, lower logistics costs, more efficient regulatory systems and more supportive policy environments.

The recent [wheat tariff decision](https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202606/54855gen3680.pdf) by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s International Trade Administration Commission reinforced an uncomfortable truth: when competitive disadvantages emerge, farmers cannot rely on policymakers to protect them, even against unfairly subsidised competition.

They will certainly not be protected from international competitors who have access to technologies South African farmers are not allowed to use. They have to fend for themselves. Producing more from what they have is often the only way to survive.

For farmers, productivity improvements and access to innovation are among the few tools available to offset disadvantages they did not create and cannot control. Nobody ever became more competitive by being denied better tools. In an increasingly competitive global market, access to technology is not a luxury. It is a survival imperative.

When anti-technology activists celebrate their victories, who carries the cost?

The African Centre for Biodiversity often refers to the recent [Supreme Court of Appeal decision](https://mg.co.za/news/south-africa/2024-10-28-sca-rules-against-monsanto-on-genetically-modified-maize/) that set aside an approval decision and referred the matter back for proper reconsideration, as a significant victory. What is being celebrated, in practical terms, is that South African farmers are denied access to drought-tolerant genetic technology that has been approved in many countries and is still used by [CIMMYT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Maize_and_Wheat_Improvement_Center), the highly reputable international maize research centre, in supporting small-scale farmers across Africa.

### Layers of options

This matters. South Africa is again facing a strongly developing El Niño cycle and the possible risks of hotter, drier conditions for the 2026/27 summer crop season. One must ask a very practical question: would it not have been useful for both commercial and developing farmers to have access to an additional drought-risk management tool?

It may not have solved every drought challenge. No single technology does. But in agriculture, resilience is built through layers of options. Removing one possible tool does not make farmers stronger. It leaves them with fewer choices precisely when climate risk is increasing. This is the point. While the rest of the world is debating how to enable more precise, faster and more targeted breeding tools, South African farmers are being left behind. We cannot expect our farmers to fight a global technology race with outdated tools. We cannot expect them to compete against better-supported international producers while making access to innovation slower, more expensive and more uncertain at home.

What concerns me most is that farmers too often become collateral damage in wider ideological battles.

The fight against corporate concentration is legitimate. Grain SA engages proactively by empowering farmers with information and participating in competition, intellectual property and plant breeders’ rights legislative processes. Similarly, farmers are often the smaller entities in food systems, and the fight against poverty and exclusion must remain a priority.

But farmers should not be collateral damage. They should not be expected to carry the cost of those battles.

Nobody should tell African farmers to reject the tools required for success while simultaneously expecting them to compete against producers elsewhere who continue adopting those same innovations. That is not empowerment. It is a poverty trap. Declining competitiveness ultimately means declining production, declining investment and fewer opportunities in rural communities.

### Evidence, not ideology

The future is improved genetics, conservation agriculture, precision farming, biological solutions, integrated pest management, stronger farmer support systems, better logistics, improved market access and more efficient regulation. These technologies should be evaluated according to evidence, not ideology. Regulation should protect safety while enabling innovation, ensure accountability while supporting competitiveness, and provide consumers with confidence and producers with certainty.

The reality is that South Africa needs both social justice and agricultural competitiveness. It needs both environmental sustainability and food affordability. It needs both effective regulation and access to innovation. Those goals are not mutually exclusive, but they do require us to remain focused on the right problem.

The issue is whether the system enables farmers to produce profitably, advance inclusion and transformation, compete fairly and continue contributing to food security. Poverty is not reduced by making farmers less competitive. Hunger is not addressed by limiting productivity. Inequality is not solved by denying developing farmers access to the same innovations available to their international competitors. Food security is not strengthened by making it harder for farmers to remain profitable and productive.

The most dangerous myth in this debate is not that technology can contribute to affordable food. It clearly can.

The most dangerous myth is the belief that restricting technology will somehow create a more just, equitable or food-secure society.

When farmers are equipped to compete, society benefits.

When farmers are denied the tools to compete, everyone eventually pays the price. **DM**