On July 25, 2024, farmers, scientists, and officials gathered in Nyankpala, Ghana, to debut Songotra T, a genetically modified cowpea. For over a decade, scientists at Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) collaborated with American agribusiness company Monsanto, scientists from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Australia, and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) to develop a cowpea resistant to an insect called the maruca pod borer (Rock 2022).

At the launch event, Songotra T was “distributed to farmers for free to encourage adoption and boost interest in the new variety.” The distribution of new seed varieties is a common feature of agricultural development schemes in Ghana and elsewhere. It helps to market both the seed— “to encourage adoption and boost interest”—and the seed developer.

But with genetically modified seeds like Songotra T, seed distribution is also a moment where a relationship is born. By accepting the seed, the farmer—whether they are aware of it or not—has entered into a relationship with the seed developer, one that will last through the lifecycle of crop production. Within this relationship, the developers of Songotra T will expect farmers to be knowledgeable of and willing to take on responsibility to be “stewards” of the plants.

From where did these politics of vegetal care emerge?

Genetically modified (GM) crops, plants modified with genes from another species to confer some sort of trait, are extremely controversial plants. For some, they are a way to feed the world. For others, they are a tool of powerful corporations.

The strong opposition of GM crops has resulted in global biosafety regimes: policies that outline how countries regulate GM plants. Biosafety policies are based primarily on “risk-based assessment methodologies” (Macnaghten 2016, 283), and developers wishing to commercialize a GM crop must submit documentation to detail the molecular makeup, trait expression, and potential environmental risk posed by the crop.

Such an emphasis on risk, some argue, has “[framed] . . . the public debate surrounding GM crops . . . to one of safety” (Macnaghten 2016, 283). But discourses of risk and safety are perceived by the biotechnology industry to be negative, who, seeking to reframe public debate, have introduced an alternative model of stewardship. Like biosafety, stewardship “[assesses] the potential impact of a trait, product or technology on human health and the environment” (Mbabazi 2020, 106). However, rather than frame impact as risk, the stewardship model outlines how “each person in the product life cycle – innovators, scientists, and technology users, [can] share responsibility” of the product (Mbabazi 2020, 106; emphasis mine). In this framing, risk is acknowledged rather than denied, developers seek to share that risk, and stewardship plans lay out steps of caring for said risk.

In Ghana, stewardship plans are a voluntary way for a developer to show their commitment to sustainability. In the case of Songotra T, developers submitted a stewardship strategy mainly focused on how to avoid, or at least delay, a scenario where the maruca podborer grows resistant to the bacterium used to express insect-resistance, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Just as viruses can develop drug-resistance, so too can insects. The stewardship plan outlines the responsibilities of different actors to avoid this scenario.

Farmers wishing to grow Songotra T, for example, are expected to work with their community to ensure that half of all cowpea fields are grown with non-GM varieties to serve as refugia. They are also expected to monitor their Songotra T for potential damage, and if found, report damage to a seed dealer or extension agent. When a report is received, the latter must visit the farm, confirm damage and determine whether it is caused by the maruca pod borer. If damage is due to maruca, seed dealers are to contact CSIR, who will then check whether the damaged plants are indeed Songotra T plants. If confirmed, CSIR will next report findings to AATF, who will determine subsequent steps.

The vegetal care laid out by this plan is one of surveillance, reporting, and collaboration. Stewarding involves numerous human actors, caring not only for Songotra T, but also for non-GM cowpea. But this vision of caring is not without its challenges. It leaves little room, for instance, for farmers to study and learn from their plants. Moreover, collaboration between farmers, seed dealers, and scientists is easier said than done. Research from elsewhere suggests that these relationships are often tenuous, with “agricultural technicians and farmers freely [blaming] one another for” the emergence of “pest resistance and herbicide tolerant weeds” (Glover 2015, 5).

Moreover, Songotra T, now equipped with Bt, is a potential risk unto itself. The expression of Bt is designed to kill maruca, allowing farmers to reduce pesticide application. But one challenge of Bt is that maruca might grow resistant to it. This is because Songotra T is equipped with a single Bt gene, Cry1Ab, which makes it susceptible to pest resistance.

Acknowledging this design vulnerability, Songotra T’s developers are in what they describe as “an arms race between the insects and plants” to develop additional cowpeas with “more than one gene to avoid the development of resistance in the insect populations.” Howeover, for farmers considering growing Songotra T, like those present at the launch event, the possible development of Bt-resistant maruca is a new risk with which farmers must contend. Were such a scenario to arise, it is unclear whether and how different actors, and plants, would have the capability to respond.

Applying a lens of responsability bears fruit for further inquiry: What then does it mean to care, and to share responsibility in that care, for a plant that is always already risky? And what might stewardship look like if it confronted messiness (Glover 2015) and sought to encapsulate the “social worlds” of GM crops (Macnaghten 2016)? Caring for genetically modified plants might not be something that can be shared “equally,” as stewardship aims to do. But caring response-ably may be one place to start, and would first require attending to plants, as well as farmers and developers, as agentive, responsive entities.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Olivia Angé and Susannah Chapman for inviting me to join this planty collaboration. I also wish to thank Susannah, Eva Steinberg, and Helen Anne Curry for their keen insights into the discourse and temporality of stewardship, and provocative questions around risk and agency.