Africa torn between GM aid and starvation

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-375599,00.html

London Times
August 06, 2002

Africa torn between GM aid and starvation
From Michael Dynes in Johannesburg

STARVING nations in southern Africa are being forced to choose between
accepting genetically modified food aid or condemning millions of people to
death in the worst food shortage in 50 years. They fear the long-term
effects of GM foods, as well as their impact on exports to Europe.

After the UN World Food Programme appealed for £325 million to buy 1.2
million tons of food to prevent 13 million people from dying of starvation,
the United States, where GM products are widely used, donated nearly
300,000tons of food aid. But the UN agency has since said that it cannot
guarantee that its shipments will be GM-free.

Fears over the potential health and economic implications of a large influx
of GM foods into southern Africa are now so great that President Mwanawasa
of Zambia has said that he would rather let his people die than feed them
hazardous food. Rejecting a donation of GM maize from America until local
health experts had assessed its safety, Mr Mwanawasa said: “If it is safe,
then we will give it to our people. But if it is not, then we would rather
starve than get something toxic.”

Andrew Natsios, of the US Agency for International Development, said: “US
farmers cultivate both GM and non-GM crops. They are both mixed together.
There is no way they can be separated. If you want maize from the US, that’s
what you get.”

Zimbabwe, which is worst affected with six million people facing starvation,
refused to accept imports of GM maize for months, afraid that subsistence
farmers might use it as planting seed, which would allow it to
cross-pollinate with existing strains. The EU refuses to accept GM foods
grown outside Europe and Harare fears that GM maize could be eaten by
livestock, undermining Zimbabwe’s ability to certify that its beef exports
are GM-free. It has since agreed to accept donations of GM maize, but is
insisting that it is milled before entering the country to reduce the risk
of contamination.

Mozambique is equally unhappy about taking shipments of GM food. It is
demanding that all World Food Programme lorries carrying food aid into the
country are sealed with plastic sheets to minimise the threat of spillage.

Concerns about the health and economic consequences of accepting GM food aid
have also led to a debate about whether advances in biotechnology can be
harnessed to help to alleviate poverty and hunger in the world’s poorest
continent.

Florence Wambugu, a Kenyan scientist who pioneered the first genetically
modified sweet potato in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1990s, insists that
the new techniques promise to double or even triple crop yields. “Europeans
can afford to debate,” she said. “They are arguing from the comfort of a
food surplus. Hungry people want something to eat today.”

However, Andrew Taynton, a founder member of the Safe Food Coalition in
South Africa, said that the average American consumer eats maize only as a
small part of his or her diet. Little was known about the effects of GM
foods on people for whom maize makes up more than 90 per cent of their diet.

“Nowhere have we observed the long-term effects of GM foods,” he said.