African consumer leaders came
out in support Zambia’s rejection of GM food after a stormy 3-day conference in
Lusaka. Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho reports.
Touchdown in Lusaka
The countryside looked
pleasantly green from recent rains, but that was deceptive. "This is supposed
to be the rainy season, but it has rained very little," the taxi-driver
told us. The government is already preparing for the worst: drought spreading
to other regions of the country.
"The southern and western
provinces are worst hit," said Myunda Ililonga, Chief Executive Officer of
Zambia Consumer Association. "There is normal rainfall in the northern and
eastern provinces."
The city of Lusaka itself is
full of greenery and extremely well kempt. There is almost no rubbish on the
ground, and no tall buildings to clutter the skyline. The people are very
friendly and helpful. The local beer, Mosi, made from malt, maize and hops, is
among the finest in the world.
Consumer International (CI), an
influential network of consumer groups in 115 countries, had organised a
conference in Lusaka for the African region on "Biotechnology and Food
Security". Zambia’s rejection of GM maize in the midst of famine has
raised the profile of GM crops; and there is a desperate need for quality
information.
Zambia’s president Levy
Mwanawasa had just reaffirmed his rejection of the 35 000 metric tons of GM
maize sent by the US, on the advice of his own experts. A delegation of Zambian
scientists and economists, headed by Dr. Wilson Mwenya of the National Science
and Technology Council, completed a fact-finding tour of laboratories and
regulatory offices in South Africa, Europe and the United States, and reported
back to the president. The report concluded that studies on the safety of GM
foods are inconclusive, and the US maize should be rejected as a precautionary
measure.
The Zambian delegation included
chief scientist Mwananyanda Lewanika, whose appearance in the Earth Summit
galvanised many other African countries to unite behind Zambia in a commitment
towards self-sufficiency and self-determination (Science
in Society 16).
The president had stopped GM
food already in the country from being distributed on 16 August after a
national debate, and amid intense pressure to accept the GM food aid from the
United States, the World Food Program, the World Health Organisation and the
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation.
But widespread support for
Zambia emerged when it transpired that there is plenty of non-GM maize
available in the US, and the US was simply blackmailing hungry and desperate
nations into accepting GM food (see Box).
The US has refused to provide
non-GM maize or cash, and refused even to provide cash to mill the maize. It
has violated the 1999 Food Aid Convention, of which it is a signatory. This
Convention stipulates that food aid should be bought from the most cost-
effective source, be culturally acceptable and if possible purchased locally so
that regional markets do not suffer.
Between now and March, it is
estimated that southern Africa will need up to 2m tonnes of emergency food aid
grain. The FAO says there are 1.16m tonnes of exportable non GM maize in Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. Europe, Brazil, India and China have
surpluses and stockpiles running into many tens of millions of tonnes. Even in
the US, more than 50% of the harvest has been kept GM-free.
Of the famine-stricken
countries in southern Africa, Swaziland alone accepted unprocessed maize.
Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique and Malawi had accepted milled maize flour only.
Widespread support for Zambia and condemnation of US
A coalition of 184 NGOs (including ISIS) registered
their opposition to the way in which USAID is foisting biotechnology on
Africa during a time of famine. They support a country’s right to refuse GM
food aid and call on USAID to untie its food aid policy to donating GM food
in kind.
More than 140 representatives from 26 countries in
Africa signed up to a
statement from African civil society in support of Zambia’s rejection of GM
food aid, and refusing to be used as "the dumping ground for
contaminated food".
OECD and the World Bank criticised
USAID’s self-serving agenda: "Among the big donors, the US has the worst
record for spending its aid budget on itself - 70 percent of its aid is spent
on US goods and services."
Oxfam condemned the
distribution of food aid contaminated with GMOs.
UK’s chief scientist David King denounced the United States’
attempts to force the technology into Africa as a "massive human experiment".
He questioned the morality of the US’s desire to flood genetically modified
foods into African countries, where people are already facing starvation in
the coming months.
Director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), Jacques Diouf, said: "Wedon’t need GMOs to feed
the 800 million people who are hungry in the world today."
Jean Ziegler, UN official said, "Genetically modified
organisms could pose a danger to the human organism and public health in the
medium and long term. The argument that GMOs are indispensable for overcoming
malnutrition and hunger is not convincing."
James Clancy, president of Canada's National Union of
Public and General Employees said, "[A]ll
some folks in the US government and business communities can
think of is how to make even more money off [Africa’s] suffering"
Dr Charles Benbrook, leading US agronomist and former
Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National Academy of
Sciences,
said, "There is no shortage of non-GMO foods which could be offered to
Zambia and to use the needs of Zambians to score "political points"
on behalf of biotechnology was "unethical and indeed shameless".
Carol Thompson, a political economist at Northern
Arizona University,
commented, "It is highly unethical not to just cover the costs for
milling. Tell me how much it costs to drop one bomb on Afghanistan. Who is
starving whom here?"
Roger Moore, goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, said, it was
"inhuman" for the US to refuse other aid to Zambia, because of its
rejection of GM food.
Many countries have given non-GM and financial
assistance.
According to Zambian government sources, South Africa has sent 10 000 tonnes,
and China, 4 000 tonnes of non GM maize. EU has given €15 million to purchase
non-GM food. Japan has also proffered financial assistance.
(See Norfolk Genetic Engineering Network website for
details http://ngin.tripod.com/forcefeed.htm)
|
The anticipated debate
The atmosphere was charged from
the beginning as representatives from Africa Bio, industry’s ‘NGO’ based in
South Africa and ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of
Agri-Biotech Applications), as well as many international agencies were invited
along with Dr. Michael Hansen from Consumer’s Union USA, and myself from ISIS,
to debate the science.
Consumer International regional
director Amadou Kanoute named the international agencies invited that have
failed to come to the conference: Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),
United States Agency for International Development (USAID), World Health
Organisation (WHO) and the European Union.
According to Auxillia Motsi,
Food and Nutrition coordinator Programme of CI- region of Africa, who organised
the conference, several pro-biotech organisations dropped out when they learned
I was on the programme.
I believe they are afraid to
debate the science in terms that the public can understand, so they can
maintain the myth that ‘anti-GM’ is ‘anti-science’.
What the real scientists said
In the event, the ISAAA
representative failed to show up, so Michael Hansen had the whole session on
"Biotechnology, Environment, Health and Economic Issues" to himself.
He went into considerable detail on the hazards, dispelling the myths that
genetic engineering is just like conventional breeding, that GM foods had been
subject to the most extensive safety assessment and regulation than any other
food, and that all the commercially released GMOs are safe.
It turns out that FDA never did
any safety testing, and its letter giving approval invariably states it is the company, not the FDA, that has
concluded the GM varieties "are not materially different in composition,
safety, or other relevant parameters" from those "currently on the
market", and "they do no raise issues that would require premarket
review or approval by FDA."
It was Belinda Martineau, the
scientist who conducted the safety studies on the first commercial GM crop, who
finally exposed the regulatory sham in her recent book, First Fruit, the Creation of the
Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods.
Hansen also presented
substantial evidence that the ‘biopesticide’ Bt - endotoxins from soil
bacterium, Bacillus
thuringiensis – widely
incorporated into GM crops for controlling insect pests, are allergens and
immunogens, and can damage the gut.
I shared the session on
"Biotechnology, Food Security and Trade" with Jocelyn Webster of
Africa Bio, and Cissokho Mamadou, farmer from Senegal representing Farmers and
Producers of West Africa.
I referred to the copious
evidence documenting GM crops failing on all counts, that they have been an
economic disaster for farmer and the industry, and that the hazards to health
and the environment are now undeniable. I dwelled at some length on the recent
evidence of horizontal gene transfer that I have just delivered to my own
government (UK) in an open meeting, and recommended decisive action "to
stop this dangerous experiment now and let farmers in Africa and elsewhere get
on to farm sustainably for health and self-sufficiency". (See "GM debacle,
bad science + big business = ?" )
I also stressed that it is
incorrect to say, "there is no evidence of harm". On the contrary,
there is already reasonable
suspicion of harm, which, in accordance with the precautionary principle,
should demand immediate cessation of all environmental releases of GMOs.
Cissoko Mamadou emphasized that
traditional knowledge has helped us master the use of our plants for medicine
through natural procedures, which is scientifically recognized worldwide.
"Unfortunately, no-one is interested in promoting this knowledge. Instead,
it is the knowledge of biotechnology corporations which is being promoted and
forced upon us."
That struck a chord among the
participants from 23 African countries, including the poorest in the world.
The Minister of Agriculture and
Cooperatives, Hon. Mundia Sikatana, who sent a speech to open the conference,
has said, "The challenge before scientists is to develop technologies that
are relevant to our conditions and our way of life."
What industry said
Webster began by objecting
strongly to the current issue of Science
in Society 16 included in the
delegates’ registration pack, calling it "a one-sided" document. If
so, she more than redressed the balance. She sang undiluted praises of GM
crops. ‘Anti-GM’ was ‘anti-science’, she implied, and dismissed all evidence of
risks and of agronomic failures.
It is amazing how every
pro-biotech scientist manages to say the same things. I’m told that training
courses are put on for them to deal with people like myself.
Webster staged repeated
outbursts and ‘walkouts’ whenever anyone said anything she did not like. She
"behaved like a petulant child", according to many of the delegates.
While the official meeting was
going on, she and her colleagues, Dr. Wynand van der Walt, representing the
National Seed Organisation of South Africa, and Professor Diran Makinde,
‘bioethicist’ and dean of Agriculture at Vinda University, South Africa, and
also member of Africa Bio, held a press conference in which she outrageously
launched personal attacks against Michael Hansen and myself. According to the
journalists who later reported back to us, she accused Hansen of presenting
‘fake’ and ‘out-of-date’ data, and made insulting remarks suggesting that I was
not a ‘real scientist’.
Fortunately, this generated
many interviews on television in which Michael Hansen, Amadou Kanoute and
others had plenty of opportunity to put things right. There was widespread
press coverage of the event, thanks, at least partly to the rogue press
conferences that Webster and friends held.
Webster and van der Walt
presented ‘data’ painting a rosy picture of how poor farmers in the Makhatini
Flats of South Africa adopted Bt-cotton, and as a result boosted their yields,
cut the use of herbicides and increased their income. However, those figures
were thrown into considerable doubt when it transpired that they were not based
on any published scientific report.
According to Mariam Mayet of
Greenpeace, there is a report on the project, which is
being "suppressed" by Monsanto. And when she challenged van der Walt,
he said there was no report at all, and all the figures came from him
personally.
Van der Walt began his
presentation with a history of the movement of crop plants from one continent
to another, to show that ‘biopiracy’ is not new, and that it was very important
to protect intellectual property rights and to harmonise all over Africa with
regard to seed supply.
The obvious riposte to the
first half of his message is that no one patented the plant varieties in all
the centuries when they were moved freely between the continents. But the
second half of his message is the intended corporate stranglehold over
certified seeds, which would prevent farmers from buying and selling or
exchanging indigenous seeds, or even planting them. That requires urgent
proactive action, I told the conference. It is necessary to set up community,
national and regional seed banks and food banks, which, in addition to all the
measures that the Zambian government has put into motion, would greatly
contribute to food security in the long term (see "Zambia
will feed herself from now on", to be circulated).
As for the many ‘benefits’ of
GM crops, Webster had to admit under duress that they were
"potential!", ie, baseless.
A naïve listener to the
‘bioethicist’ Makinde would be forgiven for thinking that God is on the side of
the corporations, globalisation and genetic modification. He sprinkled his
presentation with frequent quotes from the gospels. "Is it ethical to
starve the populous in view of the fact that there is no scientific evidence against
eating genetically engineered foods? Should economic and health status take
priority over ethics?"
Industry and the pro-biotech
lobby have done their propaganda. A journalist suggested that if there is
"open market" in Zambia, GM crops "will outsell non-GM". If
that were the case in the world at large, I said, the US would not have had to
dump unsold GM maize on Zambia and the rest of famine-stricken southern Africa.
The state of famine in Zambia is greatly exaggerated
In the course of the conference,
it became clear that Zambia’s famine, though serious, has been greatly
exaggerated by the pro-biotech lobby. Peter Henriot of the Jesuit Centre for
Theological Reflection (JCTR) said, "The figure of 2.9 million affected by
the famine is not correct, it is closer to 1.9 million. That’s still very
serious in a country of 10 million."
Rumours were rife, many coming
from the local WFP office. People were apparently told that the Americans have
given Zambia "a ‘miracle maize’ that’s very tasty and nutritious, and
grows in 30 days".
The point was repeatedly made
that there is enough food in Zambia to alleviate the situation. There is
substantial surplus of Cassava in the Northern province and elsewhere that
could be purchased and shipped to the worst hit areas in the Southern province
for distribution. There is also still some locally produced maize available in
some parts of the country.
Dr. Obed Lungu, dean of the
school of agriculture at the University of Zambia, was among those who stated
in the strongest terms, "No one has died of famine, despite claims in the
hostile media. And there is enough food to feed everyone." The government
has to offer the northern farmers the right purchase price and to solve the
logistics of distribution.
This was driven home in a video
produced jointly by the JCTR and Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre, the two
organisations that first documented the surplus of Cassava in the north, and
the readiness of people in the famine-stricken regions to eat Cassava instead
of their usual diet of maize. Part of the solution was indeed to purchase
Cassava from the north and distribute it in the south, said Bernadette
Lubozhya, researcher for JTCR. That has the added advantage of stimulating
local agriculture.
The same problem afflicts
Mozambique, said Samuel Boni of Pro-Consumers Mozambique, and probably also
other southern African countries. So why not solve the problem similarly?
The Lusaka Declaration
The conference ended on a high
note with the "Lusaka Declaration" supporting Zambia. It rejects GM
technology as a solution for food security. It also rejects private
intellectual property rights on genetic resources for food and agriculture, and
demands that industry stops its "unethical influence on critical policy
and decision making instruments and processes on biotechnology."
More importantly, it affirms
that African countries can address food security through "maximising
existing resources, tackling distribution problems; promoting local foods which
are low-tech and highly resistant" to drought and other adverse
environmental influences.
The Lusaka Declaration reflects
the mood of elation that overcame the delegates. Kwaku Boateng of the Consumer
Association of Ghana said, "Africa is waking up!"
As if to shower blessing on the
event, rain fell through the night as we were due to depart.
No comments:
Post a Comment