Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers.
On 18 August a
drought-affected Kenyan government fired the head of its National Biosafety
Authority for expediting the process to import milled food aid which might have
contained genetically modified organisms (GMO). In the weeks preceding and
after the incident, public debate on the issue was distorted by extreme positions
either for or against GM food.
“When you have people starving in your country you don’t
simply turn your back on food at your
door-step just because it is labelled GM – it is expected that biosafety risk
assessments should have been conducted before the importation of the food to
see whether it does indeed pose a threat before taking a decision. Taking this
decision so late in the day could have
serious consequences for the suffering people,” says Diran
Makinde, director of the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development’s (NEPAD’s) African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE), a pool
of scientific experts set up by the African Union.
There have been different degrees of resistance to GM food
and GM food aid in Africa.
In 2002 Zambia
announced it would not accept GM food aid in any form. Positions were polarized
to a great extent after a US
state department official said, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
It prompted the then president, Levy Mwanawasa, to say
hunger was no reason for feeding his people “poison.” Since then Zambia
has become a poster-child for the anti-GM lobby.
Zimbabwe,
Malawi and Mozambique
say they could allow imports of GM food aid
in its milled form,
as this eliminated the risk of the germination of whole grains and limited
possible contamination of local varieties.
Lesotho
and Swaziland
allowed the distribution of non-milled GM food/grains, but warned people that
it was for consumption not cultivation.
In 2004, Angola
and Sudan
announced restrictions on GM food aid. Most African countries approach GM
technology applied to crops with caution.
“Why shouldn’t we be wary of this technology and its
possible long-term health impacts, if the EU [European Union] is. If it is not
good for them, why should it be good for us?” said Tewolde
Egziabher, Ethiopia’s
director of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Egziabher was one of the main architects of the Cartagena
Protocol, the international law on biosafety which came into effect in 2003 and
which allows countries to impose bans on foods containing GM.
The Protocol’s cornerstone is “precaution,” notes a UN
Environment Programme briefing. It gives governments the discretion to impose
bans even where there is
insufficient scientific evidence about the potential adverse
effects of GM crops. The USA
has yet to ratify the Protocol.
GM technology inserts foreign genes into a crop that can
improve its appearance, taste, nutritional quality, drought tolerance, and
insect and disease resistance. There has been cautious optimism about the new
technology in some quarters.
“As crop yields drop because of weather shocks, GM
technology is not the panacea, as Africa will feel the
impact of climate change in the long-term. But it is potentially yet another
tool in our fight to improve production,” said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, 2001
World Food Prize laureate and the author of a book on the politics of GM food.
Most critics of GM food, however, argue that foreign genes
can produce toxic proteins and allergens, even possibly transfer the genes to
bacteria in the human gut; or transfer these traits to other crops with unknown
consequences.
A deep mistrust also prevails in Africa,
given the fact that two power blocs - the EU and the USA
remain divided over GM. Only one strain of GM maize, Monsanto 810, and one
modified potato, have been approved in the EU, and most countries grow neither
commercially. Spain
accounts for about 80 percent of GMO grown in the EU in terms of land under
cultivation, but Austria,
France, Greece,
Hungary, Germany
and Luxembourg
have banned all GMO cultivation.
On the other hand, in the USA,
where 70 percent of maize is GM, GM food need not be labelled. Some food
experts say both the EU and the USA have vested interests in promoting their
respective views in Africa, which is seen as a potential market and supplier of
either GM or non-GM products.
In Africa, the production of GM food
is still in its infancy. South Africa
(70-80 percent of its maize, soya and cotton production), Egypt
(maize) and Burkina Faso
(cotton) are the only African countries commercially producing GM crops,
according to ABNE.
Traditionally the USA
has been the biggest donor in kind to the World Food Programme (WFP). But the
aid agency is trying to broaden its source of food aid. In 2010, WFP said 36 percent
of its food aid, or two million out of 5.7 million tons disbursed globally, was
procured in developing countries.
While wheat accounts for more than 50 percent of WFP’s
global cereal component, GM wheat does not figure as it is not grown commercially.
According to data from 2006, at least 38 percent of cereal
food aid to Africa was wheat and wheat flour, said
Christopher Barrett, a food aid expert. Though wheat tends to be a less
important part of the African diet than maize, aid agencies
sometimes offer wheat instead of GM maize in emergencies.
Milling the grain is an obvious solution, said Julia Steets,
an aid policy expert at the Global Public Policy Institute.
"Milling either at source or in the port of arrival or
in the prepositioning warehouses -
it would of course also help to know in advance which
governments take what positions on that, so that the food aid agencies are
prepared."
"The stance of recipient countries has to be respected.
When a country prohibits GMO, sourcing alternative commodities and routes can
“obviously impact delivery times and costs but those are the parameters in
which we work,” said David Orr, WFP spokesman. “We always abide by the laws and
regulations of recipient countries.”
If a country is not receptive to GM food - “give the country
the money for procurement of the food from an African country with a surplus (local
procurement is better than shipping food all the way from the US
any way),” said Pinstrup-Andersen.
Food aid agencies in Africa usually
turn to South Africa
for surplus maize. The country has systems in place to segregate non-GM from
GM, says Thom Jayne, professor of international development at Michigan
State University.
Farmers in South Africa
certify non-GM content by conducting a basic test, which detects specific
proteins produced by a GM plant. The non-GM grain is separated from the rest
before being shipped.
Another way of separating GM from non-GM crops involves
contract-farming schemes first set up in 2004-2005. The process involves the
purchaser identifying farmers who buy non-GM seed. Tests are conducted on their
field for any traces of GM before they are offered a contract.
But all these measures involve extra costs.
In 2001 the African Union drafted the African Biosafety Model
Law but taking an even more cautious approach than the Protocol, allowing
countries to adopt more stringent measures to assess the safety of GM food.
National biosafety laws exist in 17 of the 54 African
countries. In most countries, the legislation is a work-in-progress.
Labelling and verifying the content of a crop on a day-to
day basis is an outstanding issue. South Africa,
the first country in Africa to put biosafety laws in
place (in 1997), has yet to develop a labelling process.
More public education and debate around GM food needs to
happen, said Pinstrup-Andersen. “Almost all GM-food varieties have been through
stringent testing for health safety, which non-GM food has not undergone ever.
People need to engage with the science and not the politics.”
IRINnews
