FOCUS ON AFRICA http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=37&page=1
2 items from South Africa, the second of which makes much of SA's regulatory system with its Advisory Council and Executive Council, and so on. But GM lobbyists from AfricaBio have played a key role in shaping that system and still play a significant role from within the advisory Committee and its sub-committee in providing expert advice.
For more on SA's regulatory capture: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3633 and FOCUS ON AFRICA http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=37&page=1
1.Here's to you, Ms Robinson (Nestle SA)
2.GMOs to Eradicate Poverty, Says Dept
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1.Dear Ms Robinson,
I have seen your response to Mr Glen Tyler regarding his enquiry on your GM policy.
I have seldom seen such a misleading reply from a corporation and expect far better from what is apparently the world's biggest food corporation.
Your reference to AfricaBio as some sort of objective arbiter is highly misleading. AfricaBio clearly cannot to be trusted as an objective source.
Two of their board members are from Monsanto corporation, responsible for over 90% of global GM food. This corporation also controls nearly 100% of patents on GM crops planted in South Africa. Moreover, Monsanto and its subsidiaries carry inordinate voting rights in AfricaBio, further eroding any chance of objectivity that may be present. Therefore, for you to tell the public that AfricaBio is a source of objective information is inaccurate and misleading. It is the wolf watching the sheep. AfricaBio has long represented the interests not only of industry but also of academics whose very careers depend on the industry and who in many cases hold patents on GM applications, or interests in related technology, thus rendering their objectivity equally questionable.
If you have done as much research on the matter of food safety of GMOs as you have done on AfricaBio, I suggest you revisit this matter urgently.
For instance your suggestion that our regulatory system is meaningful, let alone stringent, or relies on publicly available biosafety assessments is completely without basis. Not a single feeding study, independent Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), comparative evaluation, or other published peer reviewed study has been done in South Africa to date, in regard to GMOs. In fact a public interest NGO has taken our regulators and Monsanto to court in order to gain access to this fundamental information.
If you have indeed been privileged to peruse such biosafety assessments and risk assessments it would be appreciated if you would share the same.
For a corporation involved in the production of food your statements are clearly irresponsible in their apparent lack of veracity. Do you realise that under the SA GMO Act that your corporation, as "the user" is deemed responsible for both health and environmental effects of GMOs on the public and the environment? Your corporation in turn passes on this onerous obligation to the public when you sell a product to us. There are significant and well documented problems with the health effects on animals of GMOs. Just as the tobacco industry now has to pay significant damages, so too the food industry is open to litigation in the future from failing to properly regulate GMOs and inform the public. I am only too happy to share some of these studies with you but suggest that you first read Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey Smith, who will be visiting SA later this year and who I am sure would be most interested to know of the position your company has taken in SA.
It is also important that your SA subsidiary of Nestle [] Switzerland squares with local consumers as to why your policy in SA differs from your policy on GMOs elsewhere. I have it from good sources that your company has promised its customers too that it would withdraw all GMO products from their range in Europe, the Far East and Australasia. If this is the case, is it not double standards to allow them to contaminate our food supply in South Africa? Surely a consistent position should apply to all Nestle products worldwide?
I find the position that your company is taking is completely unacceptable and will not purchase a single Nestle product ever again until some consistency, honesty and transparency is evident from yourselves. I will also advise my family and my circle of friends of my reasons for this action.
Sincerely Glenn Ashton Box 222 Noordhoek 7979 Cape Town South Africa This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. phone/fax 27 (0)21 789 1751
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2.GMOs to Eradicate Poverty, Says Dept
http://allafrica.com/stories/200407080152.html
BuaNews (Pretoria), July 8, 2004
Zibonele Ntuli
Pretoria
The National Department of Agriculture says the use and application of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) will play a crucial role in eradicating poverty.
However, the department has raised concerns that there are risks involved in the application of biotechnology.
GMOs are organisms in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating or natural recombination.
The added characteristic on plants reduces the need for chemical pesticides therefore increasing the resistance to insects, diseases and other pests that are capable of destroying crops.
All genetically modified foods are carefully assessed by laboratories to ensure that they are equal or better in ways to the conventional product and will not increase allergenicity or toxicity.
Briefing the media yesterday, Genetic Resources Director Julian Jaftha said government had passed the Genetically Modified Organisms Act to ensure that all activities involving the use of GMOs limited the possible harmful consequences to the environment.
Dr Jaftha said the Act also made a provision for the determination of requirements and criteria for risk assessment that would ensure GMOs were appropriate and not hazardous to the environment or human and animal health.
The GMO Act is administered by the Directorate Genetic Resources and makes provision for a Registrar, two regulatory bodies; Advisory Committee and Executive Council and Inspectors.
"The Registrar is responsible for the administration of the Act, the Advisory Committee is responsible for evaluation of risk assessment data within every application and the Executive Council for taking a decision on whether a specific activity should be authorized or not," said Dr Jaftha.
He said the inspectors were responsible for monitoring authorized activities with GMOs throughout the country.
He said the Advisory Council and the Executive Council had produced the guidelines for applying for the use of GMOs.
"These guidelines aim to provide general information on the provisions of the Act, functioning of the bodies appointed in terms of the Act, how applications are processed and provide assistance to the applicant on how to apply for a permit.
"The guidelines will aid in public understanding of the administration of the Act and increase transparency towards the regulation of GMOs in South Africa," he said.
The Department of Agriculture has since approved the planting of three GMO crops namely the insect resistant cotton, herbicide resistant cotton and insect resistant maize.