FOCUS ON AFRICA
http://www.gmwatch.org/africa.asp

EXCERPT: African scientists need to diffuse the biotech crisis of confidence. They must therefore continue to seek local solutions, involving and demanded by farmers rather than those imposed by the corporations whose interests have nothing to do with African wellbeing.
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Africa Must Steer Clear of GM Crops
John Bigyemano
New Vision, (Kampala, Uganda), October 20, 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200410200211.html

President Yoweri Museveni says he is now sufficiently mobilised to accept the growing of genetically modified crops in Uganda. By implication, Monsanto which has been operating in Uganda for some years can now formalise its presence here.

Officially we are on the commercial agro-biotech band wagon. In March last year, the Washington Post reported that Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Dow Agrosciences had agreed to share their technology with African scientists "in a broad attempt to increase food production on that continent where mass starvation is a recurrent threat".

Simply put, the 'big four', known more for the harsh measures they are willing to take to maintain a stranglehold on the world's food chain than for their philanthropy, are suddenly willing to donate patent rights, seed varieties and laboratory technology to help Africa. Why am I not excited?

According to Consumers International (Cl) the worldwide federation of consumer organisations, the 'big four' are not motivated by altruism. Rather, their expression of kindness is a strategy for survival to be viewed against the public's immense distrust of commercial agro-genetic engineering. The corporations nevertheless do acknowledge that they hope to "create new markets" in the long run - a short, innocuous, harmless phrase which is very easy to miss in the verbiage of corporate public relations brochures.

The search for new markets is what underlies the gestures! Surveys (including one by Discovery Channel in the USA, UK, Denmark, Taiwan, Turkey, Poland, Mexico and Brazil) show 60% of the respondents unwilling to eat GM food but a similar percentage said it was acceptable to send the food to countries in need!

Over-supply and public mistrust of gm technology means a shrinking market, a scramble for new markets by the agrobiotech corporations and hence their new-found empathy for Africa.

Uganda still lacks the regulatory framework to ensure that her agricultural gene pool of resources that have been used over millenia is not irreversibly polluted or decimated. The so-called sharing of technology, patents and seed varieties is thus seen as a new tool for undermining the food security of poor farmers in Africa and entrenching the control of the corporations.

The 'sharing' will heighten the unavoidable dependence of Ugandan farmers on pesticides, herbicides and seeds of the agro-biotech corporations that are suddenly willing to share technology and know- how. The sharing also has environmental implications. These include the potential for GM genes to mutate, the accidental triggering of "sleeper" genes on our ecosystem composed of wild species, wildlife, domestic animals, birds and insects.

For example, in the absence of a liability and redress regime, who would pay for damage resulting from field trials so close to the Queen Elizabeth National Park? What will happen if damage is detected after Monsanto has gone out of business, left Uganda or its directors and Ugandan partners have died?

According to the British Medical Association, one of the world's most distinguished body of physicians "insufficient care has been taken over the public health concerns....there has not been a robust and thorough search into the potentially harmful effects of GM foodstuffs on human health".

African scientists need to diffuse the biotech crisis of confidence.

They must therefore continue to seek local solutions, involving and demanded by farmers rather than those imposed by the corporations whose interests have nothing to do with African wellbeing.

The writer is Coordinator, Uganda Consumers Media Initiative