NOTE: African farmers’ movements and civil society groups are warning of a “new wave of colonialism” targeting their food systems for corporate profit.
http://www.acbio.org.za/activist/index.php?m=u&f=dsp&petitionID=3

As the Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey has warned, this corporate onslaught on Africa by Monsanto and its ilk is only likely to intensify now that Europe appears blocked off for expansion.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14875:monsanto-gives-up-fight-for-gm-in-europe

COMMENT by Helena Paul of Econexus: Easing bans on GM crops in Africa: what will be the impacts on land, water, communities, food security, and food sovereignty?

As Argentina shows, and now Paraguay and Uruguay, plus India, especially with cotton, the impacts on small/peasant food providers are really serious:

Large corporations move in and take over, as under the guise of "feeding Africa" or "raising millions from poverty". Whether it’s Yara, or Cargill, John Deere, or Syngenta, Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, and their friendly governments plus the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and FAO, plus the G8 summit this year with Grow Africa and The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, plus the agricultural growth corridors, they will take control of seeds, of "inputs" of all kinds and make farmer varieties illegal or marginalise them as they have nearly succeeded in doing in Europe.

They turn land for food into land for export crops, and along come the herbicide tolerant weeds, the compacted and destroyed soils, the theft of water as well as land... And people are poisoned with chemicals and intimidated, pushed into debt and committing suicide by drinking pesticides.

People are driven off their land under the guise of improving agriculture, or they are given titles (perhaps) and turned into outgrowers, contracted to a company or companies which dictates all the terms while the farmer takes the risks and may lose that land too, if there are debts to be paid. In fact this kind of titling can lead to the concentration of land in the hands of a few.

It has all happened or is ongoing in Argentina and Paraguay ... Now those companies have turned their gaze on Africa.

Remember the report from UNEP and UNCTAD in 2008: Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa that said clearly: "The evidence presented in this study supports the argument that organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and that it is more likely to be sustainable in the long term."
http://unctad.org/en/Docs/ditcted200715_en.pdf

Another thing we should remember about organic is that the best organic systems are in the hands of the farmers themselves to build on and exchange knowledge and experience with each other, not in the grip of the large corporations.

See also:
Argentina: A Case Study on the Impact of Genetically Engineered Soya
http://www.econexus.info/publication/argentina-case-study-impact-genetically-engineered-soya
African Agricultural Growth Corridors: Who benefits, who loses?
http://www.econexus.info/african-agricultural-growth-corridors-who-benefits-who-loses
---
---
As health fears ebb, Africa looks at easing GM crop bans
Charlie Dunmore and Olivia Kumwenda
Reuters, 6 June 2013
http://www.euronews.com/newswires/1982582-as-health-fears-ebb-africa-looks-at-easing-gm-crop-bans/

BRUSSELS/JOHANNESBURG – African countries keen to improve crop yields, reduce hunger, and protect themselves from climate change have begun to reassess their objections to genetically modified crops, after following Europe’s lead in largely banning the technology.

While North and South American producers enthusiastically embraced genetically modified crops nearly two decades ago and use is spreading in Asia, many European and African countries have banned it, in part because of public fear of health risks.

For many governments, those health concerns have eased after years in which genetically modified food has been grown and consumed safely around the world.

In a sign of changing attitudes, European authorities had only a muted response last week when U.S. officials said that an unapproved strain of modified Monsanto wheat had been found growing on a farm in Oregon.

Yet public opposition to GM foods still remains intense in some countries, and European officials say the easing of health concerns is unlikely to yield a big change in their policy any time soon. Countries such as Austria and France have blocked proposals to make EU cultivations rules more flexible.

But in Africa, where governments are increasingly searching for ways to feed growing populations, there are signs that restrictions could be gradually lifted.

“There is growing recognition that African countries will need to use a range of modern technologies, including biotechnology, to adapt crops to new ecological conditions,” Calestous Juma, a Kenyan professor of international development at Harvard University in the United States told Reuters.

AFRICAN EXPLORATION

Approving GM crops in Africa has so far been slow. Until 2008, South Africa was the only country on the continent that allowed the commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops, such as maize, cotton and soybeans.

That year Egypt started growing small quantities of altered maize and Burkina Faso allowed GM cotton. Last year, Sudan also began allowing GM cotton. They are still the only four African countries that allow GM crops to be grown commercially.

South Africa still accounts for the nearly all of the 3 million hectares of GM crop plantings in Africa, dwarfing the 129,000 hectares in largely GM-free Europe but still a tiny fraction of the 170 million hectares of global GM crops.

According to the African Biosafety Network of Expertise, an African Union-run network for regulators, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda have taken the step of approving confined trials of genetically altered plants.

Parliament in Africa’s most populous country Nigeria has voted to loosen the country’s ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with a bill awaiting presidential approval.

“The bill’s quite cautious. The government’s concern is that it does not want to make Nigeria a testing ground for GMOs, as has happened in the past with pharmaceuticals,” said Kola Masha, who advises the government on agribusiness.

Genetically modified cotton has been a test case, seen as safer than other crops because it does not enter the food chain.

“We don’t eat our clothes, so people are less concerned about cotton. This would be the first way in for GMOs,” said Masha in Nigeria.

Caroline Theka, an environment officer in Malawi, said that country had approved trials for modified cotton but not for modified food crops.

Elsewhere, trials are focused on crops tailored to local markets and conditions, like insect-resistant black-eyed peas and bananas that contain high levels of vitamin A, which helps physical growth and development.

However some African countries are moving in the opposite direction. Kenya set up a biosafety authority in 2009 which approved a few applications for import of genetically modified crops, mainly humanitarian aid for neighbouring countries.

But last November, citing potential health risks, the government imposed a ban, over the authority’s objections.

EUROPE PLANTING STILL FAR OFF

In Europe, the prospects for increased cultivation remain remote, even though health arguments are no longer at the forefront of opposition to GM crops.

“When I speak to people who are very unhappy with the idea of GM technology, they’re no longer saying to me "I think it’s dangerous",” the European Commission’s chief scientific adviser, Anne Glover, told a seminar in Brussels in April.

Despite national restrictions on growing GM crops, Europe is one of the world’s major buyers of biotech grain, importing more than 30 million tonnes of mostly GM animal feed each year.

With no evidence of health effects to seize on, opponents have turned in part to economic and political arguments, saying that GM food puts too much power in the hands of the firms that develop it and control the market for seed.

“Public opposition to GMOs is still alive in Europe. The concerns are clearly focussed on the companies and the role they play in the deployment of GMO products, as well as the lack of benefits,” said Greenpeace’s EU GMO campaigner Marco Contiero.

Campaigners estimate that 2 million people in 50 countries took part in demonstrations last month against Monsanto.

Monsanto says its products help improve yields and produce more food, while reducing the amount of water, land and energy needed to grow it.

“Monsanto spends more than $4 million (2.5 million pounds) a day in research and development to deliver higher yields and improve the sustainability of farming. Intellectual property is an important and completely legitimate means to that end,” said spokesman Brandon Mitchener.

(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks in Lagos, Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, James Macharia in Nairobi and Frank Phiri in Blantyre; Editing by Veronica Brown and Peter Graff)