7 September 2002
Kampala — Uganda is set to approve genetically modified (GM) cotton by the next growing season, Monsanto, the giant seed company, has said.
Monsanto made the announcement at the just ended Earth Summit in South Africa according to a report in the Guardian newspaper of the UK.
Monsanto named Uganda and Kenya to be introducing the GM cotton, while Zimbabwe has conducted trials.
Monsanto, which has been buying up large seed companies in Africa as a way to promote its GM seeds, has hit headlines recently with plans to set up a big operation in Uganda.
GM food in Africa has been slow to take off, but hi-tech maize and cotton is now grown commercially in South Africa, with GM soya likely to be approved next week.
Monsanto joined more than 150 people from the biotech industry who were in Johannesburg to lobby ministers, African MPs and government delegations.
Meanwhile NGOs, with little access to the ministers and delegations, are trying to build alliances to oppose the planting of GM crops.
According to the Guardian, the World Bank announced it is to set up a comprehensive study to determine the risks and opportunities of using GM seeds and other farming systems in poor countries. It is expected to last three years.
The EU, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Food Programme, the World Health Organisation and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation have all been urged by the US government to publicly endorse the safety of the food, which is eaten in more than 35 countries. The EU has refused.
Famine stricken Zambia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe insist that relief maize from the US must be milled before being handed out, because environmental risk assessments are impossible with its limited resources.
They insist that the food be milled to prevent the seeds being planted by farmers who may unwittingly pre-empt national legislation.
Robert Vint, of Genetic Food Alert, said: "It is only because the US can prevent the World Food Programme from purchasing available non-GM food from southern nations that it is able to tell countries that they must buy GM maize, that they must buy it from the US and that it must be unmilled."
Friends of the Earth said the jury was still out on GM foods and African countries should not be forced to accept the supplies. "Africans should choose what they eat, not have someone else decide for them," its spokesman Nnimo Bassey said. [WSSD]
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