Wyndham Hartley
6 August 2003
Cape Town — Parliament's agriculture committee is concerned about job losses in the agricultural sector which could result from SA's accession to a United Nations (UN) protocol on biosafety.
The Cartagena protocol, scheduled to come into effect on September 11, will regulate strictly the international transport of genetically modified organisms, also called living modified organisms.
None of the world's large grainproducing countries have said they will accede to the protocol but SA is poised to deposit an instrument of ratification with the UN.
Committee chairman Neo Masithela asked officials from the agriculture department yesterday whether costs of accession had been budgeted for and whether or not there were economic implications for SA.
He also asked what effects accession to the protocol would have on local farmers and farmworkers.
Shadrack Moephuli, genetically modified organisms registrar at the department, said anything that increased costs for agricultural producers would decrease profit and would not be in the interests of creating jobs in the agricultural sector.
He said that there could also be a problem with the declarations that exporters of genetically modified organisms would have to make to comply with the protocol because these could violate their intellectual property rights.
Moephuli said it was significant that none of the world's major grain exporters were prepared to accede to the protocol and SA should be cautious about being "the first guinea pig".
The US had simply refused to ratify the protocol while Canada and Australia had not ratified it as yet. Brazil had changed its stance and had refused to ratify it after initially saying it would.
Moephuli said that about 100million tons of grain products internationally could "in theory at least" become illegal.
Masithela said that it was the responsibility of the committee to protect the interests of local farmers and farmworkers.
He proposed calling an urgent meeting with the chairman of the environmental affairs committee, and thereafter with the ministers of agriculture, environmental affairs and foreign affairs to consider delaying accession to the protocol.
The committee unanimously approved the course of action Masithela suggested.
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