Rampholo Molefhe
19 June 2009
The agribusiness giants who have developed and patented GM crops have long argued that their mission is to feed the world, rarely missing the opportunity to mention starving Africans. The mission is, infact, to make a profit, RAMPHOLO MOLEFHE quotes a fellow
Last Thursday night's 'The Eye' Btv programme discussed one of the topical issues at the 19th World Economic Forum held in Cape Town the same week on genetically modified foods.
Host Sipho Nyanga and discussants Drs Bulawayo and Maphanyane shed some light on aspects of the global discussion on the subject, regrettably giving more time to the prospect of a contemplated law at the expense of how GM products relate to human health, economic development and environmental protection. Perhaps more importantly, the extent to which GM food may contribute to the upliftment of Botswana's status from food insufficiency to self-reliance, thereby protecting the country against the negative effects of the ups and downs of the economies of the Western industrialised countries and our more agriculturally endowed neighbours.
Biochemists point out that genetic modification of food refers to the manner in which artificial methods are used to alter the personality of the natural seed, causing it to emphasise certain of its qualities such as size, height or colour, perhaps helping the plant to resist extreme heat, cold or insects. One of the problems associated with that process is that more often than not, these seeds turn out to be 'mules'. In other words, they are sterile and incapable of reproducing themselves in the way that a natural plant would produce its own seed.
More precisely, Andrew Taynton of South Africa's consumer movement, SAFEAGE, says: "Natural breeding techniques select plants or animals with desirable traits and crossbreed within a species to create better crops or animals. GMs are developed in laboratories by splicing genes from unrelated species into the host organism. For example, bacteria or virus genes are spiced into food crops and then reproduced in each and every cell in the plant. This carries several risks as it is a random and imprecise process. It can scramble the genome, cause mutations, fragments and multiple copies or turn neighbouring genes on or off. The main concerns about eating GM food are the developments of new allergies, new toxins, new diseases, antibiotic resistance and changed nutritional value."
According to yet another distinguished microbiologist, formerly at Health Canada, "selective breeding is not genetic modification because the first falls within the natural system and the second works against it. This kind of genetic crossing cannot survive by natural means, it will only result in sterility."
The technical name for this process is 'V-Gurts' or Varaetal Genetic Use Restriction Technology which is also known as 'suicide seeds' or 'terminator technology'. These seeds are instrumental in the GM Round Up Ready system, otherwise known as (RR), ensuring a continuous dependent market from those farmers no longer capable of harvesting crops without buying RR seeds, herbicides and glysophate, say the biochemists. Small and poor farmers who do not possess the scientific equipment under which conditions these seeds are reconditioned are eternally indebted to the first source for every subsequent crop that they plant. At source, the engineers ensure that the GM seed becomes dependent on agri-chemicals. "The business of biotechnology is intimately entwined with agri-chemicals; over 60 percent of GM seeds are built to be pesticide and herbicide dependent. In 2005, global pesticide sales stood at $5.4 billion, mainly accrued by three companies," writes Khadija Sharife of New Africa magazine (January 2009).
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations points out that the world currently produces 1.5 times the food required to feed the planet. This claim, it says, is supported by environmental watchdogs such as GRAIN, who observe: "Farmers across the world produced a record 2.3 billion tons of grain in 2007, up 4 percent on the previous year". It further reported that ECOWAS recently revealed that food production in West Africa had doubled in the past 20 years. "A leaked World Bank report attributes high grain prices to the 'crops-for-fuel' initiatives instituted by biotech companies to accelerate growth and dependence on corn, soya and other GM mono-cultures, forcing 100 million below the poverty datum line." In an earlier article, this contributor wrote that Sharife had also pointed out that "paradoxically, Africa was self-sufficient in food in the early 1960s, complete with a billion dollar food surplus, and a net exporter of cereals, amongst other produce. Yet by 1990, Africa was a net importer of food, and in 2004, continental debt stood $165bn and a food deficit of $11bn." That takes us to the assertion by Independent (London) correspondent, Daniel Howden: "The root of the foods problem in almost every case in Africa is political, not scientific. For agriculture in Africa, the real problems stem from a global trade system that favours richer countries and large corporations, chronic under-investment by governments, and the gross distortion of food prices caused in a large part by the explosion of bio-fuels.
"Trade inequality has seen the rich countries dumping subsidised food on African markets, while erecting barriers themselves. The agribusiness giants who have developed and patented GM crops have long argued that their mission is to feed the world, rarely missing an opportunity to mention starving Africans. The mission is, infact, to make a profit".
Another authority affirms that GM foods are made to be herbicide and pesticide dependent for corporate profit only. No one can predict how proteins thus produced will behave or how the native and foreign DNA will interact, except that new seed may possess previously unknown traits such as RR canola or soya bean. Anti-microbial resistance genes to human pathogens can cause infections that cannot be treated by relevant antibiotics. The US Centre for Disease Control has been quoted as saying "at least 80 percent of food related illnesses are caused by viruses or pathogens that scientists cannot even identify. In his review of the penetrative work by Frederick Engdahl titled "Seeds of Destruction; the hidden agenda of genetic manipulation," Stephen Lendman writes: "In 1973, President Richard Nixon appointed Henry Kissinger as both secretary of state and national security advisor. Kissinger took complete control of US foreign policy and made food a centrepiece of his diplomacy along with oil geopolitics.
In the Cold War era, food became a strategic weapon in the 'food for peace' programme.
It was a cover for US agriculture to engineer the transformation of family farming into global agribusiness with food the tool and small farmers eliminated, so it could be used most effectively.
"The defining 1973 event was a world food crisis. The shortage of grain staples along with the first of two 1970s oil shocks advanced a significant new Washington policy turn...The world desperately needed grain, America had the greatest supply, and the scheme was to use this power to 'radically change world food markets and food trade'.
The big winners were American grain traders who were helped by Kissinger's new food diplomacy to create a global agriculture market for the first time. The next aim was merging Big Pharma with big food producing giants and the Pentagon's National Defence University took note in a paper issued in 2003: 'Agribusiness now is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East'.
The observation is made that GM giants have powerful friends in government backing their agenda. That arrives at Dr Maphanyane's overriding concern as she anticipates formulation of a Botswana law that will regulate GM foods. "As a result, the GM monoculture onslaught threatens plant species diversity everywhere. With World Trade Organisation backing, major biotech companies are patenting every plant imaginable in GM form," Lendman reports. "Winds and air proliferate GM seeds to adjacent fields, including organic ones that are now to some degree contaminated. ...organic crops are safer than chemically treated ones and hugely preferable to any that are genetically modified. That said, as the Green Revolution advances worldwide, the future of organic farming is imperilled to the horror of people like this writer dependent on them," he concludes.
As Botswana contemplates a law to regulate the importation, cultivation and consumption of genetically modified foods, it will have to revisit the age old challenge of whether the country wants to commit itself to self-sufficiency, which it is quite capable of, as opposed to a policy that encourages 80 percent dependence on South Africa, eternally, for food. The large GM producing companies have already been able to manipulate South Africa into a position where that country will serve as a conduit for the proliferation of GM foods into southern Africa. Self-sufficiency and local production would enable Botswana to determine the extent to which it seeks to dabble in GM food, with its attendant health risks and the diabolical implications for small scale farming.
All the evidence points to the fact that the earth, if it is protected against abuse, is quiet capable of producing enough food for Botswana and more. More plants in the country will also help to induce rain and healthy regeneration of the soil. It may very well be a worthwhile proposition, even with short and medium term losses, to invest in agriculture, for the sake of future generations and farmers.
Perhaps then the envisaged law should, once and for all, ban genetically modified food and encourage consumption of organic products. In the interim, GM foods should be marked as in other health conscious societies so that consumers can make informed decisions about what they are buying. As matters stand, the Ministry of Agriculture is aware that the country is importing GM foods without due protection for the consumer.
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