Africa food woes blamed on Europe’s hypocrisy

Europe’s resistance to genetically modified crop production in Africa is a major challenge to tackling Africa’s food insecurity, according to experts.

Dr Sylvester Oikeh, manager of a drought-tolerant maize project for Africa, told a recent science workshop that EU countries opposed use of gene transfer technology to improve food production in Africa because Europe had enough food.

He accused European countries of hypocrisy saying they promote GM medicines while opposing the same technology in agriculture.

“They produce enough food for themselves, and their need is to live longer. So, while they discourage use of gene technology to produce food in Africa, they use the same to produce drugs and vaccines,” he told science journalists and researchers.

He added that there were also some “political issues” informing Europe’s stand on GM foods, saying that African countries that export cotton were being held hostage as a result.

“They (EU) tell African countries that export cotton to them that ‘if you grow genetically enhanced cotton, we will not buy’.”

Following devastating droughts that have affected various regions of sub-Sahara Africa, proponents of GM foods have argued that improving the tolerance of crops to pests and drought through the GM technology hold the key to combating the effects of drought on the continent’s food security.

However, promoters of organic farming have warned of possible health and environmental risks should countries adopt the GM technology without adequate research.

And that brought about the issue of regulating use of biotechnology. While GM foods are slowly finding acceptance among African countries, few have enacted policies and national regulatory laws to ensure the safety of both plants and animals.

“There have been anxieties and fears concerning the safety of genetically enhanced materials, hence gene technology, like other technologies, need to be regulated,” Dr Francis Nyang’ayo, regulation manager at African Agricultural Technology Foundation, said.

Amid a heated-debate and caution by some non-governmental organisations, Kenya enacted a Biosafety Act in 2009, effectively putting in place a statutory tool to regulate the use and safety of gene technologies in the country.

Other countries which have laws for GMOs regulations include South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Among the concerns of anti-GM proponents is that no adequate research has been done to ascertain the human and environmental effects of GM.

They also argue that genetically altered crops could introduce foreign genes to conventionally grown crops through cross-pollination, hence “contaminate” them.

In addition, they cite the risk of emergence of organisms with enhanced resistance to anti-biotics, and the likelihood of toxic materials getting into the environment.
But GM supporters say research done so far has not indicated negative effects of GM food on people and animals.
GM technology involves changing the genetics of crops, by adding genetic materials from other plants with the desired property, to make the resulting variety more pest-resistant, drought-tolerant, have faster growth and produce more yield.
The global debate about GMs remains fierce, with a number of European countries on the resisting side. French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 banned the cultivation of GM crops.
In South Africa, various court battles related to access to information about GM crops have been instituted since 2002.