Lusaka, Zambia
August 6, 2007
by Michael Malakata,
SciDev.Net
The Zambian government has rejected a call made this week (30
July) by a group of scientific, agricultural and nongovernmental
organisations to use genetically modified (GM) crops to reduce
poverty and hunger.
The group — consisting of
AfricaBio, the Africa
Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum,
Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation
International, Biotechnology-Ecology Research and Outreach
Consortium (BioEROC) and the
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Application (ISAAA) — released a joint press statement
endorsing the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs),
which was published in the
Times of Zambia on 30 July.
Responding to the statement, Zambian minister of agriculture and
cooperatives, Ben Kapita, told SciDev.Net, "We have always said
that Zambia will not be used as a dumping place for GMO
products."
Earlier this year (3 April), the Zambian parliament adopted a
biosafety bill aimed at preventing the entry of GMOs in to the
country (see Zambia takes steps towards biosafety law).
But Wisdom Changadeya, executive director of BioEROC in Malawi
said in a press release that nobody could deny Africa its right
to a technology that would help its farmers solve some of its
most serious and urgent problems.
Margaret Karembu, a researcher at the Kenya-based AfriCenter,
run by the ISAAA, warned that African agricultural productivity
could drop while the rest of the global community embraced new
tools such as GM technology.
She said that African farmers should not be restricted to
traditional methods of agriculture.
The same group of five organisations also welcomed a
clarification from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA) about its stance on GM technology.
Last month, many media outlets reported that AGRA and its
president the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, had
rejected the use of GMOs completely.
The reports came after a speech by Annan in Nairobi last month
(16 July), in which he said that whatever the future potential
of GM crops might be, conventional breeding represented an
important path to food security (see Farmers and researchers:
Annan urges stronger links).
AGRA has since clarified their position on GM technology,
stating that although they are not currently funding research
into GMOs, they support the use of science and technology —
including GM — to aid African smallholder farmers.
Norah Olembo, chief executive officer of Africa Harvest Biotech
Foundation International in Nairobi, Kenya, welcomed AGRA's
clarification that GM technology has an important role to play
in fighting poverty, hunger and malnutrition.
But others believe that not researching GM technology at this
stage could undermine the future of biotechnology in Africa.
This week (27 July) the Netherlands-based Public Research and
Regulation Initiative wrote to Annan, saying they were concerned
about AGRA's focus on conventional plant breeding methods. |
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