GE Will Not Solve the Problem of Hunger in Africa or Anywhere 

CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL (Africa Office) 17jun03

In preparation for the Sacramento ministerial conference from 23 to 25 June 2003, Consumers International has been invited by Public Citizens to speak to congress in Capitol Hill on 17 June 2003 as part of the alternative conference to the Sacramento ministerial to make sure that the voice of consumers throughout the world is heard loud and clear.

Aim of our action

Consumers International is part of the Alternative conference to the Sacramento ministerial to make sure that the voice of consumers throughout the world is heard loud and clear.

Our message is simple: GMOs will not solve the problem of hunger in Africa or anywhere and their production and marketing should be strictly regulated.

The US Development Assistance

Historically, the United States government has been seen as being capable of taking “bold initiatives to respond to global challenges through its development assistance”.

Among the initiatives, let me quote the Marshall Plan, the Plan Four Programme, the Foreign Assistance Acts of 1961 and 1973, the International Security and Development Act of 1985.

Analysts note that in each case, strong presidential leadership, bipartisan support in Congress and informed public support for international engagement produced an effective response to a global problem.

Stated objectives of most of the programmes are to make the benefits of America’s scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.

Analysts also note that supporters of most of the above mentioned plans justified them on grounds of national security, economic self-interest, humanitarian and moral obligations.

Underlying the various plans and depending on the leadership the USA had at a specific time, the country’s Development Assistance would put the emphasis more on national security goals (eg: military assistance), on development aspects or promotion of a specific policy reform in recipient developing countries.

The US Government’s perspective on ending hunger.

Where do we strike the balance between the various motives and rationales above when they are applied to the issue of global hunger and the approaches used by the USA to put an end to it.

Genetic Engineering enters US Development Assistance and becomes a…Trade issue

i) GM Food for Food Aid
Consumers International alerted African Governments already in 2000 when the US Department of Agriculture and USAID bought GM maize and sent it to Africa through the United Nations World Food Programme. The maize was not labelled as genetically modified.

GM Food in US Development assistance caught the headlines when the severe food crisis hit Southern Africa in 2002. At least 14 million people were facing starvation. Food aid of over US$ 500 million was needed to avert hunger. The affected countries were Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland.

America provided GM maize as food aid. Malawi, Mozambique, Angola, Lesotho accepted the un-milled corn. Zimbabwe accepted the aid on the condition that it is milled. Zambia –2,4 million people in need- rejected the GM corn in the absence of conclusive information on the long-term effects on human health, the country’s long term food production capacity, the impact on environment and trade for the country. The US Government perceived the Zambian’s Government decision as a blow at their humanitarian motivation driving their development assistance, and refused –then- to supply them with non-GM maize or to untie their aid, which was to be given only in kind from America.

ii) Donation of Patents rights, seed varieties and laboratory know-how has been the second strategy used by multinationals. This is done through the establishment of a new organisation, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation funded by the USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation and Monsanto. The companies say they plan to support the foundation for noble reasons, while acknowledging that in the long run, they also hope to create new markets in Africa.

iii) The legal challenge of the European Union ‘s moratorium on imports of GM foods. 
The Bush administration has touted the action as the salvation of starving people. Congress applauded the Administration’s action on the grounds that it was reported that famine –stricken African countries rejected humanitarian food aid from the United States because of ill-informed health and environmental concerns and fear that future exports to the European Union would be jeopardized. The same resolution expressing the sense of the House of Representatives also acknowledges that since its implementation in October 1988, the moratorium has blocked more than US$300 million annually in United States corn exports.

iv) The Ministerial Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science and Technology in Sacramento (California), next week, is the fourth route taken by the Bush Administration and the giant agribusiness companies to press for rapid adoption of GM technology by African Ministers.

Genetic Engineering will not solve Hunger in Africa … or anywhere Hunger in the world :

First of all some key figures:

• Nearly 800 million people in the world are currently not in a position either physically or economically- to access at all times and in a sustainable manner to sufficient, safe, nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and cultural preferences;
• Among them, about 200 million African suffer from chronic hunger.
• At the beginning of the year some 25 million Africans required emergency food aid.

Causes of hunger in the world

Consumers International believes hunger has a dozen of fathers. Any of the following can be a cause of Hunger:

• Access to and distribution of food
• Politics (lack of good governance)
• Civil wars/ Internal strife
• Imbalance in land distribution (idle land lying waste)
• Natural disasters (drought, floods, land slides etc)
• Unfavourable international trade rules & regulations (e.g. access to patents, protectionist tendencies, lack of access to markets, subsidies making African farmers’ products uncompetitive, over-production, price volatility)
• Structural adjustment programmes and their negative impact on demand (credit to farmers, subsidies on basic strategic commodities).
• High cost of agricultural production inputs
• Population pressure
• Lack of rural-urban infrastructures
• Lack of expertise or know-how of farmers
• Inadequate food storage systems and monitoring mechanisms
• Lack of adequate food processing technologies
• How many of these potential causes of hunger is the GE technology addressing?
• How much GE technology can address the ones it can address in a way that meets the development needs of the countries as well as being conducive to ensuring food security?

Food security defined as people being in the status of having at all times physical and economic access, in sustainable ways to sufficient, safe, nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and cultural preferences.

Analysis of the GM market

Production:
The global production of transgenic crops has expanded rapidly in recent years. During the seven-year period from 1996 to 2002, global acreage of transgenic crops increased 35-fold, from 1.7 million hectares to 58.7 million hectares. Four principal countries grew 99% of the global transgenic crop acreage in 2002. The USA grew 39.0 million hectares, (66% of global total), followed by Argentina with 13.5 million hectare, Canada 3.5 million hectares and China 2.1 million hectares

Consumption:
While acreage is on the rise and mergers are taking place for control of the seed and biotechnology companies, consumption of GM crops across the globe does not seem to follow the same trend. In the USA, Latin America, Asia and Europe the public has proved to be very wary of genetic science and all its promises.

The actors on the market:
Four major transnationals: Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer the so-called ‘Gene giants’, are collectively responsible for virtually 100 percent of the global acreage in transgenic crops. Monsanto is responsible for 90 percent of global acreage. Most of these large transnational seed corporations are the result of mergers and all of them also have pesticide or pharmaceutical interests.

Consumers’ perceptions:
The Discovery Channel recently commissioned the first global poll to assess attitudes about DNA and genetics around the world. The survey aimed to show how people perceive the impact of genetics on their lives, and how informed they are of current progress. The survey was conducted in eight countries, namely: United Kingdom, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. Overall, 58% of the respondents polled were unwilling to eat genetically modified (GM) food.

The market is oversupplied. The volume of GM crops produced far outstrips the demand. As potential markets in other continents are disappearing, GM multinationals are having to move fast to find new markets for their surpluses in order to survive and America to avoid an economic slump in its agricultural sector.

Africa – with 200 million African suffering from chronic hunger and 25 million Africans requiring emergency food aid- is the next stop in the multinationals’ journey to create a market for these crops by whichever means necessary. The same survey by Discovery channel reveals that 55% of the respondents believe that it is acceptable to send GM food to countries in need.

… but GM technology WILL not ease HUNGER in Africa

It won’t because:

• it will destroy the model of production and consumption that sustain more than 70 percent of the farmers in Africa; who produce crops, sell one part of it, consume one part of it and keep the third part for the next season. Multinationals won’t allow that but would want African farmers to return again and again to purchase the patented seeds from them, creating a circle of dependency. Even if they forgo patents now, who knows how long it will continue.
  
  
• It promotes monoculture and lends itself to a large-scale, industrial style of agriculture. When Zambia was facing starvation and refused to take the GM maize, it requested the WFP and the US AID to help bring more than 100 000 metric tons of cassava from the North of the country to feed the people and develop its production. The answer was : “it is either GM maize or starvation”.
  
  
• It seeks to eliminate any possible competition with non-GM crops, particularly when those varieties are more appropriate to the people’s capacity to control their own future, more appropriate to their level of technological development and know-how. While Zambia would not accept the GM maize for fear that it had not been adequately tested for food safety, or might contaminate its local variety, or might undermine the capacity of its households to sustain their food security with their backyard production of maize or might jeopardise their export prospects to European countries, the US would not untie its aid and source from the surrounding Southern African countries the 1. 160 million metric tons of non-GM maize out of the 2 million metric tons needed for Zambia and the six other countries to feed themselves.
  
  One year later, without recourse to the GM technology, Zambia has just been able to double its maize crop production from last season’s 600,000 tonnes to well over 1.1 million tonnes of white maize this year and maybe exporting.
  
  The Zambian President ‘s words “Our good policies in agriculture are beginning to pay off” speak better than any other debate about the value of a technological fix to solve the problem of hunger and poverty.
  
  
• It does not promote alternative options that support research that is more farmer-led and farmer- designed such as what the process of developing the New Rices for Africa teaches us. The rice farmers were actively involved in the research, determining which traits were important to them, more adapted to their environment and culture. Instead it is the GMO rice that gets all the publicity in the US.

What Consumers International is advocating for:

Consumers International supports a genuine biotechnology debate. Such a debate must consider how to:

• support sustainable agricultural practices and policies;
• support public research to provide a counter balance to industry sponsored research;
• ensure that GM food is tested for human and environmental safety;
• ensure that GM food and crops are required to be labelled to allow consumer choice prior to marketing;
• encourage and enable consumer participation in setting national and international food standards.

source: http://www.consumersinternational.org/news/display.asp?regionid=152&tag=A&id=256&type=news&cat=5&langid=1 20jun03