Zambia
Zambia pressured to accept GM food aid

afrol News, 24 August - Several UN agencies increase the pressure against the Zambian government to accept food aid donated by the United States that is contaminated with genetically modified (GM) grains. 2.5 million Zambians are presently in the need of food aid. 

Several Southern African governments earlier had refused to receive food aid not certified of non-genetically modified origin (non-GMO) while the sub-continent is suffering from an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. In June, the Zimbabwean government even refused to accept a donation of 10,000 tons of maize from the US on the suspicion it may be genetically modified. 

Meanwhile, however, only Zambia categorically rejects to receive GM food aid. This fact has provoked an increased pressure from UN agencies, receiving the bulk of their funding from the US. Yesterday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a joint statement "expressing confidence" that GM food was safe and urging Zambia to "accept some GM food aid."

James Morris, UN Special Envoy on the humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa, warned that Zambia would "have to accept" donations of some food with biotech content if WFP was those Zambians from starvation. "There is no way that the WFP can provide the resources to save these starving people without using food that has some biotech content," said Morris.

The UN aid agency estimates that more than 2,485,000 Zambians require urgent relief. The Zambian government's refusal to accept GM food donations had "caused us a very serious problem," said Morris, who is also Executive Director of WFP, lead agency in the UN's response to the Southern Africa emergency.

To date, 75 percent of donations in commodities to the Southern Africa appeal to feed 10.2 million people are from the US, "which does not segregate or separate GM crops from other crops," WFP informs. Over the next seven months, US donations were expected to make-up over half of the operation's total resources.

GM food is prohibited in most Southern African nations, as it is in most European countries. The US - which is the world's main producer of GM food - however has a more relaxed policy on genetically modified products in general. 

The refusal of the hunger-affected Southern African nations to receive GM food aid came after the discovery by environmental groups that US food aid mostly was contaminated with GM food. In many cases, this included types of modifications are not approved for human consumption in a majority of the world's countries. As the food aid is not properly marked, it has also been used as seeds in many cases, thus damaging local plant varieties. 

Also the WFP's Mr Morris identifies three areas of concern over GM food aid. These include "human consumption; transporting a GM product through a country; and fears that GM food brought in for human consumption might be mistakenly or inadvertently planted." He however points out that WFP was "confident that GM food was safe," noting that it was "eaten by millions of Americans and Canadians."

Morris further added that: "if a country has major concerns about the food we provided being used in an agricultural sense, there are ways to address that issue that still allow the food to be consumed by humans to save lives." This included the milling of GM grains - a solution demanded by some countries. 

Among the six Southern Africa countries currently facing what Morris described as "the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world", Zambia now remains the only country currently refusing GM food aid. Others have found negotiated solutions with the relief agencies to bypass national legal hinders. 

Mozambique is now allowing GM food aid to be transported across its territory if it is covered and used if it is milled. Further, Zimbabwe, the US and WFP have agreed that 17,000 tonnes of US whole maize will be milled to prevent any chance of mixing Zimbabwe's domestic crops with GM varieties. 

In a move "encouraging" WFP, the Zambian government now has agreed to allow WFP to continue to use GM food aid for 130,000 refugees from Angola and Congo Kinshasa (DRC). "They informed us yesterday that they could allow us to continue to use GM/biotech food in the refugee camps as long as it was milled," said Morris. Hungry Zambians are however still to be protected against GM food.

Given the increasing pressure, it remains uncertain how long the Zambian government can stick to its principles in this moral dilemma. Even the European Union - a principal opponent to American GM food - in relation to this case has expressed its belief that "there is no reason to believe that GM food is inherently unsafe to human health." It is however totally out of the question letting these products enter Europe.

Sources: Based on WFP, env. organisations and afrol archives

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