Are we ready for the food revolution?
COMTEX NewswireSamstag, 6. November 1999 03:53:00
Johannesburg (Mail and Guardian, November 5, 1999) - The consequences
of growing and eating genetically modified organisms could hit South
Africans before we've had a chance to debate the issue, writes Ann
Eveleth
The growing international debate over genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) is finally filtering into the public domain in South Africa. But
information about the pros and cons of this "food revolution" is
leaking into the country more slowly than the controversial produce.
If you eat meat fed on maize, if you are a vegetarian, or if you like
sushi, you have probably already eaten the fruits of science's most
controversial offering: genetic engineering. And thanks to
globalisation and the slow development of government - and global -
policy on the matter, you had no way of knowing it.
According to FW Jansen van Rijssen, Deputy Director of Food Control in
the Department of Health: "The only genetically modified crops
currently being grown [commercially in South Africa] are yellow maize
for animal feed and cotton seeds. Cotton oil from these crops may
appear in foodstuffs later this year. Genetically modified soybeans are
internationally available and may find their way into processed food
imported by South Africa."
Other GMO crops currently in the testing phase in South Africa include
soybeans, canola, apples, tomatoes and potatoes, according to Professor
Jennifer Thompson of the South African Committee on Gene
Experimentation (Sagene), which currently advises the government on
proposed new GMO trials.
Yet the Departments of Health and Agriculture, Jansen van Rijssen adds,
are still consulting "stakeholders" about whether and when foods
containing GMOs should be labelled. Jansen van Rijssen was speaking at
the "Gene Technology - Food for Thought" conference hosted in
Johannesburg on October 29 by the Consumer Institute of South Africa in
a bid to open public debate on the issue.
The conference brought together government officials, scientists,
agrochemical producers and consumer and environmental activists in an
often heated exchange between proponents and opponents of the new
technology.
Genetically-modified organisms are the products of a new kind of
biotechnology. Normal breeding practices can cross-breed similar
organisms to create a hybrid. But genetic engineering can potentially
splice the DNA of a fish into an onion, a cockroach into a tomato, or
vice-versa. DNA can be exchanged between plants, animals and
micro-organisms.
The aim of this new technology is to give the recipient species a new
trait, such as the ability to resist herbicides and pesticides, to grow
in abnormal climates, or to be more nutritious.
Proponents of GMO technology, including many scientists, agro-input
producers and food suppliers, say GMOs could help defeat world hunger
and cure diseases and malnutrition. Opponents, including many other
scientists, enviromentalists, and consumer activists, say GMOs can
destroy the environment, make people sick, and further concentrate
control of world food production in the hands of an ever-shrinking
number of multinational corporations.
The promise of gene technology is the stuff of Star Trek: bananas that
vaccinate your child against the measles; maize that can grow in
Africa's parched soils and survive drought conditions; and maybe even
an orange that can prevent cancer.
The problem, say critics like environmental lawyer Miriam Mayet, is
that GMOs have been channelled into the food chain at a pace that has
outstripped the ability of governments to either regulate them, or
address the concerns of opponents.
GMOs have not, for example, been subjected to environmental impact
assessments in South Africa.
"This means that one of the most important ecological safeguards to
protect the environment and enforce our constitutional rights has been
sacrificed in favour of expediting the application of this technology,"
says Mayet.
Apart from the environmental concerns, GMOs raise a number of health
concerns.
Dr Harris Steinman of the SA Allergen Society says that chief among
these is the effect the new foods will have on the nature and extent of
allergic reactions among consumers.
Steinberg says that the past decade has seen a 300% increase in
allergies around the world.
Exposure to new foods can reveal new allergies, and the combination of
genetic material can lead to "cross-allergenicity" where people
allergic to one thing may be allergic to the genetic material that has
been added to an item they once ate safely.
Allergic reactions can be extremely mild, or deadly.
An easy, though expensive, way to reduce unexpected allergic reactions
would be to label foods containing GMOs, and to test the products as
rigorously as are new medicines.
But in the United States, where most GMO products originate, many GMO
foods have escaped the labelling requirement through the claim that
they are "substantially equivalent" to their natural predecessors.
Vocal environmental and consumer lobbies oppose GMOs in the US and the
European Union. But attempts to make labelling internationally
mandatory have been bedeviled by US government and producer opposition
in the United Nations' food safety agency, the Codex Alimentarius
Commission.
South Africa adopted legislation - the Genetically Modified Organisms
Bill - in 1997 to govern GMOs through a council that will oversee
safety and other concerns.
The Bill is only scheduled to take effect on December 1, but even this
will not make GMO labelling mandatory.
While Sagene currently oversees the application process for local GMO
experimentation and the general release of GMO products, South Africa
currently has no means of forcing international producers to disclose
when they are importing foods containing GMOs.
This policy gap, say consumer critics, opens the way for GMO producers
in the global north to seek new markets in the global south as northern
consumers increase their demands for GMO-free food.
Michael Hansen, of the US-based Consumer Policy Institute, says the
products are being allowed on to the market ahead of appropriate policy
platforms around the world because they are being pushed by powerful
corporate interests.
"The major actors in the development of genetic engineering in
agriculture are the large transnational [pesticide] corporations ...
There are five major transnational corporations, the so-called 'Gene
Giants', that are collectively responsible for virtually 100% of the
global acreage in transgenic [GMO] crops," he says.
"Their goal is to maximise profits by controlling the farmer's choice
of seed variety, in effect to lock a farm operation into a particular
pest management system that, among other things, includes reliance on
proprietary pesticides and on biotechnologies," adds Hansen.
Most GMOs are bred for resistence to a particular herbicide or
pesticide, usually the one produced by the same company.
In spite of this, South Africa's agriculture specialists are excited
about the new technology. Dr Johan Brink of the South African
Agricultural Research Council says GMO "is not a silver bullet for
achieving food security", but adds that the new technology "used in
conjuction with traditional and conventional agricultural research
methods may be a powerful tool in the fight against poverty".
Brink says Africa missed out on the benefits of the so-called Green
Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s - the introduction of modern hybrids
and industrial-scale farming methods into the Third World.
With the population of sub-Saharan Africa expected to double by the
year 2020, some argue the continent cannot afford to miss out on GMO
technology.
For many developing countries, however, the Green Revolution was a
disaster.
Hansen says the cost of initially increased crop yields in south-east
Asia was marginalisation of small farms and rural unemployment.
He fears this history will be repeated by the GMO revolution.
Sagene, however, points to successful GMO trials with small farmers in
the Makhatini flats as evidence that the new technology will be useful
to all farmers.
But Hansen warns that the new technology will be too costly for most
subsistence farmers. GMO producers are already seeking patents on a
series of "terminator" genes that would stop farmers saving seed for
replanting, forcing small farmers to buy new seed each year.
As GMO companies increase their already substantial control of the
global seed industry, the ability of farmers - and consumers - to opt
out of GMO technology will be curtailed, he adds.
Copyright 1999 Mail and Guardian. Distributed via Africa News Online.
Copyright 1999