Biopolicy Journal Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso ISSN: 1363-2450 Vol. 7, Num. 2, 2002

 








Biopolicy, Volume 5, Paper 2 (PY02002) 2002 
Letter to the Editor: Famine and dignity in Africa
Josep A. Garí 
Josep A. Garí holds a D.Phil. in Political Ecology from the University 
  of Oxford and, during 2000-2002, he was a consultant to the United Nations Food 
  and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

  E-mail: mailto:jgari@nimbus.geog.ox.ac.uk

Code Number: py02002
Famine in Africa is again in the headlines. It results 
  from the concurrence of a number of environmental and social factors, such as 
  enduring drought, global inequalities, the HIV/AIDS epidemic impact, and faulty 
  agricultural and trade policies, at both national and international levels. 
  Overall, famine in Africa is the consequence of a lasting record of exploitation, 
  exclusion and neglect over its poor population.
When the scale of famine reaches a critical point 
  of international public sorrow, developed countries offer food aid as their 
  prompt solution, satisfying their charity vein. However, in this occasion food 
  aid has unexpectedly lead to an epic battle between famine and dignity after 
  the government of Zambia has rejected genetically-modified (GM) maize as food 
  aid in order to contain the associated health and environmental risks. The news 
  detonated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held recently in Johannesburg, 
  and the position of Zambia soon achieved adhesion from NGOs, farmer groups, 
  scientists, and even a few governments. The decision, however, shocked many 
  countries and citizens, as their belief that donations are just to be duly taken 
  and thanked was overturned. Some governments, biotechnology corporations, and 
  influential media criticised the African defiance as absurd, fearing that Africa 
  was again escalating foolish governance against its starving population.
However, Zambia's decision to reject GM maize as 
  food aid is not a misguided action. It is rather a pragmatic response to the 
  continuing lack of a consensus on the safety of such crops. International law, 
  particularly the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, upholds the right of 
  countries to protect themselves against the health and environmental risks posed 
  by GM organisms. Why should international agreements that safeguard people and 
  their environment be dropped when a country faces famine? The scale of vulnerability 
  in Africa precisely requires that international agreements and every concern 
  of the international community are thoroughly respected and attended. In the 
  European Union, for instance, GM crops are not farmed commercially, their imports 
  can be legally banned, and every citizen has the right to know and to decide 
  whether to consume them or not. Why should things be different in Africa?
In addition, GM food aid may threaten local agricultural 
  systems. Poor farmers often use part of donated grain as seed since they suffer 
  seed insecurity alike, partly because they had to consume seed saved for the 
  following agricultural season to alleviate immediate food needs in the household. 
  Consequently, GM food grains, when sowed or even misplaced in rural areas, may 
  cross-pollinate with local varieties and, therefore, undermine farmer seed systems 
  and biodiversity conservation. In fact, the concerns around food aid are equally 
  valid for the case of seed aid. Some agrobiotechnology corporations are publicly 
  keen to donate GM seeds in agricultural emergency programmes, if they have not 
  done this already, which is suspicious of a dubious arrangement between assistance 
  and product promotion. In general, the spread of GM seeds, from either food 
  or seed aid, can result in genetic cross-fertilisation, especially in crops 
  like maize, and therefore threaten the local crop genetic resource dynamics. 
  Consequently, such kind of food and seed assistance may impair the ecological 
  resilience and sustainability of the agricultural systems in Africa, further 
  undermining food and livelihood security among poor farmers.
Furthermore, the diffusion of GM crops may erode 
  crop and livestock trade of African countries in international markets. If African 
  governments and farmers loose the control and capacity to track the attributes 
  of their agricultural production, their trade prospects will further shrink 
  because many European and other countries ban the import of foodstuff that cannot 
  be proven to be GM free, in accordance with current international legislation. 
  Thus, assistance programmes that claim to be benevolent and inoffensive may 
  result in a deeper cycle of agricultural and food crisis. Accordingly, Zambia's 
  position is sound enough and reflects the serious ecological, health and economic 
  implications of this issue for the African nations and their people.
Some countries under the lead of the United States, 
  in conjunction with biotechnology corporations and some major research centres, 
  have taken a proactive stance on GM organisms. They believe that everybody should 
  conform to their confidence and devotion over any new technology, arguing that 
  technological progress will feed the world, despite historical evidence does 
  not prove it. It is now shameful that the unresolved dispute around GM organisms 
  has been ingeniously moved from political and scientific circles internationally 
  to the very turf of poverty and hunger in Africa.
Countries that have a vigorous 
  policy towards GM crops seem to have excesses of such agricultural production 
  and are ready to donate it, probably because it is not easy to allocate it in 
  international markets, not even to convince their domestic consumers. It is 
  an abusive practice for countries to get rid of their GM food surpluses by dumping 
  them on starving and desperate people under the pretext of food aid. A poor 
  woman in Africa has just as much right to feed her children with safety and 
  with dignity as anywhere else. Good governance also means giving food to starving 
  people in ways consistent with international law and respecting the universal 
  principle that all people are born equal and should be treated as such.
Copyright remains with the author.
Published by Biostrategy Associates .