www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

European consumer panic and European Union (EU) regulations about
genetically modified (GM) foods threaten millions of starving Africans, who
need cheap and reliable crops. Greenpeace has just garnered a million
signatures around Europe for a petition to the EU demanding labels for
traces of GM organisms in food, February 2007 by Temba Nolutshungu.

This time last year, Zambia banned famine relief containing GM food.
Uganda and Kenya are wavering and millions of people are starving in Africa
right now. GM food may not solve malnutrition and starvation by itself, but
it would make a huge difference.

Remember, we are talking about a product that has been eaten by Americans
and Canadians for more than a decade without harming anybody: even the EU,
while applying many restrictions, accepts that it is safer than conventional
food.

Fifteen years of tests in 400 European laboratories led EU research
commissioner Philippe Busquin to say in 2001 that they had not found ?any
new risks to human health or the environment, beyond the usual uncertainties
of conventional plant breeding?.

?Indeed, the use of more precise technology and the greater regulatory
scrutiny probably make them even safer than conventional plants and foods,?
Busquin said.

Even SA, with bumper harvests of GM crops, is threatened by irrational
fears, with activists calling for restrictive laws, citing the
?precautionary principle? ? a legal concept that is promoted by the EU and
the United Nations.

At first sight, the precautionary principle looks reasonable. As children,
we were warned that you should ?look before you leap? or told that ?if in
doubt, don?t?.

Following that advice will at times have avoided danger, loss and even
injury. On the other hand, following precautionary advice to avoid all risk
would keep away a lot of fine opportunities, and carrying out a risk
assessment before avoiding an oncoming bus could prove fatal.

The precautionary principle requires action to avoid a risk even when there
is no evidence of any risk: it demands that new inventions should not be
used unless and until they have been shown to be absolutely safe, reversing
the usual burden of proof: they are assumed to be harmful until proven safe
to an impossible standard.

When the Zambian government turned away famine-relief GM maize in 2005
because of a theoretical health risk, it created a real risk and turned a
disaster into a tragedy.

But that same type of GM maize had been consumed by Americans and Canadians
for more than a decade.

Applied to agriculture and food biotechnology, the precautionary principle
ignores the real threats of hunger, starvation and malnutrition that can be
reduced by new products.

Applied to penicillin and aspirin or peanuts and potatoes, with rare fatal
allergies, it would have demanded an outright ban.

Yet GM foods do not even have those rare side effects.

It is worth repeating that no one has yet detected any allergy, harm or risk
to humans, animals or the environment from commercialised GM crops.

Farmers use GM seeds because they are more efficient, giving higher yields
and lower pesticide costs.

Consumers eat GM foods because they are just as good as any other crop, and
cheaper too.

Hundreds of millions of people, rich and poor, get income or food from them.

The ?Frankenfood? myths about terminator genes, contamination and the
destruction of species reflect only ignorance, pseudoscience or plain
propaganda.

If we applied the precautionary principle to itself, we would not apply the
precautionary principle because of the harm it could cause.

In a continent that desperately needs growth, food, jobs and exports,
innovation is exactly what we need.

The US, Canada and Argentina had the muscle to bring their GM-export case to
the World Trade Organisation and to win against the EU last year, but
African countries are still vulnerable to EU restrictions on GM products and
consumer fears of (unspecified) contamination.

Bizarrely, those barriers are supported by western activists in the aid
industry, who are all opposed to free trade and GM products, ignoring the
fact that these are just the tools that we need to boost exports and fight
famine.

For European consumers, GM is a whimsical lifestyle issue. But for the poor
of the world, this really is a question of life and death.

[www.businessday.co.za]