TREAD CAREFULLY ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS/FOODS

Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo, Kenya , 06.09.2004 22:15

Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo, Kenya
sent by Ecoterra International, Kenya
1 Sep 2004

Wednesday, the 23rd of June 2004 stands to be a historic day of sorts in
this country. This is the day the President officially opened a
greenhouse facility located within the Kenya Agricultural Research
Institute (KARI) reportedly as an official government endorsement of
Genetically Modified Foods in this country. The drums have certainly been
beating for some time being led by the Minister for Agriculture. Coming
from the Head of State, the proponents of the introduction of GMOS in
this country could not have found a better partner. That, however is not
to say that the government has got it right.

Both the Minister's and the President's arguments are that this is
expected to produce better crop yields and thereby fill the country's
food basket. In a country that suffers food shortages, who would argue
with that? Nevertheless, as is often said there are many ways of skinning
a cat! Question is, is the government doing this the right way? My answer
is a big NO. Although the public debate over GMOs has taken place mainly
in the developed countries, the developing countries have an important
stake in the outcome. Many developing countries still depend heavily on
agriculture, so they stand to benefit from any technology that can
increase food production, lower food prices, and improve food quality. In
places where there is often not enough food to go around and where food
prices directly affect the incomes of a large proportion of the
population, the potential productivity gains offered by GMOs cannot
easily be ignored.

But before we go about extolling the virtues of GM Foods, there are
certainly numerous questions that need to be answered. These include:
what is a GMO?, how are GMOs produced?, who produces GMOs?, where are
GMOs currently being grown?, what are the risks associated with GMOs? Are
GMOs appropriate for developing countries? These are but just some of the
questions that need answers before we can begin to salivate at the
prospects of genetically modified foods.

No time was wasted on the day of the launch telling all and sundry of why
we must embrace this new technology. We must hasten to add that
technological change or development is welcome. However, like any change,
technological change must equally be managed. If the potential benefits
of GMOs are disproportionately large in developing countries, so are the
potential costs. Most developing countries lack the scientific capacity
to assess the safety of GMOs, the economic expertise to evaluate their
worth, the regulatory capacity to implement guidelines for safe
deployment, and the legal systems to enforce sanctions and punish
transgressions of the law.

As with any new product, the impacts of GMOs on people, on animals, and
on the environment are difficult to predict, so it is important that the
potential risks be evaluated before GMOs are approved for release. The
evaluation process inevitably will have to include carefully controlled
field testing, since only field testing will generate the information
needed to determine how GMOs will perform in the hands of farmers. But
even this field-testing must be guided by some policy and legal regime.
The President appeared to appreciate this when he reported that the
development of a policy for biotechnology research and the use of the
resultant products was at an advanced stage and further that 'Bills to
support this policy are being prepared for consideration by Parliament".
Clearly, by this statement, it is obvious that we have put the cart
before the horse. For instance, shouldn't the policy first state whether
it is in deed the intention of the government to ravel the route of GMOs
and if so, how to reach there. Under what policy and legal regime then is
the greenhouse built and maintained?

Talking of law, environmental management in this country is presently
done under the Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act. This law,
which was enacted in 1999 came into force in 2000. Among its chief
provisions are those on Environmental Impact Assessment for certain
categories of projects. Included in this list is 'major developments in
biotechnology, including the introduction and testing of genetically
modified organisms'. Was an EIA study done? If so, the public is entitled
to know the results. If as is suspected, none was done, then we must be
careful not to break the law in the quest for an alleged 'good'.

It should be remembered that Kenya was the first country in the world to
sign the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety. The backbone of that Protocol
was what is referred to as the Precautionary Principle. This principle,
which is also a key plank of our environmental law dictates that where
there are threats to the environment and there is as yet lack of
scientific certainty, it is best to play safe! It is conceded even by the
proponents of GMOs that presently available scientific information does
not provide full knowledge of the impacts of GMOs. The inevitable
conclusion is that caution is the buzz word. Nay, caution is demanded by
both domestic and international law!

Third, given the importance people place on the food they eat, policies
regarding GMOs will have to be based on an open and honest debate
involving a wide cross-section of society. In hindsight, it is clear that
the agri-biotech industry realized that it miscalculated in arguing that
genetically modified foods are no different from other foods and
therefore did not need to be subject to special treatment or even
distinguished in the marketplace. This attitude merely served to heighten
suspicions among some consumers that the industry is seeking to increase
profits by promoting a technology that has few obvious benefits and may
in fact pose hidden dangers. If it is intended that we change our food
consumption to GM foods, then surely we must have an open debate in which
citizens clearly understand what they are being served. To seek to do it
any other way is to miss the shore by a mile.

Fourth, there is also the question of sustainability. The GM technology
as developed is based on terminator genes. These terminator genes are
designed to ensure that farmers who plant these crops could not replant
them as the seeds are not made to germinate. Thus the technology is
lopsided to ensure total dependence of the farmer on the corporations
producing them. An analogy can be drawn with Information Technology where
the machines are made to use only accessories from selected companies.
The charge that these corporations are profit-motivated has never been
adequately denied. In deed, it would be naïve of anybody to assume that
their actions are motivated with philanthropy. There is evidence that in
North America, acceptance of genetically modified foods is declining. In
Britain, GM foods have never been officially endorsed. We need to ask
ourselves if we are not just offering our country as a laboratory for
experiments that have not been successful elsewhere while simultaneously
offering a ready market for products whose effects have not been
adequately ascertained?

Let this serve as a warning to the government that it is not dealing with
a small matter here.

-------------

The writer is an environmental lawyer and a Director with the Institute
for Law and Environmental Governance (ILEG), a not-for-profit
environmental research and advocacy institution based in Nairobi. He may
be reached on +254-(0)20-576722/(0)733-860091;  makoloo@elaw.org or
 ilegk@yahoo.com

-----------------

first published by ECOTERRA Intl. © 2004

ECOTERRA Intl.
nodes
Cairns * Calgary * Cassel * Cebu * Curitiba * London * Nairobi * Roma *
Paris * Wien

ECOTERRA - FIRST PEOPLES & NATURE FIRST !
FREEDOM & FUTURE for PEOPLE & NATURE
24 h EMERGENCY RESPONSE: +254-733-633-000

 http://www.ecoterra.org.uk
 http://www.ecoterra.net
 http://www.ecoterra.de
 http://www.ecoterra.info
Marine Group:  http://www.ecop.info
Eco_Alert:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Eco_Alert/
green is good - environmentalism is not political - it is sanity !