3-Food: U.S. projects play key role in African biosafety capacity building

[GENET <genetnl@xs4all.be>]

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                                  PART I
-------------------------------- GENET-news --------------------------------

TITLE:  ... bio-safety key to GMOs verification
SOURCE: Zambian News Agency
        http://www.zamnet.zm/newsys/news/viewnews.cgi?category=3&id=
        1029311373
DATE:   Aug. 15, 2002

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... bio-safety key to GMOs verification

A South African Microbiologist Ann Koch has said bio-safety is an important 
element to the process of verifying the viability of Genetically Modified 
Foods offered by the United States government as relief food.

Ms. Koch, who is also chairperson of the Africa-Bio Education and Training 
working group, told journalists in Lusaka today that there is need for 
thorough safety checks and testing of GM grain before commercialising or 
importing it.

She said scientists in the country should ensure that food and feed safety 
of GMFs is extensively checked on every shipload.

She observed that Zambia has highly qualified specialists, who have the 
capacity to determine the nutritional status and safety of both 
conventional maize and GMOÕs imported from countries that produce biotech 
crops.

Ms. Koch advised that governments decision on whether or not to accept the 
offer of GM maize from the USA would largely depend on the assessment by 
scientists on the impact of GM grain on the economy, sustainable 
development and poverty alleviation.

While brushing aside suggestions that the GM maize should be milled before 
being exported, Ms. Koch said the Zambian government should look for 
alternative sources of food before making a decision to reject the US offer 
of GM relief maize.

Ms Koch pointed out that in South Africa, 500 food trials and processing 
applications of GM crops have been successfully undertaken and that four 
GMOÕs including insect tolerant maize have so far been approved.

She also dismissed the notion that GMOÕs have a grave environmental impact 
in Africa saying the nature of the continent's bio-diversity quickly 
eliminates the impact.

Ms. Koch urged scientists in the country to exhaustively look at the 
available safety information in order to come up with a recommendation to 
government on a viable regulatory framework on GMOs.

Efforts to get a comment from Agriculture minister Mundia Sikatana proved 
futile as he was reported locked in a meeting.


                                  PART II
-------------------------------- GENET-news --------------------------------

TITLE:  US sheds more light on GM maize
SOURCE: The Post, Zambia, by Brighton Phiri
        http://www.post.co.zm/
DATE:   Aug 14, 2002

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US sheds more light on GM maize

THE estimation that 2.5 million Zambians are at the risk of starvation were 
under-represented during the government organised debate on Genetically 
Modified Organisms (GMOs), charged the US government yesterday. And South 
African biosafety consultant Muffy Koch said Zambian scientists were split 
over the GMOs because they have not been exposed to safety information. In 
a statement released by the US embassy in Lusaka, the US government claimed 
that during the course of the indaba several local speakers raised some 
points that were misleading and inaccurate. "Although the voices of some 
key stakeholders, such as the 2.5 million Zambians at the risk of 
starvation, seemed under-represented, the indaba, nonetheless offered an 
opportunity for many stakeholders to share their information," read the 
statement in part. "Regrettably, in the course of the indaba several 
speakers made points concerning the US' role in providing relief food that 
were misleading and inaccurate."

According to the statement the US $50 million loan was a last resort safety 
net for the Zambian government, should its current arrangements to procure 
sufficient quantities of maize for the commercial market fall short. "In 
any case, the government would need to work out with the International 
Monetary Fund (IMF) arrangements for such a loan given the implications for 
Zambia's HIPC status," read the statement in part. "At this point, there is 
no specific loan proposal on the table and the Embassy hopes, the 
Government of the Republic of Zambia will not need at any point to exercise 
this last resort safety net option."

The US government stated that no efforts were being made in that country to 
separate GM maize and non-GM maize as regulatory agencies did not 
differentiate between the safety of two brands of maize. The US government 
dismissed assertions that it was forcing Zambians to accept its maize for 
various ulterior motives. It reminded Zambians that the donated food was 
procured on the US market, transported to its final destination and made 
available to the hungry people at its taxpayers' expense. "Instead of 
building more schools or roads in America, the US government has, for 
humanitarian reasons, dedicated significant resources each year to help 
feed vulnerable people around the world," read the statement. The statement 
further stated that Americans consumed genetically modified maize.

Earlier, addressing the press at Lusaka's American Centre, Koch disclosed 
that some countries in the region were still resisting to accept GM maize 
due lack of safety information on GMOs. She named Malawi as one of the 
countries which was in the process of establishing a safety framework to 
determine the safety of GMFs. Koch defended the US GM maize saying the 
product had not produced any side effects. "We have been eating the US 
maize since 1996," Koch said. She said Zambian scientists lacked a platform 
to discuss the safety of GMOs. Koch said the situation was worsened by the 
country's lack of a safety framework to facilitate the assessment of GMOs. 
"Zambian scientists have the capacity to assess the safety of GMOs. All 
they need is good laboratories and safety framework," she said.

Zambezi West UPND member of parliament Charles Kakoma said the 23,000 
metric tonnes of GM maize being donated by the US government should be 
burnt. "By doing so we will be sending a signal to our donors that if they 
want to help, they should do so in good faith. In Zambia we value our 
lives. These lives cannot be experimented upon," Kakoma said. He said GM 
maize should not be donated at the expense of the lives of starving 
Zambians. Kakoma warned that he was going to politicise the issue if 
government accepted the GM maize. He advised the Zambian government to 
emulate the European countries which have rejected GMFs.

The US on Monday came under severe attack from Zambians for insisting that 
government must accept genetically modified foods (GMFs) if it has to be 
granted a US $50 million loan. Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection 
(JCTR) and Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre consultant Bernadette 
Lubozhya said government's initial rejection of US GM maize should be 
maintained. She said the national biotechnology and biosafety policy 
currently being considered by government should be subjected to wide public 
discussion with full involvement of all stakeholders. "Government should 
undertake immediate steps to build the capacity necessary for testing 
agricultural products to detect the introduction of GMOs," Lubozhya said. 
"This requires greater laboratory facilities."


                                  PART III
-------------------------------- GENET-news --------------------------------

TITLE:  Media Has Key Role In African Biosafety
SOURCE: Southern African Regional Biosafety Network, South Africa
        posted by AgBioView, USA
DATE:   November 2001

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Media Has Key Role In African Biosafety

The media has a critical role to play in the introduction of new technology 
such as biotechnology into Southern African countries. This was the 
conclusion of a Southern African Regional Biosafety network meeting on 
Information Dissemination.

"The region is flooded with misinformation about biotechnology and strong 
reservations exist at most levels" says Muffy Koch of SARB. However, the 
press and government want to know about practical effects. "The media and 
regulators/policy makers are very interested in examples of how the 
technology is impacting on small farmers in Africa and we need many more 
examples, like cotton in the Makhatini, to illustrate the potential of the 
technology," she says.

SARB was launched in 2000 and is administered by the Agricultural 
Biotechnology Support Project (http://www.iia.msu.edu/absp/) (ABSP) at 
Michigan State University, USA, but managed by the Vegetable and Ornamental 
Plant Institute (http://www.arc.agric.za/institutes/roodeplaat/main/
intro.htm) (VOPI), Agricultural Research Council of South Africa. The 
programme aims to build regional policy and technical capacity to support 
science-based regulation of the development, commercial application, and 
trade in agricultural products derived from modern biotechnology. Regional 
co-operation and the harmonization of biosafety implementation in the 
region are also key to the project.

While the UNEP biosafety project will probably result in a degree of 
similarity between regulations, there are variations in the level of 
caution required from country to country, says Koch. However, she is 
critical of The African Model Law developed by the OAU (now the AU), saying 
that this is "a poor working model, designed to impede rather than promote 
safe and useful technology. Countries choosing this model will end up with 
regulations that cannot be implemented and will effectively ban the use of 
all existing products of GM, e.g. medicines, food ingredients and 
industrial enzymes, and contravene the terms of the Cartagena Protocol on 
Biosafety."

Muffy Koch works in South Africa, one of the three SARB countries, also 
including Mozambique and Zimbabwe which are developing GM crops in-country. 
"Malawi is setting up GM facilities, but Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique 
have no GM capacity", she says. There is also a range of development of 
biosafety capacity, varying from no regulations (Mozambique) to draft 
regulations (Mauritius, Namibia, Malawi) to completed GM legislation (South 
Africa and Zimbabwe). "Most other African countries have no regulations, 
but Uganda, Kenya and Egypt have interim guidelines" she says. It will be 
some time before commercial approvals are given outside of South Africa, 
says Koch. "Egypt is the closest technically. The other countries are 3 to 
5 years away from this."

SARB has planned a series of in-country biosafety capacity building events, 
starting in 2001 and continuing into 2003. At the end of 2001 a detailed 
risk assessment-training course will be run for 35 regional scientists who 
will join a critical mass of biosafety review expertise in the region. 
"This expertise will be accessible to all countries in the region to ensure 
that sufficient capacity is available to assist governments in national 
decision-making" says Koch.

A risk assessment field trial to collect biosafety data on GM sorghum is 
scheduled for 2002-2003 and SARB will also focus on raising awareness about 
the role to biotechnology in government departments in the region. This 
will include a trip to China for government officials to investigate how 
relevant the technology is for small scale farming in the Southern African 
region.

Contact Information
>From The AgBiotechNet, Institute of International Agriculture, Michigan 
State University, East Lansing , MI, 48824-1039, United States;
Email:absp@pilot.msu.edu
http://www.iia.msu.edu/absp/

For more on developing country issues, visit our hot topic at
http://www.agbiotechnet.com/topics/database/Developing/developing.asp



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