Next Target: GMO Biotech Descends on African Countries

It takes a keen eye to disentangle the GMO lie. It seems that growing upheaval in Europe, Canada, and the US against GMOs is causing the makers to look elsewhere to sell their poison-wares. So the biotech bullies want to weasel their way into African governments to allow biotech farming in countries where thousands are already dying.

A delegation from the biotech industry composed of European scientists and policy makers is to meet the Ghanaian, Ethiopian, Kenyan and Nigerian farm ministers as well as officials from the African Union. Their aim: to bolster governmental support of controversial GM crops. This despite the fact that in past years, African countries have refused to accept genetically modified food aid demanding biosafety risk assessments before importing such food, fearing that GM food could transmit toxic proteins and allergens to the human body.

Diran Makinde, director of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (NEPAD’s) African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE), and a pool of scientific experts set up by the African Union weighed in with a different opinion on the first attempt to send our toxic GMOs to their countries:

“When you have people starving in your country you don’t simply turn your back on food at your door-step just because it is labeled GM – it is expected that biosafety risk assessments should have been conducted before the importation of the food to see whether it does indeed pose a threat before taking a decision. Taking this decision so late in the day could have serious consequences for the suffering people.”

Anne Glover, the chief scientific adviser to the European commission who has said on record that, “There is no substantiated case of any adverse impact on human health, animal health or environmental health,” will travel with other prominent pro-GM researchers and policymakers from European countries including Germany, Hungary, Italy and Sweden this week to meet Ethiopian, Kenyan, Ghanaian and Nigerian farm ministers as well as officials from the African Union. The plan is to push GMOs on these nations.

These GMO-pushers  actually believe they are standing on some moral imperative by offering GM crops to starving countries, but what they may or may not be aware of is that they are participating in the homicide of millions of people. Making GMO technologies available to Africa and other poor countries is taking a bad problem and making it worse. The truth is that the EU depends on these countries for their GMO exports – even if they are cancer causing and create reproductive failure in just a few generations.

The saddest part, aside from potentially endangering millions of innocent, starving people, is that it is the governments of the EU who act in this manner, not the people. Most EU citizens oppose GMO crops. Millions have marched against Monsanto in the UK, and other European countries.

These talks will take place as industry data shows the increase in the planting of GM crops has practically halted in the US and G8 countries. Farmers in Africa are savvy too. They say the new push for GMO agriculture is a new form of colonialism.

Africa may be the last frontier for biotech, but the people are taking back the land and the seed. Zambia, for example, resists biotech fervidly. Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe accepted GM seed back in 2002, but Zambia refused it, stating that it would not allow Zambians to be turned into guinea pigs, no matter how the levels of hunger in their country.

Let’s hope other African countries can stand as strong.