Say NO to genetically-modified potatoes

Potato South Africa oversees the whole potato industry. If they believe that their market will be jeopardised by GM potatoes, they will make a strong case to the GMO council not to allow them onto the market. Potato SA has already said that they will oppose the permit, your decision will help to galvanise their position.

GM Potatoes have already been rejected by consumers in the United States and the European Union. The governments of Egypt and Indonesia began experiments on these potatoes but ended them when they realised that consumers would not buy. Your signature could ensure they meet the same fate in South Africa.

>> Sign the Petition

Taking into account that South Africa’s Agriculture and Research Council (ARC) has announced their intention to apply to the SA government for permission to make GM potatoes commercially available,

We, the undersigned consumers and importers of potatoes, hereby vehemently oppose the marketing and growing of GMO potatoes and implore the SA GMO council to reject the application outright, on the following grounds :

Health Concerns

There is no consumer confidence in the long-term safety of GM potatoes and they pose no benefit to the consumer. Problems with Bt genes that have been commercialised in the past have included immune reactions, impacts on organ weight and function and allergic reactions.

Additionally, the use of antibiotic resistant marker genes poses an unacceptable risk to the health of Africans. There is a possibility that the use of these genes could diminish the efficacy of antibiotics such as Kanamycin, a drug that is listed in the WHO Essential Medicines Library as a drug reserved for treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

There is no reason for consumers to take the risk of eating a novel food for the sake of storage requirements for farmers.

Force feeding fellow Africans with dangerous food

ARC’s GM potato work is funded by USAID, which is well known for their tactics to push US corporate interests in GM in Africa. They are up front about their goal to “integrate GM into local food systems” through their Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP).

Ninety percent of South Africa export potato crop goes to its neighbours in SADC, where many have imposed bans or biosafety restrictions on GM food. ARC’s GM potatoes will force feed fellow Africans with food that they have neither asked for nor have a say in.

GM Potatoes won’t help African farmers

GM potatoes are located within the “Green Revolution” package for Africa that proffers technical and economic solutions for African agriculture. These solutions, designed by transnational agribusiness, create dependence on hi-tech, capital-intensive technology that is inappropriate for small-scale farmers. Public research money would be better used on enhancing more appropriate agricultural systems that ensure local food security, adaptability to changing climates and local control over resources.

African farmers face the loss of their markets and control over their farming systems if South Africa paves the way for the introduction of GM potatoes onto the continent.

Biosafety Concerns

The developers claim that GM potatoes are better for our health & the environment because they reduce pesticide spraying, but this is not true. GM potatoes are engineered with an inbuilt pesticide to control the tuber moth, which is most destructive during storage. The pesticide is now inside the plant and farmers will still use a toxic cocktail of chemicals to combat all the other 99 pests, as well as viral, fungal & bacterial diseases, and weeds that plague potato farming in South Africa.

Furthermore because the Bt toxin is expressed 24 hours a day, it accumulates in the environment and throughout the food chain. The tuber moth will quickly develop resistance to the toxin, so this is a short-term and short-sighted solution to this problem.

* To download a booklet with detailed information on the GM potato in the South African potato industry go to :

www.biosafetyafrica.net/hotpotatoscreen.pdf

Is Famine Inevitable?

Is Famine Inevitable? | AlterNet:

Much of our current recessionary intrigue has been aided and abetted by market speculation, from the oil and food sector all the way to the White House itself. For the last seven years, the Bush administration has placed climate crisis on the back burner in existential pursuit of resource wars and an 'American way of life' that has turned from a dream of Hummers, housing and bling into a nightmare of price hikes, foreclosures and layoffs. Mission accomplished.

But someone will have to pick up the pieces, which are going viral fast. In that chaos, food has stopped being our other energy problem and become a chief terror of the future. And considering increasing prices, decreasing dollars and a world that will soon house many more people but feed even less of them, we're probably in for a famine or two before all is said and done.

Though that piece was written with North America in mind, I don't think it will be much different in Southern Africa.

From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence and famine; from locusts, murrain and drought; from battle and murder, and from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord deliver us

as Anglicans used to pray.

In the last few years there has been good rainfall in Southern Africa, and still food prices have risen. But in our climate droughts are inevitable, and what then?

Haiti: Stuffed and Starved

Behind the food crisis

RAJ PATEL, author of the just-released book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Patel said today: "What's happening in Haiti is an augury to the rest of the developing world.

Haiti is the poster child of an economy that liberalized its agricultural economy and removed the social safety nets for the poor, despite the protests of the majority of its people. Food riots throughout history have happened when two conditions have been
fulfilled. First, there has always been a sudden and rapid discrepancy between what people expect to be able to eat, and what they can actually feed their families. The price shocks around the world have introduced this discrepancy, and the politics that might have dampened them -- grain reserves, tariffs, support for sustainable farmers -- have been eroded by modern development policies.

"But the second feature of food riots in history is that riots happen when there are no other ways of making powerful people listen. Like many other countries in the developing world, Haiti has been forced to liberalize its economy despite popular opposition -- in other words, modern development policy has been forced to be anti-democratic. And since there has been no effective way for the people to hold their leaders accountable, we're seeing riots not just in Haiti, but in places as diverse as Mexico, India, Egypt, Senegal and even Italy. It's something to expect to see with increasing frequency, until governments realize that food isn't a mere commodity, it's a human right" (Hat-tip to The Institute for Public Accuracy)

Haiti and The King Canute of Food | Stuffed and Starved

Part of the more recent intervention came under Reagan and Clinton. When a group of US-funded guerillas deposed Jean Bertrand Aristide, Clinton imposed some harsh trade liberalization conditions as the price Aristide would have to pay to get back into power. It’s this gunboat diplomacy that, Aristide says, tied his hands behind his back in terms of fiscal policy.

Aristide was subsequently deposed when he tried to untie his hands – the current Bush administration bankrolled a coup against him, and only guaranteed his life if he left immediately.

That history is one that is erased. The fact that Haiti produced more rice in 1984 than it does now isn’t an accident. The fact that the bags of rice to be found in Haiti have US flags stamped on them is no accident.

See also __the state of gareth__: Hunger. Strikes. Riots. The food crisis bites!