SUNS 4340 Tuesday 8 December 1998
ENVIRONMENT: AFRICA TARGETED BY TNCS FOR GENE-PRODUCTS
Nairobi, Dec 3 (IPS/Judith Achieng') -- Africa is being targeted by transnational corporations desperate for a market to sell genetically engineered products which have been rejected elsewhere, environmental groups have warned.
Liz Hosken of the UK-based environmental watchdog, Gaia Foundation, said due to resistance in Europe and parts of Asia, large corporations involved in genetic engineering are now viewing Africa as a potential market for their products which include food and seeds.
"Africa is a soft spot because people are not yet aware of the dangers posed by genetic engineered products," she told the first Euro-African Green Conference held in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi this week.
"We are hoping that the European reaction will help Africa realise the dangers of genetic engineering and hence speed its own resistance," she said.
Hosken warned African countries to watch out against a new breed of seed being developed by transnational corporations with the help of American and Japanese governments which, she said, would make African governments dependent on the corporations for seeds.
The seed, produced through the so-called 'terminator gene' technology, can be planted only once; the second generation seed cannot germinate.
Hosken claims the terminator technology has been designed to prevent farmers from saving their own seeds and buy from the corporations each time they want to plant.
Hosken and other green activists say they have been monitoring the initial research of the terminator technology and have been campaigning to block the trial of an altered Soya bean seed variety in Europe, for fear that the gene may affect other crops.
The biggest threat, however, lies in the privatisation of the state-owned seed distribution companies currently taking place in Africa. These distribution companies are being taken over by the same
transnationals involved in genetic engineering, they say.
The conference brought together environmental groups and Green parties from around Africa who expressed concern about the in-roads being made into Africa by transnational corporations some of which are already controlling the seed distribution and supply systems.
"We don't know yet if this technology (terminator gene) is already being used in Africa, but it looks that they are already creating the necessary structure through which they can supply their technology," said a delegate from Mali.
Only Malawi has resisted attempts by groups like the US-based 'Monsanto' from taking over its seed supply and distribution system, according to another delegate.
In Zimbabwe, for example, all government-owned seed companies have been taken over and are now controlled by commercial concerns, which produce only hybrid seeds, according to Patience Goredema.
"There are many problems related to inappropriate seeds that are not suited to the climate and soil," she said.
Kenya's environmentalist Wangari Maathai not only believes that up to 90% of imported food consumed by elite in Kenyan urban centres are biologically engineered, but also that Monsanto has taken over a banana engineering project at Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta University of Agricultural
Technology (JKUAT).
She says she fears that seeds could be used as a political weapon by the corporations to 'starve' poor countries. "The trouble with the terminator technology is that it can easily be used as a political
weapon against poor countries, just like our people are dying because they cannot afford the cost of AIDS drugs," she said.
Trade in genetically engineered products is supported by the Trade-Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement of the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO).
TRIPs which came in force in 1995 and which sets up the first global intellectual property rights on biological diversity, also obligates all WTO member states to agree to the application of either patents or monopoly rights over plant varieties in countries by companies or individuals.
Failure to implement the terms of the agreement, which must be implemented in developing countries by the year 2,000 and least developed countries by 2005, would result in trade retaliation against offending countries, delegates fear.
Maathai, who recently defied the government to lead a group of Kenyans in replanting trees on the outskirts of Nairobi, told IPS that Africans can only conserve their biological resources by protecting their forests from destruction. "One of the reasons why we have been fighting to save the forests is that it is where all our biological resources are," she said.
Despite the alarm, there is still hope for Africa, according to Methin Zewdu of the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and Research (IBCR) in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia recently took the initiative to draft a framework on community rights and access to biological resources, based on the earlier Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for the African region and which was this year passed by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), he said.
CBD, unlike the TRIPS, the rights of communities or even countries over their own biological resources.
African countries are backed in the campaign by the London-based Consumer International which is leading campaigns to get genetically modified goods labelled. "If the producers are sincere about the advantages like longer shelf life in their products, then they should also label them, it is the consumer's right to know what they are eating," said Amadou Kanoute of the consumer international.