A risk worth taking as GM foods could save millions of lives

Published on Friday 16 February 2007 02:19

EUROPEAN consumer panic and EU regulations about genetically modified foods threaten millions of starving Africans who need cheap and reliable crops.

Greenpeace has just garnered a million signatures around Europe for a petition to the EU demanding labels for traces of GM organisms in food.

This time last year, Zambia banned famine relief containing GM food. Uganda and Kenya are wavering and millions of people are starving in Africa right now.

GM food may not solve malnutrition and starvation by itself, but it would make a huge difference.

Remember, we are talking about a product eaten by Americans and Canadians for over a decade without harming anybody. Even the European Union, while applying many restrictions, accepts it is safer than conventional food.

Fifteen years of tests in 400 European laboratories led the EU Research Commissioner, Philippe Busquin, to say in 2001 that they had not found "any new risks to human health or the environment, beyond the usual uncertainties of conventional plant breeding. Indeed, the use of more precise technology and the greater regulatory scrutiny probably make them even safer than conventional plants and foods".

At first sight, the precautionary principle looks reasonable. As children we were warned to "look before you leap". Following that advice will at times have avoided danger. On the other hand, following advice to avoid all risk would keep away a lot of fine opportunities, and carrying out a risk assessment before avoiding an oncoming bus could prove fatal.

The precautionary principle requires action to avoid a risk even when there is no evidence of any risk; it demands that new inventions should not be used unless and until they have been shown to be absolutely safe.

When the Zambian government in 2005 turned away famine-relief GM maize because of a theoretical health risk, it created a real risk and turned a disaster into a tragedy. But that same type of GM maize had been consumed by Americans and Canadians for more than a decade.

Applied to agriculture and food biotechnology, the precautionary principle ignores the real threats of hunger, starvation and malnutrition that can be reduced by new products. Applied to penicillin and aspirin or peanuts and potatoes, with rare fatal allergies, it would have demanded an outright ban. Yet GM foods do not have those rare side-effects.

It is worth repeating that no-one has yet detected any allergy, harm or risk to humans, animals or the environment from commercialised GM crops.

The "Frankenfood" myths about Terminator genes, contamination and the destruction of species only reflect ignorance, pseudo-science or plain propaganda.

For European consumers, GM is a whimsical lifestyle issue. For the poor of the world, this really is a question of life and death.

• Temba Nolutshungu is a director of the Free Market Foundation, South Africa. This article is based on his evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee hearing on the Genetically Modified Organisms Bill in 2006.