The Sunday Mail
So, the local manufacturer will continue to unfairly compete with imported and unlabelled GM products until such a time when Government chooses to enforce mandatory labelling to reinforce its current policy position.
Say the words “genetically modified organisms”, and you would have succeeded in provoking everybody in the vicinity to start picking factions, I mean sides.
Government will tell you that it is its current policy to prevent the growing or processing of GMOs. The importation of GMOs is also said to be banned, except in cases meant to avert food shortages caused by drought or flood.
The interesting irony is that, irrespective of posting bumper harvests or otherwise, we still eat GMOs anyway. Everyday, actually.
Unwittingly, in the majority of cases. Wittingly, in the remaining cases, albeit inevitable, as folks would be simply trying to resort to these cheaper GMOs so that their shoestring budgets can be in agreement with their paltry incomes.
What boggles the mind is the exception to the rule that favours only imported GMOs when worse comes to worst — which says Buy Foreign, much to the betrayal of Buy Local.
If the principle of policy says we can eat GMOs at some point (going to Satan as a last resort), and when we are indeed eating them daily right now — then let’s not be like the dinosaur that rejects to adapt to the changing circumstances, especially when rejection implies obliteration.
Why not grow the GMOs ourselves to cater for the above realities?
You see, part of the reasons why our National Budget continues to be perennially distressed, and why we don’t virtually see any fiscal space even through the microscope, is because of the unforeseen food deficits that arise, thanks to erratic rains, thereby warranting food importation.
It also makes our trade deficit look much uglier.
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made thinks we can do away with GMOs by working on initiatives to increase agricultural productivity.
He cites timeous allocation of adequate inputs as one of those initiatives.
But he forgets that there is another input that we have no absolute control over – the rains. And erratic rains are one of the biggest culprits in areas where hunger is currently beginning to knock on the doors of folks.
It’s one integral input that Government can’t guarantee to provide to every peasant.
We can’t also refuse to accept the reality of the changing climate, the same climate that was rejected by the dinosaur when the elephant was embracing it. And where is clever dinosaur and foolish elephant today?
So, there is wisdom in developing genetically modified seeds that are drought-resistant and that have a shorter maturity cycle.
Government seems to also be adamant to scientific counsel that is coming from the people we are supposed to be relying on, on this GMOs subject — the National Biotechnology Authority.
This is a statutory body we have put in place to run with these things.
Why is it difficult to accept and implement when NBA’s Mr Jonathan Mufandaedza tells us, say, that: “I see a potential if Government decides that Zimbabwe should take the route of Bt cotton.”
This is the chief executive of NBA, and he goes on to explain that: “Bt is a protein which does not have any harm to our bodies because the toxins are destroyed. The cotton cake produced from Bt cotton is fed to animals. People cannot take genes out of animals when they eat meat.”
Should we, therefore, miss the benefits of enhanced agricultural production that come with embracing Bt cotton simply because our policies say no?
Yet we are wearing imported products made from the very processes.
If Government were serious about a GMO-free Zimbabwe in the interest of the “safety” of people, then what are GM foodstuffs still doing on our retail shelves?
Why are we not insisting on only imports with authentic “GMO-free” labels to come through?
How does the consumer exercise his or her right to choose in that scenario?
We all know that the right to choose is a function of the right to be informed. Are consumers currently informed about whether the stuff they are gullibly consuming has been made from GM-free raw materials or not?
That some consumers are still ignorant about what GMOs really are can be clearly demonstrated by the case of chickens, where those large imported chickens are usually wrongly referred to as GMOs.
Yet, the world has not yet brought to the market any GM animal species.
I, however, welcome efforts by the Standards Association of Zimbabwe and NBA to establish a standard relating to voluntary labelling and advertising of food and stock-feed as GM-free or otherwise.
However, it must be noted that no same foreign manufacturer of GM stuffs being exported to one country called Zimbabwe will be foolish enough to voluntarily label their products as manufactured using GM materials.
So, the local manufacturer will continue to unfairly compete with imported and unlabelled GM products until such a time when Government chooses to enforce mandatory labelling to reinforce its current policy position.
I don’t, of course, want to pretend as if I am not alive to what is said to lie on the other side of the coin – the alleged health effects of GMO consumption, where things like cancers, allergies, genetic contamination, you name it, are cited.
But isn’t there somewhere we can draw the line, rather than staying on one extreme end?
This is especially as we are already eating GMOs daily anyway.
Studies point to the fact that a significant quantity of land in sub-Saharan Africa is going to yield less by 2050 due to climate change.
Yet, we are faced with a steadily growing population, which means food demand will increase against diminishing supply if we take the business-as-usual approach, subsequently raising food prices, and wiping away spending power.
Section 77(b) of the Constitution says, “Every person has the right to sufficient food.”
Are we going to provide that right in 2050 if we don’t start altering the way we look at living organisms whose genes have been altered right away?
Bt cotton is a crop genetically modified by inserting one or more genes from a common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). These genes encode for insecticidal protein production, and thus, genetically transformed plants produce one or more toxins as they grow. Bt cotton protects against pesticides. — Biotech experts.
