Zambia / The president of the country forbids the distribution of genetically engineered corn flour to the hungry on the grounds that it is dangerous to health
A woman collects corn kernels that fell from a truck. "We collect roots of wild plants"
All that is left in Josephine Nmangulwa's hungry and tired body is rage, and it erupts in the blink of an eye. Many days have passed since she could give her eight children a nutritious meal. Like millions of other Zambian citizens, they are victims of a food shortage that is getting worse every day and is gradually taking over the whole of Southern Africa.
Nmangulwa's children are hungry even though their village has about 500 tons of maize flour - the staple food in Zambia for generations - stored in sacks. But no one touches this flour. Do not touch it. It is now at the center of a scientific and diplomatic debate about genetically modified food. For Namangulwa this argument means nothing, and says everything. "We are dying here," she shouted when aid workers arrived at Kfar Chipapa to check the warehouse where bags of corn flour are stored, flour that came from the US and most likely part of it is a crop that has undergone genetic engineering. "We want to eat", she shouted.
But right now she and the rest of the hungry in Zambia will not eat any of the food stored in Chipapa or the additional thousands of tons sent to the region from the US. The president of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa, adopted a hard line in the debate that has been going on throughout the region for weeks, and banned the distribution of genetically modified food. The president, with his close advisers and sympathetic scientists, are concerned about several aspects of the GM food issue. One aspect is the concern for health, trade relations with the European Union and the United States are another concern.
Genetically modified corn is shipped in two forms: unmilled kernels and cornmeal. Officials in Zambia fear the possibility that the kernels will be used for sowing, and from them will grow genetically modified corn, which will cross-pollinate with non-modified corn varieties. This would jeopardize Zambian exports to the European Union, which requires labeling of all genetically modified products.
People who follow the debate say that at some point it turned into an undeclared trade dispute between the European Union and its powerful environmentalists, and the US and its powerful biotechnology industry. In a situation where the lives of millions of people are at stake, neither side wants the conflict to be seen as a trade skirmish, and both sides have invested much effort to keep the issue of trade out of the public debate. In an announcement made on August 29 by the EU representative in Lusaka, she almost explicitly called on Zambia to accept the genetically engineered corn, saying that the milling of the corn would allay concerns about the fate of Zambian exports.
But even if the maize will indeed be ground into flour and thus eliminate the risk to Zambian agriculture, the government still fears that the genetically engineered maize is unfit for human consumption. "I was told that it is not safe," said the Minister of Agriculture, Mundia Siketana, in an interview. When asked if he thought such foods were toxic, Siktana said that the studies he had read led him to that conclusion. "What other name would you call an allergy caused by a substance? The substance that the person reacts to is toxic."
All the talk about toxic substances and trade confused many of the country's residents. They cause frustration among the workers of the "United Nations World Food Program" and anger Washington, which provides about three quarters of the food for the World Food Program's operations in the region. The workers of the program that feeds more than one million Zambians expect by the end of the year to feed about 2.5 million. Right now, they say, there are only about 7,000 tons of food left - enough for two weeks - that has been approved and is available for distribution. The distribution of about 14 thousand tons of additional food, which is already in the country, some ground, some not, was frozen by the president's order. Much larger shipments, which are on their way, are likely to suffer a similar fate if Mwanawasa does not change his mind.
In a move that indicates the urgency of the issue, last week the head of the US Agency for International Development, Andrew Netsius, met with President Mwanawasa to urge him to accept the corn and offer Zambia help to make sure that the food is indeed safe. In an attempt to allay concerns in Zambia, the agency offered to fly Zambian scientists to the US, where they would meet with government officials and scientists. Natsios said that Mwanawasa was open to the proposal and the possibility that it could yield a solution. "I think he wants more information," said Natsios. "There is no commitment to change, but I don't think the story is close to ending."
Agriculture Minister Siktana said that the government has made a decision and that it can meet the country's needs even without American aid. According to him, efforts are being made to bring hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to the country from other places and no Zambian will go hungry. But with each passing day, the situation of millions of hungry people in the country only worsens. Lawens Malupanda, who lives not far from Chipapa in Kabweza village with an extended family of 24, said her family has already sold 18 of the 20 cows it had just to buy food, which by now has all been eaten. Now the family feeds on what it manages to collect. "We go out, looking for roots of wild plants," she said. One of her relatives, Cliff Malambo, 27 years old, said that he heard about the food in the warehouse in Chipapa. "They say the food is not good for us, but we don't know, they don't explain," he said.
Many Zambians doubt the government's announcements and wonder how it is that friends who received the American corn before the ban went into effect did not die from eating it. Others praise the vigilance of the government. But everyone is quite confused. "People ask me if it's safe," said Steven Grabiner, who runs a church charity called the Riverside Development Agency. "I say: 'Yes, I think he is safe. If you make me a bowl of this food, I will eat it.'"
Foods made from crops engineered to be more resistant to worms, for example, are now widely consumed in the US, and all this less than a decade since these products entered the market. By many accounts, they made American agriculture more productive, but they also created controversy. Some scientists and consumer organizations claim that the effects of genetic engineering on both the environment and consumers have not been sufficiently examined. However, years of extensive testing have not produced any findings from which to conclude that these foods are unsafe for humans, says Mark Cohen, an expert at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.
Genetically modified food has almost certainly been finding its way into Zambia for several years through international aid, or imports from South Africa which produces genetically modified crops. But the scope was always small, and never attracted attention.
Now it is a huge amount of food, intended to feed 13 million people in six countries, and there is an outcry.
Mozambique and Zimbabwe initially joined Zambia in opposing the GM crops, mainly because of the fear of cross-pollination. However, in the end, these two countries decided to grind the corn before it was brought into the country, thus eliminating the potential threat to their agriculture. Zambia is currently opposed to milling, partly because of the price: 25 dollars for milling a ton of corn is not a marginal expense for one of the poorest countries in the world.
Critics of the government say that officials who were late in formulating a comprehensive policy regarding genetic engineering are now trying to buy time to come up with such a policy. "In this time of emergency we must limit our debate to maize," said John Clayton, chairman of the Farmers' Association of Zambia. "We don't have the luxury of time to start a comprehensive debate on the issue."
"This is the handiwork of the politicians," Nmangulwa said as she looked at the pile of corn sacks. "This flour is fine. They don't help us. They are killing us."
