USA Govt has donated maize worth $20million to Zambia

Emmanuel Mwamba writes:

Is it GMO?

The USA Government has donated maize worth $20million to Zambia. Corn as they USA calls maize, is the most commonly grown crop in the United States, and most of it is GMO.

It appears that both the Vice President, W.K. Mutale Nalumango and USA Ambassador to Zambia, Mike Gonzalez, neglected to clarify this important fact.

Both milled and non-milled GM food imports are banned in Zambia.

Zambia’s National Biosafety Authority was established in 2005, and the Biosafety Act was passed in 2007 to regulate research, import, contained use and commercial release of products containing GMOs.

Live GMOs, or Living Modified Organisms (LMOs), are outrightly banned in Zambia.

Cautious consideration was also required before allowing GMO products into the
country.

However, from 2009, a shift began to happen when the import of products containing GMOs started being permitted, and in more recent years, increasing attempts have been made to weaken the National Precautionary Principle position, as upheld in the Policy and also undermine Zambia’s strong Liability and Redress mechanisms.

New National Draft Policy on GMOs

The proposed changes envisioned by the new draft National Policy opens Zambia for environmental release of live GMOs, weakens Liability and Redress, and diminished socio-economic risk assessments and thus limits public consideration and participation.

Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB) in its Briefing to the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment summarised Stakeholders’ concerns and considerations regarding the Draft Bio-technology and Biosafety Policy and on-going revision process.

It warned of the allure to believe that commercial promotional materials on the safety of GMOs is deceitful especually the aeguements about second generation GMO technologies.

Second generation technology and ‘synthetic biology’

Zambia must consider the fast-evolving ‘second generation’ genetic modification and corporate industry promotion and false promises of new technologies in Africa.

These highrisk technologies are being channeled through public-private partnerships (PPPs) and foreign agency funding influence through the African Union.

‘Old’ GM technology is based on modifying genetics of plants by inserting foreign DNA in a laboratory setting. New techniques, involve a process of gene editing within organisms, and those organisms will then reproduce that change on their own and into the environment. An example is editing the genes of a type of malaria-carrying mosquito so that when they breed, they can only produce females.

The intended purpose is to cause population crash, an effective means of population scale ‘terminator technology’.

The genetic change happens once the organism is released into the environment, and is unstoppable.

Unsurprisingly, this creates widespread and significant risks for animal and human health and safety, and environmental management.

These significant impacts cannot be predicted nor adequately regulated given complex environmental factors and change over time and scale.
This is very critical context that must be considered in relation to the industry and public private sector support for Zambia’s policy changes and weakening of national Liability and Redress mechanisms.

New technologies are promoted by powerful lobby groups and corporate control of research and multilateral public-policy mechanisms that are driving African agendas now.

“Particular concern for Africa was raised in 2021 regarding the adoption of ill-fitting guidelines under the African Union for continental harmonisation of bio-technology policies despite public opposition and the large divergence of African country
contexts. Zambia’s relationship to these continental processes and industry / foreign agency policy influence requires greater scrutiny for our country and sovereign state policy position”, submitted ZAAB.