Africans bring their biotech message to Brussels

Date: 30/01/03

AFRICAN farm experts put the case for biotech crops at the European Parliament in Brussels this week - just as the transatlantic dispute over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) threatened to boil over.

"Ninety percent of trade from Africa is with Europe, that's why we're here," declared Jocelyn Webster, executive director of South African biotech association AfricaBio.

Nine Africans and one Indian began a whirlwind visit to the capital of Europe with a panel discussion at the Parliament yesterday (29 January).

They will also take part in a two-day conference starting today at the European Commission on 'sustainable agriculture and developing countries - options from life sciences and biotechnology'.

L.E. Mumba, dean of the University of Zambia's school of natural sciences, said two years of drought meant 14 million people are threatened by starvation in southern African. "We feel that biotechnology, though not a panacea to Africa's problems, has a role to play," he said, adding that Zambia has benefited "for decades" from biotech crops.

Nevertheless, the Zambian government has refused GM food aid shipments from the US. He suggested this was largely due to fears that to do otherwise might damage trade relations with the EU, which imposed a moratorium on the authorisation of new GM products four years ago.

Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, has threatened to take the EU to the World Trade Organization if it fails to lift the ban. Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy says this would be counterproductive because the EU is already moving toward lifting the moratorium. He has rejected allegations that either the EU or individual member states have made their aid for African countries contingent on those nations banning GM crops.

African farm experts put the case for biotech crops at the European Parliament in Brussels on 29 January 2003 - just as the transatlantic dispute over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) threatened to boil over.