Consumers may not know what they are eating as unlabelled GMO white maize becomes available to South Africans
Roger Friedman
Over the next few weeks farmers will begin harvesting South Africa’s first genetically modified white maize crop for human consumption.
White maize is South Africa’s staple food. Consumers have not been told what they’ll soon be eating, and labelling legislation intended to afford them a choice is not yet ready.
Genetically modified crops are banned across half the world including in the European Union and Japan by countries applying the precautionary principle while scientists and academics attempt to respond to health, environmental, social and ethical concerns.
In South Africa, however, environmental and labour organisations’ calls for a five-year freeze on the production of genetically modified organisms (GMO) appear to be falling on deaf ears. Instead, production is being stepped up. South Africa is the only country in Africa that is planting genetically modified crops commercially.
The revolutionary white maize planted this season in relatively small quantities across South Africa contains a gene from a bacterial organism named Bacillus thuringiensis that gives the plant built-in resistance to stalk borers.
Instead of the farmer having to spray insecticide, the organism is now contained within the plant.
This, proponents of the technology say, makes the food healthier, is less damaging to the environment, and provides such effective pest control that yields are increased. Future genetic transfers will enable producers to enrich food before it is planted, and produce whiter maize, which is what the consumer wants, they say.
Those who are unconvinced argue that food containing implanted genes from unrelated organisms are not necessarily healthy, that the organisms could spread and destroy biodiversity, and that it is impossible for GMO farmers to attain better yields than conventional farmers who exercise effective pest control.
There are also arguments about the ethics of companies patenting seed (farmers planting GMO seed pay royalties to the company that sold them the seed), about the impact on labour requirements and about the impact on exports to markets requiring certified GMO-free products.
Wally Green of multinational seed company Monsanto said the company sold a relatively small quantity of the modified white maize last year to test market reaction. About 1 500ha have been planted, concentrated in Mpumalanga. Green said Monsanto has also given away free seed to small growers all over the country to conduct field tests. He said rival multinational Pioneer Seeds is also marketing modified white maize.
Jannie de Villiers, executive director of the National Association of Maize Millers said Monsanto has informed millers that modified white maize was about to make its appearance. He knew of no plans to handle the modified maize separately.
”At the moment my information is that the product will flow into the mainstream and there won’t be any separation,” De Villiers said.
”If there’s a resistance [from consumers] then obviously we will adjust rapidly. I think it’s just a matter of the consumer coming up and saying what she wants and where they want it.”
De Villiers says that within a short time most white maize in South Africa would be modified and people wishing to eat unmodified varieties would have to pay the substantial costs of an identity-preservation system to keep certified GMO-free maize separate.
Plant biotechnologist Dr Chris Viljoen of the Free State University will be disappointed to learn that the modified maize will not be handled separately this season.
”Unless there is some form of segregation, unless there is some form of labelling to be able to track GMO from non-GMO, in a very short space of time that maize which is non-GMO will become contaminated,” he said.
”It also means that consumers may not have the right of choice. The right of choice is a very important one. It is based on personal feelings, ethical issues and religious reasons. Unless white maize is labelled people are not going to know what they’re eating,” Viljoen said.
”Should the government implement a system of enforced labelling and management, genetic engineering could contribute positively to African agriculture,” he said.
Access to credible information is a real bone of contention in the debate.
The Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) is aghast at the lack of consultation by the government on the GMO issue. And the National African Farmers’ Union of South Africa (Nafu) has practically begged for information to allow the union to come to informed decisions on the subject.
Fawu’s deputy general secretary William Thomas criticised the government for issuing permits to grow the country’s staple food without bothering to inform the people.
”We are concerned. We will begin to talk to the government, write letters to them, try to get a response from them. Because nowhere have they involved their partners in South Africa, the trade union movement, the consumer groups, whatsoever. It is actually a new thing, very new to us. It is actually shocking that the government is doing things behind our backs and is not open and discussing it with people in the country,” Thomas said.
”I would say to consumers they should not buy these goods. They should actually join the campaign to pressurise government to stop the issue of GMO foods because we do not know what the health risks will be 110 years from now.”
The union had already taken the GMO issue up with the government at the National Economic and Development Labour Council, launching a Section 77 application that could see workers called out on strike if the government does not bow to the call for a five-year freeze, he said.
Nafu vice-president Motsepe Matlala said: ”I am not saying people must be told GMOs are bad, I’m saying people must be informed.”
Small farmers had largely been left out of the debate, with seed companies concentrating their marketing at commercial farmers, he said.
A little further down the food chain, closely monitoring the movement in maize is African Products, the glucose and starch division of the Tongaat-Hullett group that uses about 600 000 tons of maize a year.
African Products sells GMO-free maize because that’s what its major customers want. Apart from its clients in the EU, the company also supplies maize products (corn syrup, corn starch) to local manufacturers including South African Breweries, Cadbury, Nestl, Beacon and pharmaceutical companies.
Until this year African Products used predominantly white maize because there was no GMO white maize. The company’s Braam Olivier was confident that farmers would plant more GMO maize, that identity preservation systems would improve and that there would always be a market for GMO-free products.
Director of genetic resources for the Department of Agriculture, Shadrack Moephuli, confirmed issuing a permit to Monsanto to sell GMO white maize for human consumption.
”They have a permit to plant it as much as they can, and to sell it,” Moephuli said.
Asked whether he felt South Africans were ready to eat modified, Moephuli’s candid response was: ”At the moment I don’t think so, but that is not necessarily the opinion of the company which is producing it a lot of that depends on how consumers feel about it. At the moment consumers don’t object to white GMO maize. All consumers are asking for is that it be labelled as such so they are informed before they buy it.
”And we will help them in that regard. This is a very, very significant revolution that many people are not aware of.”
Environmental NGO Biowatch said consumers should be informed that modified maize was coming on to the market and be given a choice through awareness-raising and mandatory labelling.
”The unannounced, unlabelled marketing of genetically modified maize is violating the rights of the poor in South Africa, as maize is their staple diet,” Biowatch said.