Close to two million Angolans could go hungry because their government has banned genetically modified (GM) food, the United Nations’s food agency warned this week.
A shipment of 19 000 tonnes of maize from the United States may have to turn back because the Southern African state has become concerned about the environmental risks of biotechnology.
Rations for about 1,9-million people dependent on food aid are likely to be cut in the short term while the UN World Food Programme (WFP) adjusts to the new policy, according to Mike Sackett, the agency’s regional director for Southern Africa.
Angola’s council of ministers decided this month to join five other Southern African countries in rejecting unmilled GM seeds which could cross-pollinate local maize.
No Angolan is expected to starve because of the ban but it nevertheless revives a controversy over poor countries’ food shortages and GM technology, which has divided the US and Europe. The US has accused African leaders of irresponsibility in disrupting food aid but European environmentalists have lauded the bans as prudent and urged reform of the UN’s system of food aid.
Most of the 400 000 tonnes of food aid the WFP planned to distribute in Angola over the next two years was to come from US farms which produce big surpluses of GM maize.
The Angolan government did not elaborate when announcing the ban. It has not yet been formally implemented and it was not clear what would happen to the 19 000-tonne shipment due to unload this week.
The agriculture ministry in Luanda, which is believed to have pushed for the ban, was unavailable for comment.
Sackett said the suddenness of the decision was unfortunate but that the WFP accepted it. ”We respect the sovereign right of a government to decide what goes into the country.”
Angola has joined Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Lesotho, which decided last year to ban unmilled seeds. Zambia went further and banned even milled seeds, and was vilified for doing so near the peak of a food shortage. However, warnings that millions might starve proved unfounded and Zambia ended up producing a 120 000-tonne surplus.
There was no immediate public response from the US, but the White House will be dismayed at another setback for President George W Bush’s ”tool to end hunger in Africa”. The US wants overseas funds to fight HIV/Aids and malaria conditional on the acceptance of GM crops and food.
”There is a constant drip of pressure from the US government and biotech industry to make sure Africa is softened up for GM,” said Charlie Kronick, of the environmental group Greenpeace. ”Europe is closed to them and they need a market for it.” — Â