Ngomakurira 27-07-06

od and is close also to Zambia, which gives us inspiration in regard to GMOs.
Genetically Modified Organisms have been accepted by the South African government but are banned in Zambia. We, sandwiched between them, have a more fudged approach. We allow in grain so long as it is milled beyond our borders.
Here is a man in the street talking: first we have ‘natural selection’ by which nature itself selects genes which determine our characteristics – health, height, eye colour, etc. Then we had deliberate breeding by which genetic traits within a species are chosen and crossed with other organisms in that same species. So you can create a pink rose by crossing a white one and red one.
But now we have a third way,’genetic engineering’ by which genes from one species are inserted into another species. So a gene with anti-freeze properties (such as one would find in an arctic fish) could be inserted into a tomato to make it frost resistant.
Science allows us to do something that nature could never do. Producing frost resistant tomatoes may seem a noble aim but the question arises; do we know whether the tomato we have modified is still safe to eat?
The people who do this scientific work apply for patents to protect their investment and label their work’our (intellectual) property.’ But patents are not granted until something is proved to be safe and this takes time when it comes to unknown situation as with a GM tomato. But the company that produced the tomato can’t wait so it goes ahead anyway and we eat their tomatoes without knowing if they are nutritious or poisonous.
If there is ignorance amongst the most civilly alert imagine the ignorance among the average consumer in our society. A conference in July in Harare has just opened the eyes of a number of us but we came away feeling there is much more to be done to make our selves aware on this issue.
The peddling of GMOs seems to be driven by just one motive: profit. The health of people, the livelihood of small farmers and the effects on the environment are just pushed aside. Our conference tried to be objective and ask what are the good things to be said about GMOs. We could find nothing that came anywhere near offsetting the devastating effects. The attitude that produced the slave trade is alive and well and living once more in Africa.