Although Germany does not allow use of genetically modified (GM) crops, yet a German firm, BayerCrop Science carries out extensive GM technology and recently its GM product was found in rice food aid to Ghana, where it will onstensibly be allowed.
The GM rice, not allowed for human consumption, originated from the United states and has been found in food aid and other rice supplies in West Africa.
The findings were revealed today by Friends of the Earth at simultaneous press conferences in Ghana and Sierra Leone where the environmental campaign group urged the governments of Sierra Leone and Ghana to immediately recall the contaminated products.
In August this year the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the presence of LLRICE601, an unapproved genetically modified rice variant owned by Bayer CropScience in the food chain. Contaminated rice has been found in more than 15 European countries, and supermarket chains including UK-based Tesco, and Sainsbury have withdrawn American rice from their shelves. The European Union is now testing all rice imports coming from the US.
In September/October 2006 Friends of the Earth Ghana and Friends of the Earth Sierra Leone collected samples of US long grain rice in their countries and sent them to a US laboratory for independent testing. The results show that there is LL601 contamination in Ghana and Sierra Leone.
“We are shocked that unapproved genetically modified long grain rice has been sent to our country through food aid channels,” commented Arthur Williams, a GM campaigner with Friends of the Earth Sierra Leone.
“We are a nation just recovering from years of civil war and now to attack us in this manner is now making our people once more vulnerable.”
Ghana is among the top 10 importers of rice from the USA and it is feared that the contamination may have spread across the West African sub-region and beyond. Ghana’s rice imports from the USA stood at 78.900 metric tonnes (MT) in 2001/2002, 117.600 MT in 2002/2003 and 166.400 MT in 2004/2005.
In 2002 East African countries such as Zambia rejected GM corn as food aid despite food shortages. In Latin America, contamination of the food chain through food aid was also found when illegal corn strain, such as Star Link, was found there in 2002 and 2005.
Friends of the Earth said that serious efforts must be made by governments and international agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP) to endure that food aid does not become the popular channel for GM contamination around the world.
“We cannot accept a situation when food aid becomes a secret channel to ambush our peoples with illegal genetically modified food. We refuse to be used as guinea pigs in big business’s experimentations,” said Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth Africa.
“With the confirmation of this contamination, it is very likely that a large number of African countries are already contaminated. Africa is facing a lot of challenges and cannot afford to add this man-made problem. It must be halted at its roots.”
Reacting to the contamination, Cheryl Agyepong GM campaigner with Friends of the Earth Ghana said: “We don’t want genetically modified rice in our fields and we call on our Government to take all necessary measures to prevent any possible contamination of our seeds.”
She further added that African governments must preserve “the African environment in order to secure the future of humanity.” LLRICE601 is engineered to tolerate an herbicide called glufosinate which is sold under the brand name Liberty Link. This tolerance was introduced through a Streptomyces hygroscopicus gene that codes for phospinothricin acetyl transferase (PAT), a glufosinate-inactivating enzyme.
The GM rice, produced by German-based biotechnology company Bayer, was field tested between 1998 and 2001 but the contamination of commercial long grain rice has only just come to light. The US exported more than 3 million tonnes of rice in 2005.
Friends of the Earth Africa calls on the government to immediately halt untested long grain rice food aid and commercial imports from the USA. The public does not want this illegal rice and even rice growers in the USA were shocked to learn that they were cultivating an unapproved rice strain, the environmental group said. The USDA must take immediate steps to examine protocols for the containment of field trails and also to ensure that every shipment to Africa is adequately screened to ensure they are free of contamination.
