Bush using famine in Africa as GM marketing tool

Research published today by Greenpeace exposes the Bush Administration's use of the famine in southern Africa as a marketing tool to push GM food in the continent. The document details how the offer of GM food aid by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the latest move in a ten-year marketing campaign designed to facilitate the introduction of US-developed GM crops into Africa. In addition, the US food aid programme effectively channels a huge covert subsidy to American GM farmers through the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust.

African governments, including Zambia have refused genetically modified food aid from the US, asking instead for non-GM food. USAID Director Andrew Natsios has claimed that environmental and human health objections to GM food aid in Africa represent "an ideological campaign."

But the Greenpeace research reveals that:

• There are plentiful sources of non-GM maize that can be used for food aid. The USA has made a clear political decision to only provide GM contaminated aid.
• Aid agencies, the EU and UK Government all believe that best practice for supplying food aid is to provide financial assistance and to source locally - the only organisation that thinks otherwise is USAID.
• The American Corn Growers Association state that over half of all US first stage grain handling facilities segregate GM and non-GM grains, meaning USAID could easily buy aid from American farmers that is acceptable to Africans.
• The USAID effort to introduce GM into Africa is the latest ploy in a ten-year marketing push led by the agency. USAID recently set up CABIO - a biotech initiative designed to market GM in the developing world. Previously USAID set up the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Group, which pushed African governments to introduce intellectual property legislation, clearing the way for US biotech corporations to operate in Africa.
• USAID and biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have close funding relationships for GM research projects in Africa.
• USAID funds the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications - a pro-GM advocacy organisation that pushes biotech in the developing world. The ISAAA's other sponsors include Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Cargill and Bayer CropScience.

Donald Mavunduse of ActionAid, one of the UK's leading development agencies working in southern Africa, states that, "The WFP has been hamstrung by aid conditions imposed by the US Government. But if you look at the bigger picture there is enough non-GM maize on the world market. We have not yet got to the point where we should be saying to starving countries 'take GM or nothing'."

Greenpeace Executive Director Stephen Tindale said, "This debate shouldn't be focused on the false choice of eating GM or starving. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of non-GM grain are available, both in America and elsewhere, and it should be sent to where it's needed most. Instead the Bush Administration is exploiting famine in Africa in an effort to support the American biotech industry. This is the just latest twist in a long and cynical marketing campaign."

While the Bush Administration and USAID claim the offer of food aid to Africa is motivated by altruism, the USAID website is a little more candid. It states: "The principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the USAID contracts and grants go directly to American firms. Foreign assistance programs have helped create major markets for agricultural goods, created new markets for American industrial exports and meant hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans."

Notes for editors:

1. Research by ActionAid indicates that there is a total of 1,160,000 metric tonnes of maize available in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa (Food supply situation and crop prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa (No.2). FAO Global Information and Early Warning System on food and agriculture, August 2002.)
   
   Table: Non- GM Maize Sources
   
   

   Country	Exportable maize (Mt)
   Kenya	10,000
   Tanzania	50,000
   South Africa	1,020,000
   Uganda	80,000

   
   Total available in Africa 1,160,000
   
   
2. The full briefing USAID and GM food aid can be downloaded as a pdf.

Further information:
Contact:
Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255