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Would a regional approach to GMOs be helpful for Africa? The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) seem to think so. In a recent meeting with participants from across Africa, there was talk for a need for harmonisation of policies, of the inevitable complications for trade should different countries have different regulations and requirements.
Thus the Regional Approach to Biotechnology Policy for East and Southern Africa (RABESA) Initiative was started, and a meeting held this month. While some, predictably, talked of the need to use biotechnology to meet the challenges facing African agriculture and hunger, there also seemed to be a recognition that some countries are wary of the risks to health, environment and export markets.
However, in the discussion and reporting there consistently remains a glaring omission from the rhetoric about GM's ability to feed the poor. It is inexcusable that at this high-level meeting, the issue of patents on GMOs does not seem to have warranted a mention, even though it is the issue that concerns African farmers the most. The issue of forbidden seed saving of GMOs still remains largely ignored in policy and media discussion, even though for many it is the most important concern, and the factor that is most likely to impact on the poor.
If policy is decided at regional level, this could actually pose a threat to countries' sovereignty. A regional policy could make it difficult for individual countries to exercise their own decisions about whether or not to accept GMOs. While harmonisation of common markets might sound convenient to some, we should look at what has happened in the European Union, and see that individual countries and regions have been struggling to retain their GM-free status, often being forced to defy EU policy and being declared illegal.
African countries should carefully consider whether they wish their policies to be decided by COMESA and ASARECA, instead of serving their own interests and those of their citizens. Some might suspect that this initiative might in fact be another strategy to force pan-African acceptance of GMOs - particularly considering that USAID is a partner in the RABESA initiative.
In the meantime, South African GM Lobby Group AfricaBio has been working hard on Kenyan MPs to push for weak Biosafety laws that will facilitate GM crop approvals, by taking them on a trip to look at GM crops in South Africa. Promoting the famously flawed South Africa GMO Act as a model for Kenya, they hope to build pressure to further weaken Kenya's already-weak draft Biosafety Bill.
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