| WEEKLY WATCH number 77 (18/6/2004) | |
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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor One unfortunate consequence is that the industry is targeting Africa as its new frontier, with unprecedented assistance from the US government. Both are relentlessly pressurising reluctant governments under the guise of helping the continent increase its food productivity (FOCUS ON AFRICA). Light relief this week comes from a prime piece of plagiarism on the part of Dr Ian Gibson, the UK's Chairman of the parliamentary Science and Technology Committee. It seems Gibson, who boasted that as a scientist, he could "decimate" the arguments of those who held anti-GM views, went on to mouth a speech in support of GM lifted wholesale from an article by GM 'godfather' Derek Burke! (LOBBYWATCH) Few, if any, of Gibson's Burke-derived scientific claims stood up to scrutiny, as Dr Pusztai has shown: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3741 In my university days, and probably Dr Gibson's too, students were 'failed' or even expelled for passing off others' ideas as their own and/or making false and unsubstantiated claims in their work. Clearly, today's biotech brigade operates in a more forgiving moral climate. Finally, watch out for a telling list of the misadventures of the biotech industry just in the first few months of this year (GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES). Claire [email protected] But don't be in any doubt as to what this African Agricultural Technology Foundation initiative to address "Africa's perennial food insecurity" is really about. The Nairobi-based AATF was formed in July 2002 talking about a "public-private partnership designed to remove many of the barriers that have prevented smallholder farmers in Africa from gaining access to existing agricultural technologies that could help relieve food insecurity and alleviate poverty." However, the rice industry website Oryza.com explained the purpose of AATF more bluntly, "The goal of the AATF will be to work with governments, companies, non-governmental organizations, and research centers to negotiate the sales rights of genetically modified crops and bring new agricultural technologies to the African market." ("Africa: Group to Promote GMO Sales", Oryza.com) Needless to say, as well as getting money from the Rockefeller Foundation AATF gets money from USAID. It also receives support from major biotech corporations, including Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Agro Sciences and Syngenta. http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=163&page=A It is claimed that, "The AATF will be... led, managed and directed by Africans." However, AATF's board is chaired by Jennifer Thompson, the fervent biotech supporting scientist who came to prominence in South Africa's regulatory circles under its apartheid regime. Thompson is also on the board of the biotech-industry backed lobby groups ISAAA and AfricaBio. But there is "absolutely no connection" between the countries' stance toward GM foods and the Norman Borlaug International Science and Technology Fellows Program, Jocelyn Brown, the USDA's assistant deputy administrator of international cooperation and development, told The Scientist. Yeah, right. According to Mrs Matus, last year, the World Food Programme acquired maize from Zimbabwe and South Africa for countries that refuse GM foods and it can also do so for Angola, instead of bringing food from the US. This contradicts earlier claims by the WFP that countries must accept GM food. Excerpt from the Conclusion of the study: |
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