The article in our previous bulletin, on the targeting of South Africa by Monsanto et al, quoted Jocelyn Webster, AfricaBio's Executive Director. Here's more on SA's pro-GM lobbyists.
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1.TJ Buthelezi - a GM Watch profile
2.AfricaBio - a GM Watch profile
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1.TJ Buthelezi - a GM Watch profile
[for all the links - http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=184&page=B]

South African farmer, Thembitshe Joseph Buthelezi, has a long established relationship with Monsanto and the biotech industry. With their assistance he has been brought to Washington, Brussels, Pretoria, St Louis, London, Johannesburg, and Philadelphia to help promote GM foods.

On one occasion Monsanto paid for him to travel several hundred miles to have lunch with US Trade Secretary Robert Zoellick at the company's office near Pretoria, South Africa, and a year later in May 2003, Buthelezi was by Zoellick's side at the press conference at which the Trade Secretary formally announced a US WTO case against EU restrictions on GM imports.

In August 2002 Buthelezi turned up at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. He gave interviews and attended at a pro-GM 'farmers' rally covertly organised by Monsanto and a network of pro-GM lobbyists.

Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies in his report, Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence, describes Buthelezi as 'a clean-shaven, middle-aged black farmer from Makhathini'. He notes how Buthelezi's accounts of his positive experiences with Monsanto's Bt cotton are suspiciously similar to Monsanto press releases.

Aaron deGrassi also challenges the way in which Buthelezi is being displayed as a 'representative' of the African smallholding community of farmers. He notes, 'the Council for Biotechnology Information calls him a "small farmer," and others describe his life as "hand-to-mouth existence."' Andrew Natsios of USAID has described him to US congressmen as as a 'small farmer struggling just at the subsistence level.' However, says deGrassi, 'independent reporters have revealed that, with two wives and more than 66 acres, he is one of the largest farmers in Makhathini and chairs the area's farmers' federation encompassing 48 farmers' associations.'

Buthelezi is one of several farmers used by Monsanto and other lobbyists to represent an area 'where most farmers cultivate just a few hectares, and only half the population can read'. Yet Monsanto's 'representative' farmers, deGrassi says, are school administrators and agricultural college graduates, owning dozens of hectares of land.

Critics have coined the nickname 'Bt Buthelezi' to illustrate his 'unconditional support to Bt cotton: during a trip to Monsanto's headquarters in St. Louis, Buthelezi was quoted as saying, "I wouldn't care if it were from the devil himself."'

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2.AfricaBio - a GM Watch profile
[for all the links - http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=170&page=A]

Based in South Africa, AfricaBio lobbies for GM crops in Africa and beyond. Jocelyn Webster is AfricaBio's Executive Director.

AfricaBio is vague about who it respresents and coy about its finances and its main financial backers. This contrasts with EuropaBio  which proclaims itself 'the voice of the European biotech industry' or BIO - the Washington DC-based Biotechnology Industry Organization - which presents itself simply as the industry's major trade association . But AfricaBio likes to present itself not as a corporate lobby but as part of civil society -- 'The NGO taking biotechnology to the people of Africa'. T he word 'trade' is notably absent in AfricaBio's description of itself as  'a non-political, non-profit biotechnology  association'. It even goes so far as to claim to represent, 'All sectors within South Africa involved with, or with an interest in food, feed and fibre'.

Despite this vagueness, Monsanto is known to be among  AfricaBio's major backers. AfricaBio, though, says it represents a 'wide spectrum' of support. This is evident, it says, from its founding members who, it claims, include scientists, students and academic institutions as well as biotechnology companies, seed companies, farmer organizations, grain traders, food manufacturers, and food retailers.

Whatever the claims, the corporate alignment and backing of this pro-GM lobby group are all too apparent. According to an article in the science journal Nature, 'AfricaBio, along with agribiotech companies and other pro-biotech campaigners, is now fighting tooth and nail, often by somewhat controversial methods, to spread the word about GM crops... the idea is to improve GM's image.'

The article also says of AfricaBio, 'the group's methods would be considered in some countries to be blatant media manipulation. Webster [AfricaBio's Executive Director] talks about training journalists how to report GM stories, telling them that the term "genetically improved" is more accurate than "genetically modified".'

Although Africa, and particularly South Africa, is its primary battleground, AfricaBio pursues its PR war on a global stage. In January 2003, EuropaBio brought AfricaBio's Executive Director, Jocelyn Webster, over to Europe as part of a team of ten 'representatives' from developing countries to deliver their favorable perspective on GM crops to the EU, the FAO and the Vatican.

The 'team' included Webster's fellow South African, TJ Buthelezi, who grows Monsanto's GM cotton and has been flown around the world to support the industry's lobbying. It also included a representative of the Federation of Farmers Association in India and Margaret Karembu of the industry-backed ISAAA, which promotes the uptake of GM crops in developing countries and regularly collaborates with AfricaBio.

In autumn 2003 Webster was back again in Europe, this time visiting Germany and Britain to counteract the 'nonsense', as she put it, that African critics like Tewolde Egziabher, head of Ethiopia's Environmental Protection Authority, promote about GM. Webster was again accompanied by TJ Buthelezi .

According to Nature, 'Over a breakfast meeting in London organized by Monsanto, the South African pair enthused about the power of GM to reduce poverty... Taking such feel-good sto