Unfortunately, there is no such thing in life as “100% safe”. Thus far NO scientific proof anywhere in the world has been provided to establish that GM causes harm to human health.

If you continue to embrace the ‘negative’ burden of proof mentality that is the antithesis of ‘Enlightenment era thinking’ as a template for African regulatory systems, then you will see Africa fall further behind the rest of the world.

In particular, I refer to disguised health & environmental regulatory protectionism being practiced by European governments at the behest of European companies not able to exploit the technologies regionally and by the activist community.

http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Kogan TNI 77FINAL.pdf;

See: http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/27/edkogan_ed3_.php ;

It is also critical, for purposes of crafting a balanced and objectively benchmarked legal framework to evaluate the safety/harmfulness of gm products, that the correct scientific paradigm be employed. Arguably, the paradigm of provable or likely ‘risk’, notwithstanding uncertainty, rather than possible, hypothetical ‘hazard’ should serve as the definitive benchmark as it traditionally has.

This difference in scientific paradigm (evaluation standard) correlates to an analogous legal distinction between the terms ‘precautionary approach’ which is incorporated within the text of the UN Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety and recognized also within Article 5.7 of the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, and the extra-WTO European precautionary principle, which is NOT. A risk paradigm, by definition, explicitly takes into account economic costs and benefits of use versus nonuse, whereas a hazard paradigm ignores the weighing of economic costs and benefits, and instead focuses on the environmental externalities of use and the environmental benefits of nonuse.

See: http://www.itssd.org/Publications/GTCJ_04-offprints_Kogan2.pdf .

In other words, the issue of science has increasingly become politicized, and as a result, novel technologies like gm, and even novel production processes have been banned or severely restricted because of fears or false pretenses surrounding scientific ‘uncertainties’ (the unknowable unknowables) especially within Europe, and by extension, its trading partners – i.e., former African colonies.

I hope this helps.

Of course it is important to test and be sure that the new varieties are safe. Indeed, I suggest that we should generally be more thoughtful about our food chain. People are already suffering lots of health problems, including in Europe, from eating too much of the wrong foods.

However, you should realize that all crops are genetically modified from their wild precursors, and that different genetic modifications can have different effects. While one genetic modification may be problematic, another may well be safe.

Scientists are discovering new techniques for getting the genetic potential into plants to resist pests and diseases, to resist unfavorable climate or soil conditions, or to improve nutrition. The techniques can radically increase the speed with which new varieties are developed. In many countries it has been possible to utilize such varieties safely.

We have a tendency to fear the unknown more than we fear traditional risks. We should not allow that tendency to blind us to the real risks of hunger, nor to overestimate the risks of GM foods. We should especially not assume that the discovery that one genetic modification has negative impacts implies that all modifications have (the same) negative impacts.

http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=59&item=164

Contrary to popular belief, Monsanto doesn’t go around suing small farmers because seed has blown into their field.

http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=59&item=137

With so many human beings on Earth, it’s a complicated world.

And, again, I’d like to bring up the notion of people of good will meeting together to resolve differences. If we can’t act toward one another with good will – in a world of 6.7 billion humans, projected to be 9 billion humans by 2050 – how will the century pass for us, and what will it look like for our children?

Again, if the question for Africa is hunger alleviation, would not a larger discussion about food distribution, grain export, and the commodification of food stuffs also be appropriate to weave into a GM discussion?