Scientists apprehensive over GMO import plan

By Juma Kwayera

Forced to survive on wild fruits in the face of drought and food insecurity, hungry Kenyans could soon face the dilemma of eating genetically modified food.

As the Government readies to bring in generically modified maize to bridge the growing food deficit, scientists warn the planned importation of genetically engineered alternatives could be unsafe.

The verdict among the scientific community is that the poor are paying the price for runaway graft that precipitated theft and illegal sale of strategic national food reserves to foreigners.

Between 2008 and 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture, then under the watch of suspended minister William Ruto, came under criticism for irregular sale of three million bags of maize reserves and the sale of fertiliser to central African countries.

After it announced it would allow millers to import GM maize, the Government faces accusations of mortgaging the lives of more than 10 million hungry Kenyans to multinational companies.

Vice-President of African Veterinary Association Christopher Wanga says the primary interest of multinationals is to grow the volumes of their agro-businesses at the expense of the safety and hygiene of poor Kenyans.

"The reason it is dangerous to opt for GM maize is that the country lacks foolproof quality assurance mechanisms. It is difficult to know if we are importing the right stuff," Dr Wanga.

Diaspora view

Even as the Government attempts to roll back over the resistance from scientists and food rights activists, Kenyans in Diaspora fired off to the Government, warning of the risks of scientifically adulterated food.

Citing American and Brazilian experiences with GM food, the Kenya Community in Diaspora, the Kenya Overseas Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Kenya Welfare Foundation, warn of the dire consequence the country faces.

"In 1989, dozens of Americans died and several thousands were afflicted and impaired by a genetically modified version of the food supplement ltryptophan, creating a debilitating ailment. There were 37 deaths reported and 1,500 more were disabled. A settlement of $2 billion was paid by the manufacturer, Showa Denko, Japan’s third largest chemical company, which destroyed evidence preventing a further investigation and made a Sh2 billion settlement," they say in a memo to the State, citing research finding in industrialised countries.

In Brazil, there have been GM food-related near-deaths and allergies on a large scale.

Grave dangers

The Kenyans in Diaspora cite research findings in Brazil in 1996 that warns consumers of GM foods against being walked to early graves.

"In 1996, Brazil nut genes were spliced into soya beans to provide the added protein motioning. Some individuals, however, are so allergic to this nut, they can go into anaphylactic shock (similar to a severe bee sting reaction), which can cause death. Using genetic engineering, the allergens from one food can thus be transferred to another, thought to be safe to eat, " they pointed out.

Following the findings, the US Centres for Disease Control confirmed the effects of the adulteration of the genetic engineering.

"Given the increased adulteration of our diets, it is no wonder at all that this is happening. Yet officials entrusted to safeguard the health of the public, and especially of children, declared in 1992, under intense industry-lobbying pressure, that genetically-modified foods were essentially equivalent to regular foods," was the verdict of CDC.

It added: "The truth is that genetically modified foods cannot ever be equivalent. They involve novel and technologically violent alterations of foods, the most uniquely different foods ever introduced in modern agriculture (and in the history of biological evolution). To say otherwise affronts the intelligence of the public and safeguarding public officials."

Kenyan scientists say the current food insecurity is a man-made scarcity that has its roots in graft-driven politics and the fight for control of agro-business, which heralds a new chapter in neo-colonialism through multinational firms.

They scientists say strategic maize reserves were stolen and sold off by the political class who are still walking free. They say the same clique stole and sold fertilizer and other farm inputs to Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Sudan. While countries have enough food to feed their people, Kenya has joined the league of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti that are appealing for alms citing prolonged droughts and poor harvests.

Head of the bio-prospecting at the Kenya Wildlife Service Kavaka Mukonyi says: "When the food is introduced, it means we shall surrender our food rights to multinationals. They will have all rights. The seeds they will introduce have self-termination characteristics, which ensures we will remain enslaved to the multinationals in the same way flower firms in the country are".

In the same vein, he argues, importation of GM of foods is the sowing of the first seeds of self-termination of humanity. "The GM foods have a long term impact on food security, biodiversity equilibrium and the political landscape because the country would de dependent on western bio-technology," says Mukonyi.

He says Kenya lacks the requisite technology and capacity to detect harmful GMOs. Against this backdrop, he fears the introduction of GM maize into the national menu would be the first step towards ceding the right to food to foreign firms.

"Such an introduction automatically creates a market for seeds for genetically modified foods. What would stop agro-business firms from seeking to introduce their seeds in local agro-industry? Should we extinguish the human genome for the sake of GMOs," the scientist says and lays blame on the poorly informed Kenyan political class for exposing the poor to the vagaries of food insecurity.

Public safety

His argument ties in with the position taken by Diaspora community.

The latter cite various research findings that say: "When elements of nature that have never before been present in the human diet are suddenly introduced, and without any public safety testing or labeling notice, such as petunia flower elements in soya beans and fish genes in tomatoes (as developed by DNA Plant Technology Corporation in the 1990s), it obviously risks allergic reactions among the most highly sensitive segments of our population."

It is says further: "It is a well-known fact that fish proteins happen to be among the most hyper-allergenic, while tomatoes are not. Thus not labelling such genetically modified tomatoes, with hidden alien or allergenic ingredients, is completely unconscionable. The same applies to the typical GMO that has novel bacterial and viral DNA artificially inserted. Many research studies have definitively confirmed this kind of overall risk for genetically modified foods.

In the US, cases of risks that come with genetically engineered crops abound. For instance, two research studies independently have shown evidence of allergenic reactions to GM Bt corn, the kind of biotechnology the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute has been developing.

In the US, farm workers exposed to genetically modified Bt sprays exhibited extensive allergic reactions.

The farming of GM peas was abandoned when it was discovered they caused allergic lung damage in mice. In 1999, researchers at the York Laboratory discovered reactions to soy had skyrocketed by 50 per cent over the year before, "which corresponded with the introduction of genetically-modified soy from the US."

The researchers reported it was the first time in 17 years soy was tested in the lab among the top-ten allergenic foods. Given this background, Wanga says it is dangerous for the Government to resort to GM foods to feed starving Kenyans.

"If countries like the US with the latest biotechnology and well trained personnel still have challenges with genetically modified food, what of Kenya? We lack the technology, and even it we had, it is likely to be obsolete," he says.