US asks EU to assure Africans on biotech food
Date: 23-Aug-02
Country: USA
The United States, which has offered to meet almost 50 percent of the emergency food needs of southern Africa this year, has also asked the Europeans to offer more food aid of their own, the officials said.
In June the government of Zimbabwe rejected a U.S. maize consignment of 17,500 tonnes because it was not certified free of genetically modified material. Harare feared farmers would use it for planting or as animal feed, thus jeopardizing Zimbabwe's beef exports to Europe, which has tough standards on genetically-modified foods.
The U.N. World Food Programme agreed to mill that maize and give the United States an equivalent amount of non-biotech maize for distribution to Zimbabwean nongovernmental organizations.
Milling solves the problem by making the maize unusable for planting but it will not be possible to mill all of the grain the United States plans to send Zimbabwe, the officials said.
U.S. farmers are not required to separate genetically modified grain from non-biotech grain when they deliver it to market.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement this week: "We call upon the European Union to join us in assuring governments in the region (southern Africa) that food made from biotech crops is safe and should be distributed immediately to those who so desperately need it."
"The food, the same as that eaten by millions of Americans daily, is both safe and wholesome and can make the difference between life and death for millions of southern Africa's poorest people," it added.
The United States announced on Tuesday that it was offering southern Africa another 190,000 tonnes of food aid between now and the end of the year, bringing the total for the year to about 500,000 tonnes.
The United Nations estimates 12.8 million people, mainly in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and Lesotho, will need 1.2 million tonnes of food aid between June 2002 and March 2003.
The State Department said: "The United States will give nearly a half million tons... The response by other donors, however, is not yet sufficient to meet the expected need.
"We know the European Union will also respond generously to this crisis."
