SA FREEZE ALLIANCE ON GENETIC ENGINEERING (SAFeAGE) SUBMISSION

Thank you honourable members for your time. I am Glenn Ashton, chair of the steering committee of SAFeAGE.

SAFeAGE represents a registered and mandated civil society grouping of over 4.5 million individuals from a broadly representative group of South Africans, including most of the faith based organisations, as well as labour, civic groups, environmental organisations, scientific specialists, and thousands of families and individuals. As such it is one of the largest civil society networks in this country.

Neither SAFeAGE nor its members have any direct interest in the success or failure of GM crops or organisms. SAFeAGE simply represents a network of citizens concerned about the questions around genetic engineering specifically and not around biotechnology generally. We have no particular problem with biotechnology, only with one branch of that discipline, genetic engineering, especially considering that it is largely based on disputed scientific theory.

SAFAGE was originally created to call for a freeze on the introduction of genetically engineered food crops. It has since narrowed its focus on calling for the identification, labelling and monitoring of GM crops and other genetically altered organisms that are entering the environment. This has occured at an increasing pace with meaningful oversight neither being applied nor being apparent.

Whilst proponents of GM crops insist that the GMO Act provides safeguards, this Act is internationally perceived as a faciliatory act, that is, it is a piece of legislation that enables the ready release of GM organisms into the environment with minimal public oversight and interrogation. Whilst there is some de facto oversight it is based on extremely narrow criteria. These are established primarily by the very institutions which have vested interests in the promotion of GM organisms, primarily but not solely as commercial transactions.

I must briefly comment on the manner in which the members of this house, as well as our esteemed public service, have been grossly misled by vested interests involved in the promotion of genetic engineering. I speak not only about the massive transnational corporations that increasingly control our seed supply. I refer also to supposedly independent agricultural analysts who are in fact paid lobbyists and public relations agents for these very same vested commercial interests. I also refer to supposedly independent scientists representing supposedly independent organisations who draw significant amounts of funding from these self-same transnational seed corporations and the industry as a whole. These supposed analysts and scientists hide and disguise their interests, in that they are either paid for or are reliant upon the industry for their pay and for their careers.

I put it to this committee to ascertain whether these groups have consistently misled the people and the government of South Africa regarding the need for open, transparent legislation of genetically modified organisms, particularly those related to food. I put it to you to ascertain whether they have or have not consistently undermined the public right to know about whether our food is or is not genetically modified by consistently resisting and undermining meaningful attempts to label foods derived from these novel organisms. Have they through powerful lobbying organisations like AfricaBio and its members not in fact denied us all the right to exercise good scientific oversight of these organisms?

Honorable members, even if the entire GM food industry disappeared tomorrow, SAFeAGE would commit to continue its work. We have, for instance, recently heard of an application to release a genetically modified mosquitocide into our watercourses. Other trials are under way, on both crop-based drugs and medicines, with no public oversight. This is clearly unacceptable. If these things are so safe and tested then show us the science – do not hide it and force our membes into court to obtain fundamental information that should be in the public domain.

This committee has asked us for scientific proof of the dangers of GM foods and organisms. We, and our member groups have provided published, peer reviewed studies of these to yourselves in our written submissions. We can provide many more.

Under the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, administered by this department, the precautionary principle and the precautionary approach are clearly spelt out in how they apply to both the release - and to public participation in the consultation around the release - of GM organisms. This department and hence our government has failed to provide a meaningful mechanism to institute this necessity. I can confidently inform this committee that industry is laughing all the way to the bank about the total lack of implimentation of this important protocol. This is why it has again sent its decievers to misrepresent the truth to you in a manner that is no different to the manner in which the fossil fuel industry has undermined the global warming debate.

This is not for want of our trying. I have personally sat before this committee at least twice on behalf of SAFeAGE, asking for more science, for more regulation and for more caution in regulating GM organisms. We have likewise sat before several other portfolio committees to kindly request for similar implimentation of regulation.

What we have achieved is a hodge podge of regulation that again suits industry. Under the GMO Act there is reference to implimentation of an Environmental Impact Assessment. Yet not one such public assessment has yet taken place even though we have permitted hundreds of applications for GM organisms. This is quite simply because the GMO Act is administered by the department of Agriculture, which views the Act as a faciliatory act to promote supposedly progressive agricultural practice. It is obvious that department has been sorely misled regarding the risks and benefits of these crops. 10 years of largely unregulated GMO releases has seen static crop yields, has seen seed innovation whither and has seen unprecedented concentration in the seed industry, all of which are strategically dangerous occurrences for our national food security. This is a matter of grave national consequence.

Under the Cartagena Biosafety protocol, this department, DEAT, at the last moment, included a clause, under the National Environmental Biodiversity Act, to attempt to regulate GMOs. Yet this clause calls for Environmental Assessments. As this honourable committee doubtless knows, there is a gulf of difference between an Environmental Assessment and an Environmental Impact Assessment. The former usually is simply a desktop study using data supplied by an applicant. The latter is a complete and inclusive process involving all interested and affected parties. Since the implimentation of NEMBA – and the GMO Act - not one fully-fledged EIA has yet been undertaken on any of the hundreds of releases of GMOs.

We accordingly request that this committee insist that mechanisms be put in place so that proper EIAs can be undertaken before any further releases are permitted. We have it on good account that the deputy DG, Ms Jawich (spelling??) has instrumentally hindered any such adoption. We wish to make it clear we do not wish to undermine science; we have insisted - too many times to count - that all we wish for is the application of proper, rigorous, transparent scientific oversight. This has failed to occur to date. We therefore request that this committee ascertain just why a full and proper EIA process has not yet been implimented.

Secondly we ask for this committee to insist, on the behalf of the public and again in the name of good science, for a proper labelling and tracking regime be put in place on all GMOs presently permitted and on any future permits issued.

SABS/SANS has put a framework system in place to track GMO food crops. This has clearly been unduly influenced and undermined by industry, in that it reverses the onus and insists that those wishing to remain GM free must track and identify their produce. This is clearly quite the opposite of what was intended when the previous chair of this committee, now the Deputy Speaker, Madame Gwen Mahlangu, indicated her interest in putting a tracking and labelling regime in place after the GMO indaba held in Stellenbosch in 2002.

It is scientifically impossible to ascertain or verify in any meaningful manner whether GMO crops are affecting either the environment or the public if they are not tracked and labelled. It is inequitable and unjust to allow the GM seed industry to be free to contaminate whatever seeds and food products it sees fit to contaminate, with no oversight or redress, yet demand that farmers wishing to remain GM free must put an expensive system in place to do so.

Honourable members the GM industry has until now had a free ride at the expense of the public. We respectfully ask that you ask your fellow members of the house to put a proper labelling and tracking regime for GMO crops in place. You may do so under the precautionary approach espoused under the Cartagena Biosafety protocol as envisaged under both the Rio and Stockholm conventions. Indeed you may do so simply as a part of a public right to know that has been clearly put forward by our membership.

It is unconscionable that proper oversight of this industry has failed to occur in a nation where we have the first GM staple food in the world, GM white maize. This, in a region that occupies the epicentre of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Clearly honourable members this is unacceptable, to run an experiment of such magnitude and potential import on our people without their permission.

GM foods were to be labelled under the Consumer Rights Protection Bill but were removed from this bill at the last moment due to poor advice by misinformed public servants. However it is not too late to rectify this omission and to correct this particular oversight as this bill has remains under discussion – I do not believe it has yet been referred to the council of Provinces.

I put it to the honorable members that to fail to institute these two basic and fundamental rights, EIAs and labelling and tracking, as set out under international treaties that we have ratified as well as under the intent of our laws and regulations, would be an abrogation of the duty of you, honourable members, and of the house.

We place our collective trust in you. In so doing we respectfully request that you reject the siren call of industry and self interested lobby groups. Instead we ask you to listen to the mandated voices of civil society who have been all but silenced for the ten years that GMOs have been undemocratically forced onto the people of this nation.

I thank you honourable members for your patience and time in dealing with this complex and fraught issue.