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.