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Angola bans genetically modified seed

The Angolan government has hit back at critics of its move last month to ban unmilled genetically modified seed in donations meant for the hungry, saying that it has sound scientific reasons for doing so.

One of the main reasons for the ban is to protect Angola's great diversity of plant life, according to Elizabeth Matos, chairperson of the National Plant Genetic Resources centre in Luanda. "We are holding in our gene bank almost 800 different types of maize and local ecotypes that we have picked up from all over the country and we don't want this material crossed with GM [organisms]," Matos said.

Ironically, Angola's extraordinary wealth of genetic diversity in agricultural crops is directly due to the twenty-year civil war. While government troops controlled the coast and the port cities, the rebel UNITA movement patrolled some of the prime farmland inland, with higher altitudes and more reliable rainfall. The difference in climate and soil on its own can account for some of the diversity, but there's more to it than that. At the coast, between the late 1970s and 1992, seeds were imported solely through a government-controlled company, Angosementes, while basic seed was multiplied at the Agricultural Research Institute in Huambo. These seeds were distributed by the Ministry of Agriculture. Inland, however, the situation was very different. Up until 1992, farmers received very restricted supplies of imported seeds via rebel leaders. As a result of military clashes and land mines, many farming communities on either side of the civil war were isolated and a myriad number of local varieties of crops, including sorghum, millet, groundnut and cowpea, have emerged.

One of the other important reasons for the GMO ban is the absence of regulatory systems - hardly surprising in a country which has been at war since before independence in 1975. There is no national biosafety framework and no legislation. In contrast, South Africa, which allows the import of GMOs, has one extensive regulatory system, while the United States has three. Angola has nothing.

There is another powerful motivation for caution on the part of the Angolan government. It was only discovered in 2002 that genetically modified maize had been coming into the country in unmilled food aid, unannounced, for several years. "We have a lab which is testing for GM and we found last year that all the maize from the USA was GM," Matos said. "This year new tests in the port of Lobito found not one but two transgenic events, both herbicide- and pesticide-resistant, and we are concerned about this crossing into our local varieties."

There is other evidence of seed contamination which may be making the Angolan government particularly suspicious of outside help. A report by Claude Nankan, the Angolan director of the agriculture programme for the charity World Vision, states that in the 1990s, efforts to assist in agricultural recovery were plagued by mis-labelled seed packs for farmers.

No varietal screening was done and in some cases, seed and grain were transposed. In another instance, a variety of groundnut was sent under the name of another type.

Economics may have also played a role in the decision. Angolan agriculture is dominated by small-scale subsistence farmers who would be vulnerable to lawsuits from powerful agribusiness if their seed stock became contaminated with GM strains.

The Angolan Ministry permitted an exemption for the WFP on condition that the 19,000 tons of food aid was milled on arrival - a condition rejected by the WFP due to the late notice, the shortage of mills near the ports, their existing extreme food shortages and the unpleasant fact that they simply have no money from donors to pay a commercial milling operation. The USAID authorities are now looking at filling the same ship with sorghum or maize meal but in the meantime, people will still go hungry. Matos said the government was "looking into" expanding mill capacity at the ports of Lobito and Luanda.

Mike Sackett, director for southern Africa for the World Food Program (WFP) said the proposed ban had affected the UN's ability to fight hunger "quite dramatically," resulting in food quotas being slashed in half immediately due to low food stocks.

"Even before the question of the new legislation came out, there were serious constraints on our food pipeline - such that we were going to cut rations for April and May for 1.9 million people by 30%," Sackett said. "The result of this cancellation is a 50% cut as of April 1." 

Sackett said he doubted if anyone in Angola would starve as a result of the ban but "it makes the process of resettling slower and tougher and that much more risky." The WFP's main target is displaced people who have resettled in rural areas to build their homes, clear bush and landmines after the lengthy civil war and start their farmsteads. In the first year, they qualify for a food ration, which is made smaller in the second year and discontinued entirely on the third year.

The ban is expected to cause a number of problems, including a delay of two to three months before another shipment can be received. Usually the recipients grind the food themselves at home, using the entire grain and saving on costs, but this is precisely the time when contamination is most likely to occur. If the grain is commercially milled in the USA, less food is received, costs rise significantly and the lag time between order and delivery is longer than before.

Also, Sackett pointed out, "the shelf life of a milled product is considerably shorter, especially in tropical conditions."

The WFP has resumed shipments to the other four countries in southern Africa which rejected GM food donations. Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique receive either non-GM maize from South Africa or processed GM products such as a corn-soya blend, a fortified cereal protein particularly good for children which is available in both South Africa and the United States. An American Embassy spokesperson in Pretoria said the USA is unable to offer non-GM seed or flour because their research has indicated that it is impossible to keep the two strains separate in the long journey from field to table.

Ironically, the GM food aid restrictions may end up being a storm in a teacup. Angola has huge agricultural potential and within about four years may not require food aid at all. This, too, is in line with the experiences of other southern African nations. Zambia, whose government controversially rejected food aid during a drought a few years ago, had a glut of maize last year and exported their excess to - that's right - Angola.

The Angolan decree is in line with the Lusophone Initiative on Plant Genetic Resources and the recommendations of the Southern African Development Community (SADEC), which state that food aid should be sought within the region, should not be genetically modified if possible and if it is genetically modified, it should be milled prior to distribution. The Angolan parliament has also ratified the Cartagena Protocol.

More information:

Part of this information was originally published at www.scidev.net. Copyright Scidev.net. 

Related articles:

Biotechnology and the public: www.pub.ac.za

Dossier on GMO's: www.scidev.net 

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