BBC is broadcasting an interview it conducted last week with Deputy Chairperson of FSG, Mr. Duke Tagoe, and the FSG Head of Legal Affairs, Mr. John Yaw Opoku. The interview is to be broadcast for the first time today,?Monday, 21 October, 2013 at 4.32pm?on BBC World Business Report, BBC World Service radio.
Food Sovereignty Ghana is an advocacy movement that has called for an indefinite moratorium on the importation, cultivation or sale of genetically modified (GM) crops in Ghana. The movement has deplored the manner the decision to introduce GM crops into Ghana is being imposed on Ghanaians without any public consultations nor discussions.
According to the movement, Ghana being a signatory to the Cartagena Protocols of Biodiversity (CPD) enjoins the state to undertake broad public consultations and consent before introducing genetically modified organisms (GMO) into the natural environment. GMOs in agriculture are products are products of ?Modern Biotechnology? created when the genomes of organisms are transformed through laboratory techniques, including genetically engineered DNA (recombinant) and their direct introduction into cells.
The CPD makes it clear that? these are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection. This laboratory-based technology ?requires ?sceptical? (doubt, don?t presume safety) analyses in rigorous risk assessment protocols including hazard identification to detect hazards and the potential to cause unintended effects. The CBD therefore, deliberated intensively and extensively about what is required to regulate the safe release of GMOs into the environment (for impacts on health, the environment and SEC (socio-economic considerations)), and keeping in mind the PP (precautionary principle).
The employment of the ?Precautionary Principle? is a necessary safeguard to protect Ghana and Africa small-holder farming, her food security, sovereignty and environment from adverse impacts of GMOs which are irreversible. Thus contrary to what the pro-GM food proponents would have us believe that it is a normal crop improvement technology, this is not the case.
The independent scientists and the CPB made the point that traditional breeding techniques were NOT the same as GMOs, then the whole regulatory approach to risk assessment of GMOs would be challenged. The CBD process is in existence to address GMOs not traditional breeding techniques. The FSG insists that this difference in crucial and important.
Do not miss! Listen to BBC Radiof Food Sovereignty Ghana, Mr. Duke Tagoe, Deputy Chairperson, and also Lawyer Yaw Opoku the Head of FSG Legal Affairs, on GMOs in Africa…..
Listen to this explosive interview on?Monday 21st October at 4:30pm
Source: Food Sovereignty Ghana
