Ethiopia Will Feed Its Poor by Going Organic--Not GMO

The Institute of Science in Society Science Society

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ISIS Press Release 24/08/04

Announcing Science in Society # 23 Autumn 2004

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Ethiopia goes organic

Famines and Ethiopia have become irrevocably linked in the

public mind since Bob Geldof's Live Aid Concert in the

1980s. But big changes are afoot. We carried the first

exclusive report (Science in Society 16, 2002

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis16.php)

on how Ethiopia is determined to feed herself. This

success story is now told in full.

A project with small beginnings, based on reviving the

traditional Indian farming practice of pit composting, has

increased yields over and above chemical fertilizers and

turned barren degraded land into productive greenery. The

results are so impressive that the Ethiopian government is

ready to adopt organic agriculture as one of its strategies

for food security. Ethiopia is taking the lead in delivering

not just food security to the nation: but good quality,

nutritious food free from agrochemicals and a clean

environment, which are crucial to delivering good health.

This is what every country in the world should be doing,

rich or poor.

The composting package was first introduced in 1996 to the

northern state of Tigray by distinguished Ethiopian

ecologist, Dr Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, recipient of

the Right Livelihood award. Tewolde (what his friends calls

him) is no stranger in international politics. As

representative of the Ethiopian government and the African

Union, he has been championing the rights of the poorest

countries at the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources,

and played a key role in the successful negotiation of the

Cartagena Biosafety Protocol for regulating genetically

modified organisms.

We are privileged to have the inside story told by Sue

Edwards, the Director of the Institute of Sustainable

Development in Addis Ababa, who shared responsibility of the

Tigray project with Tewolde.

Corporations coveting our rice

Rice, the staple food crop for more than half the world's

population, among them the poorest, is the current target of

genetic modification, an activity that has greatly

intensified after the rice genome was announced two years

ago (see "Rice is life" series, SiS 15, 2002

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis15.php).

Since then, all major biotech giants are investing in rice

research, with the clear intent of exercising monopolistic

rights through gene patenting and genetic modification.

At the same time, a low-input cultivation system that really

benefits small farmers worldwide has been spreading, but is

dismissed by the scientific establishment as "unscientific".

This is one among several recent innovations that increase

yields and ward off disease without costly and harmful

inputs, all enthusiastically and widely adopted by farmers

in Asia and Africa.

A war is building up between the corporations and the

peoples of the world for the possession of rice. The food

security of billions is at stake, as is their right to grow

the varieties of rice they have created and continue to

create, and in the manner they choose. We bring you a

comprehensive exposé of how the scientific establishment is

serving the corporate agenda against peoples' interests.

New Age of Water

Water has come of age. It is cool on everyone's lips.

Decades of research on water is yielding remarkable insights

into its dynamic collective structures, and changing our big

picture of life and living process. Organisms are seventy to

eighty percent water. Is this water necessary to life? What

vital functions does it serve? Entire biochemistry and cell

biology textbooks are still being written without ever

mentioning the role of water. It is simply treated as the

inert medium in which all the specific biochemical reactions

are being played out. Instead, recent findings are raising

the possibility that it is water that's stage-managing the

biochemical drama of life. Water is life, it is the key to

every living activity. Some people will even say it is the

seat of consciousness. Nowhere else will you find such a

feast for the discerning mind. And there will be more in the

coming issues.

Ban pharm crops

As one after another biotech giant retreated from GM crops

for food and feed in Europe amid massive losses and lack of

investment, the desperate industry is redoubling its efforts

to use GM crops to produce transgenic pharmaceuticals in

North America and elsewhere. These pharm crops pose a range

of health hazards; as documented in numerous reviews in past

and present issues of SiS: allergies, immune-suppression,

immune sensitization followed by anaphylaxis, oral tolerance

leading to loss of immunity to pathogens. An AIDS vaccine

produced in the maize crop has been compared to the release

of a "slow bioweapon". What have our governments been doing

to protect the public?

Prof. Joe Cummins uncovered a major scandal: these pharm

crops have been produced and marketed in the United States

for at least two years behind our backs, via a gaping

loophole in the regulatory process. This has galvanised

public interest organisations to call for a moratorium on

the release of transgenic pharm rice in California.

Meanwhile, the European Union announced the award of 12

million euros to a "Pharma-Planta" consortium, a network of

laboratories in 11 European countries plus South Africa to

develop pharm crops for vaccines and treatments for AIDS,

rabies, diabetes and TB. South Africa's role is to be the

testing ground for the first pharm crops.

The exploitation of Third World countries to produce

transgenic pharmaceuticals unacceptable in Europe and the

United States harks back to the days of colonialism, and

raises the spectre of unmonitored and unregulated human

exposures to the dangerous products without the informed

consent of those directly affected. This will become worse

as opposition grows in North America and Europe. We are

calling for a global forum to alert people to the dangers as

well as the "benefits" (see p.29). Meanwhile, it is

imperative to impose a global ban on field test releases and

biopharmaceutical production, especially in Third World

countries.