|
|
De:
Cristina Carneiro <cristinacarneiro@uol.com.br>
Data: Sex Abr 7, 2000 9:04
pm
Assunto: USING THE SOUTH TO PROMOTE GE IN EUROPE - ONCE AGAIN!
|
USING THE SOUTH TO PROMOTE GE IN EUROPE - ONCE AGAIN!
Dear Colleagues,
Whilst I was in the UK recently, I watched a documentary on British
Channel Four Television, which portrayed Africa's poverty and implied
that the
average British housewife's resistance to genetically engineered (GE)
food would prevent the South from receiving the benefits of GE. The
argument
was that biotechnology could solve Africa's rural poverty and could
eliminate malnutrition and undernutrition if the development of their
genetic
engineering were not rejected in Europe. Interviews with scientists from
Kenya, India and Mexico were used to show what wonderful solutions to
these problems would come from genetic engineering. This was supported
by the
enclosed article in The Times newspaper.
We, as informed Southerners, know that the South's poverty is caused by
deep-seated structural economic imbalances which were established during
the periods of slavery and colonialism and are continuing now. We know
that
though individual technological inputs can help in food production,
given that other conditions are equally as important, those single
technological inputs are insignificant on their own.
Since it is the transnational corporations which are the beneficiaries
of the long history of inequity that has plagued us in our position of
disadvantage, I believe that it is our responsibility to reject such a
misleading oversimplification of the solution to our problem; especially
the use of our condition, by those very beneficiaries of the inequity,
to
justify the continuation of the benefits that they derive.
Action:
For this reason, I have drafted the attached letter of protest and
request that you please sign on to this. The advantage of a joint letter
is that
we can use it in other fora should it be necessary to counter such
misinformation.
To sign on please send a note to me (sustain@telecom.net.et) and copy to
The Gaia Foundation (info-network@gaianet.org) and include your name,
profession and country.
If you have time please also send your own letter to the Editor of The
Times Newspaper (letters@the-times.co.uk).
Best wishes,
Tewolde Behran Gebre Egzhiaber
Spokesperson for Africa and the Like-Minded group in the Biosafety
Negotiations
=======================
JOINT LETTER TO CHANNEL FOUR TELEVISION AND THE TIMES NEWSPAPER, UK:IN
PROTEST TO DOCUMENTARY, (EQUINOX, 19TH MARCH 2000) AND ARTICLE
(GM FOODS AND THE LUXURY OF CHOICE, 21ST MARCH 2000), USING SOUTHERN
SCIENTISTS TO MAKE EUROPEANS FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT SUPPORTING GENETIC
ENGINEERING.
Dear
We the undersigned, are appalled at the use made of the poverty of the
rural people of the South to justify genetically modified food to
Northern
consumers. We are appalled for the following reasons:
1. Poverty in the South is structurally rooted in the prevalent
North-South relationships. The
present systems of international resource control,
commodity pricing, education, training, research, finance, banking,
insurance, transportation etc. are all components of the system that
controls wealth and poverty, and which started being put in place during
the slavery and colonial periods and have matured in this post-colonial
period. Southern poverty, especially rural poverty, is a consequence of
this.
2. As such, the solution to rural poverty lies in a multidimensional
corrective measure that would enable sufficient local control of the
appropriation of the benefits that arise from the use of and trade in
resources, as well as the application of labour.
3. The assumption that the complex rural poverty that afflicts the
South, would be amenable to solution through single technological inputs
is
grossly incorrect and totally objectionable since it would misdirect
efforts.
4. Though technological inputs have a role to play in rural development,
and genetic engineering could be a technology to consider, it would
remain
but one technology among many. For example even if potential yields of
food
crops were to be dramatically improved, if storage, transportation,
marketing, distribution, and the ability to buy the food were not
simultaneously improved, the effort would still remain ineffective. In
fact, as we keep pointing out, it is not shortage of food that is the
problem,
but it's distribution. More GE food is not the point: it is improving
access
and local food security. But corporations do not profit from such
solutions.
5. There are high yielding varieties in rural areas but their impacts
remain limited by the bottlenecks imposed by many of the other
variables. The
agricultural research stations that are found in Southern countries have
also produced many such varieties and the potentials of these varieties
remain unrealised because of the other negative factors. But research
must continue so that there will always be higher yielding varieties to
have
their potential impacts realised as and when conditions allow it. It is
a gross oversimplification to state that such seed would solve rural
food
problems. The picture is the same with seed of improved nutritional
quality such as vitamin A rice.
6. At the heart of the inequity that maintains the present poverty of
the South is the inherited positive advantage that the Northern
transnational corporations enjoy. We consider the use of the South's
rural poverty to justify
the monopoly control and global use of genetically modified food
production by the North's transnational corporations, not only an
obstructive lie, but a way of derailing the solutions to our Southern
rural poverty. It is the height of cynical abuse of the corporations'
position
of advantage. Channel Four Television and The Times newspaper should be
ashamed for allowing themsleves to be so manipulated into trying
effectively to
emotionally blackmail the UK public into using GE.
Yours sincerely,
NAME:
PROFESSION:
INSTITUTE/ORGANISATION/GOVT DEPT:
COUNTRY:
===============
Tewolde & Sue
Institute for Sustainable Development
P.O. Box 30231,
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: 251-1-204210 / 251-9-200834 (mobile)
Fax: 251-1-552350 / 251-1-610077
e-mail: sustain@telecom.net.et
sustainet@hotmail.com
|
|
= Proprietário
= Moderador
= Online