Statement of solidarity with Southern African nations over GM food and crops
Delegates to the World Summit on Sustainable Development,
We the undersigned, as representatives or advocates of the people of the Global South, hereby declare our condemnation of the coercive techniques being used by the United States of America to force the nations and people of the South to accept genetically modified food in food aid shipments.
We condemn the United States' use of Food Aid as a tool of propaganda to force acceptance of GM food and crops by Southern nations on the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). Peasant farmers and indigenous peoples in many Southern nations are opposing GM crops and condemning GM contamination of their land whilst the recipients of food aid are protesting the dumping of GM food that have not undergone independent safety testing.
We decry the bio-imperialism of dumping food aid in Africa, the endangerment of food sovereignty and security and the deviation from principles of self-determination*. It further subsidizes the US farm system, provides a handy market for dumping grain not wanted elsewhere and is a thinly disguised attempt to pollute the sub continent's grain stocks with patented genetically modified varieties.
Statement of solidarity with Southern African nations over GM food and crops | Practical Action