Workshop on GMOs leaves journalists more confused

Although all three resource persons who addressed the journalists said GMOs resulted from biotechnology, they shared different opinions and aspects of GMOs, which raised a lot of questions that, at certain points, almost turned the workshop into a debate, forcing the moderator  to call the workshop to order on such occasions.

The meeting, organised by the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), in collaboration with the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD), was meant to educate the journalists on GMOs and what they portended for Ghana, Africa and the world.

Making the first presentation, Mr Bernard Guri, leader of the CIKOD team, asked all stakeholders, as well as the government, to hasten slowly in putting Ghana on the map of countries that had adopted GMOs.

“Food is not only for consumption but also the total well-being of people. It is power. It is an identity. If we modify the food we have, it means we lose our culture,” he stated.

Mr Guri also said there was growing evidence of the negative impact of GMOs, while the European Union had banned GMO seeds because it was not sure of their safety.

He asked the government to support research into using indigenous methods such as desmodium, a common legume-“weed” species that repelled the stem borer, an insect pest on the maize plant, to solve agricultural problems, instead of resorting to GMOs.

He explained that there were still numerous uncertainties regarding GMOs, such as terminator seeds that could not be planted twice, the environmental and health impact on humans and their socioeconomic impact on farmers’ livelihoods because they would not be able to afford the seeds due to their cost and patent rights.

Will Ghana shift completely to GMOs?

Professor Walter Alhassan, a Biotechnology consultant (Policy), nonetheless, said the use of GM seeds would be the farmer’s choice when it was commercialised, while consumers would have a choice on the purchase and consumption of GM foods.

He refuted the assertion that GM seeds could not be replanted and opined that Ghana was putting in place structures to adopt GMOs to replace other biotechnologies because every technology had a life span and had its efficacy reduced over time.

Professor Alhassan asked for proper training of farmers on GMOs before they were allowed to grow crops that were genetically modified.

Effects of GMOs

Responding to the contention that there were visible health effects as a result of the consumption of GMOs, Professor Alhassan said no visible adverse effects of GMOs on farmers had been recorded yet.

He stated that all the negative perceived attributes of GMOs also occurred in conventional crops.

“There are problems with almost every crop. People have allergies. If the product is useful, use it,” he said.

Professor Alhassan said while the anti-GMO agencies had enhanced awareness-creation activities, they had created a lot of anxiety among the public.

According to him, the problems that the adoption of GMOs in Ghana was likely to face were rather infrastructure and other support services such as a market for the food and warehousing.

Plant Breeders Bill

While Mr Yaw Opoku, a member of Food Sovereignty, a grass-roots food advocacy movement, and Mr Guri maintained that the Plant Breeders Bill currently before Parliament was connected to GMOs, Professor Alhassan said it was not.

Mr Opoku said when the bill, in its present state, was passed into law, it would give too much power to both local and foreign-based breeders.

He stated that it would also allow foreign plant breeders to operate freely in Ghana, either directly or through agents in Ghana, and that most of the scientists advocating GMOs hoped to become agents for foreign-based breeders in order to make money.