With “Food Safety” being the theme of this year’s World Health Day on April 7, 37 laureates of the Right Livelihood Award from across the world have endorsed a declaration on the future of nutrition, denouncing Golden Rice and Genetically Modified Bananas as “false miracles” to achieving food security. Golden Rice is a genetically engineered rice variety offered by GM proponents as a cure for Vitamin A deficiency (VAD), while GM bananas are proposed to compensate for a lack of Vitamin A and iron.
PRESS RELEASE
Nairobi/Hong Kong/Stockholm, April 1 2015
The declaration, written by 1993 Right Livelihoood Award recipient Vandana Shiva and a coalition of women’s groups in India, comes as controversy escalates over the development of GM crops in Africa. According to a February 2015 report by Friends of the Earth International only four African countries, South Africa, Egypt, Burkina Faso and Sudan, have released GM crops commercially, while others are involved in testing or have placed bans and restrictions on GM crops and commodities. A GM banana project in Uganda under the National Agricultural Research Institute and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently provoked fierce resistance from local civil society organizations who claim that there are better alternatives to GM.
Food sovereignty organization GRAIN, recipient of the 2011 Right Livelihood Award and signatory to the declaration, said in an
Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey and recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award, said the move toward GM crops on the continent is driven by profit and heralds a new form of colonization. “The modern biotech industry is really going bananas. The so-called golden rice has always been known to be a hoax. The same goes for the so-called golden bananas. The future of African nutrition and access to the right food lies in the preservation of our biodiversity and genetic resources,” he said. The declaration states that Golden Rice has not in fact proven to be more nutritious than indigenous varieties and that natural food sources like turmeric provide much more iron than GM bananas. “As a source of nutrition for the Global South, Golden Rice has no real benefits. But considering the precedents set by soya, corn, canola and cotton, introducing Golden Rice as a way for large companies to gain control over entire food cultures based on rice, makes perfect sense,” states the declaration. It also reveals the environmental costs, potentially damaging health impacts and consequences for small-scale farmers of GM crop production, and calls for support for sustainable agro-ecology systems with crop diversity and seed sovereignty. Read the full declaration: http://seedfreedom.info/campaign/declaration-for-international-womens-day-8-march-2015/ See the full list of signatures: www.rightlivelihood.org/biodiversity_gmo.html For background, please see: "Who Benefits from GM Crops?" Friends of the Earth International, February 2015 http://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Who-benefits-report-2015.pdf MEDIA CONTACTS Dr Mira Shiva Dr Vandana Shiva Kartini Samon
Initiative for Health & Equity in Society
Mobile: +91 981 058 2028
Diverse Women for Diversity
Mobile: +91 981 0025 169
GRAIN
Mobile: +628 1314761305
Email: [email][email protected]
Nnimmo Bassey
Health of Mother Earth Foundation
Mobile: +234 803 727 4395
Email: [email][email protected]
Josefina Bergsten
Right Livelihood Award Foundation
Asia Press office: Josefina Bergsten
Mobile: +852 963 23144
Email: [email][email protected]
Zahra Moloo
Press Consultant for Africa
Right Livelihood Award Foundation
Box 15072
104 65 Stockholm
Sweden
Mobile: +254-724-568-164
Stockholm office: +46-8-702 03 40
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