FAO head stresses water over GMOs for Africa farms
(ENN, Nov 11, 2003)
By Richard Cowan, Reuters
WASHINGTON — Irrigation and road-building are higher priorities in
improving Africa's weak agriculture sector than fostering the growth of
biotechnology on the continent, the head of the Food and Agriculture
Organization said Monday.
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf's
remarks came on the same day European Union states postponed a vote that would
have ended a five-year-old de facto ban on new biotech products.
The Bush administration has argued that
the E.U. ban has squelched the acceptance of genetically modified goods in
other countries, especially in hunger-stricken Africa.
"The number one problem of
agricultural development in Africa is water," Diouf told reporters
following a speech to the Inter-American Development Bank. "The second
problem of Africa is rural infrastructure, the rural roads," he added.
The Bush administration filed a World
Trade Organization complaint last spring, alleging that the E.U.'s moratorium
on new biotech products is an illegal trade barrier costing American farmers
millions of dollars in lost sales. But in announcing the WTO action, the
administration highlighted the refusal of American food aid by some African
countries and linked the action to the E.U. ban.
"European governments should
join — not hinder — the great cause of ending hunger in
Africa," U.S. President George W. Bush said in a speech last May.
Last year, international relief
organizations made a massive appeal for aid to sub-Saharan Africa, where up to
40 million people were threatened with starvation. Drought, flooding, political
upheaval, and disease contributed to the food shortages, according to the
agencies.
Diouf said that sub-Saharan Africa, which
suffers from persistent food shortages and measly foreign agriculture aid, uses
only 1.6 percent of its available water supply.
"I therefore think that it would make sense to try to get that water and
to be able to develop" Africa's agriculture sector, Diouf said when asked
about biotechnology the impact of the E.U.'s biotech policies.
While FAO views biotechnology as one tool
for improving agriculture and feeding an expanding world population, Diouf
noted that many African countries are not even able to capitalize on
40-year-old plant technology, largely because of their inability to harness
water resources.
"For certain countries, like the
African countries, they are not using even the varieties of the Green
Revolution now," Diouf said.