African foods top of the world league

By Dr. Emmanuel Mutyaba

Dear fellow Ugandans read this before you promote Genetically Modified Foods in Uganda thereby destroying our natural foods.

"The research has been carried out for The Lancet Global Health journal by researchers using national data from almost 90 per cent of the world's population. They analyzed people's diets between 1990 and 2010 by taking 17 food groups, including healthy ones. Chad, a country often associated with drought, comes top, followed by Sierra Leone, Mali, Gambia, Uganda, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Somalia. According to the researchers, out of the top ten best national diets in the world only one is not African, Israel. And not a single African country is in the bottom ten. However, there are four European countries at the bottom of the table…Top of the healthy eating league table was Chad, a country often associated with drought, followed by Sierra Leone, Mali, Gambia, Uganda, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Somalia."

Today biotechnology in agriculture is presented by UBIC as the solution to nutrition problems yet in reality is it just business oriented and quite destructive than constructive. Those who promote it just look for money but they are not really concerned about the health of the people of Uganda. Because of money they promote dangerous foods, multiplying seeds and supply them to farmers.

People of Uganda do not forget the past so easily. Those very people who supply to you genetically modified seeds, are the very ones who supplied you with artificial fertilizers convincing you that it was the salvation from pests and weevils that destroyed your crops causing food shortage in the nation.

You abandoned organic nature and applied those fertilizers which destroyed your soil. For instance Masaka used to be the land of matooke now people of Masaka buy matooke from Mbarara since the people of Mbarara remained faithful to organic mature, so their soils are still productive.

Now those very people have come back to convince you to abandon your natural foods to growing genetically manipulated one as the salvation from food security and malnutrition in the nation, and you still trust them! Mind you they are not the manufacturers of those seeds but they are simply promoters as Prosy Nandudu clearly put it in the New Vision paper of Wed. Feb. 15, 2017 on page 5 that the UBIC co-ordinated by Dr. Barbra Zawedde is just a communication hub of NARO on matters concerning GMO technology, it simply exhibits information and knowledge on the technology.

GMO seeds are manufactured by Western companies like Monsanto and Syngenta traders and our agricultural experts here in Uganda get those seeds and simply multiply them and supply to us without knowing the real details of those seeds apart from what the manufacturers tell them about them. How can we trust the West on manufacturing for us seeds yet we know all what it has been doing to us in the past.

The West wants us to forever depend on them so that they influence and control us in any way without resistance or else they stop feeding us.

Remember what Hurbert Humphrey said to fellow Americans that, to control and influence people, make them dependent on you for food; food control is a very wonderful weapon to put people under your influence and control (G. hancock, Lords of Poverty: The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1989. P. 70). So So Dr. Zawedde Barbra and your team be mindful of those word while campaigning for supplying GMO seeds which cannot be replanted while destroying our natural seeds which can be replanted hence condemning us to forever kneel to the West for seeds to grow our food.

You are actually campaigning for the return of colonialism/Western imperialism in Uganda without knowing. Why don't you promote organic farming instead? Join the campaign for organic farming carried out by Uganda Martyrs University,  Department of Agriculture. That is the right way to go.

You claim that food GMOs are used Worldwide to improve the quality; but as a matter of fact, the contrary is true that such food technology destroys the quality of food nutrients in those  crops and such crops are being rejected in developed nations in favor of organic foods.

For instance, Wansink and Chan (2001) reported that, to improve the business of soya foods in the US, they had to invent a technology that can tamper with its natural contents thereby removing its natural components and making it acquire other components of other plants in order to make it sweeter so that it attracts many consumers.

And as a consequence, it is noted that the GM soya been produces lower levels of phytoestrogen components which helped to protect against heart disease and cancer than the natural soya bean (Bakshi 2003). Most of the natural components of soya are destroyed simply because they want to increase its sweetness to attract more consumers.

Such food technology helps farmers to gain much money but endangers the health of consumers. For instance, Smith, J.M (2007) revealed that the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) cautioned its doctors to prohibit their patients from consuming genetically modified foods. Smith reports Dr. David Schubert's personal communication to H.  
Penfound in Canada on October 25, 2002 saying that children and pregnant mothers are the most affected by the toxins and other dietary problems of GMO foods.

Ermakoya, I (2006) reported that rats fed on GMOs for a long time, produced smaller young ones many of which died prematurely and those which survived to maturity had problems getting pregnant and their DNA had significant changes. The male ones that were fed on the GNO foods, had their testicles changed from normal pink to dark blue and their sperms altered.

In India, the buffalos that were grazed on GMO cotton seeds, had complications such as premature deliveries, miscarriages, infertility and prolapsed uteruses. In the US several farmers reported that pigs and cattle that fed on GMO corns became sterile and others got false pregnancies.

In India, cases of deadly flu-like symptoms from those who consumed GMO foods in 2008 were reported (Sunday India 2008). J.M. Smith says that in USA, the AAEM associates health problems like asthma, allergy and inflammation and gastrointestinal problems with consumption of GM foods.

GM foods may cause cancer. AAEM made a research on rats and founded out that those fed on GM potatoes, their stomach lining showed excessive cell growth which may easily lead to cancer. They are also suspected of altering the liver, pancreas cells, change enzyme levels and damage kidneys as well as leading to sterility.

Writer is a lecturer at the Uganda Martyrs University, Institute of Ethics