Prof Akosa lambasts Kofi Annan for promoting GMO case

Renowned Pathologist and a former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa has bemoaned the role former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is playing in being used as a lynchpin in advancing multinational’s goal of securing rights to seeds and other farm inputs farmers use in producing food.

"Kofi Annan has a built up reputation, why he succumbs to the machination of these multinational organisations beats my mind, perhaps it’s because he is in partnership with AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa)," the CPP member lamented.

According to Professor Akosa, Kofi Annan could help address the challenges associated with Ghana’s agric sector which largely has to do with inefficiencies with storage and boosting yields in the dry season; but not to champion the takeover of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He urged parliament to critically evaluate the Plant Breeders’ Bill (PBB) and make modifications before passage.

Mr. Annan served as Chair of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) for six and half years before stepping down in 2013, noting in his speech: “It has been a privilege to work with AGRA and its partners in the cause of attaining food and nutrition security in Africa by developing smallholder agriculture”.

AGRA was founded in 2006 through a partnership between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The argument against the GMO crusaders is that Monsanto, a key multinational company advancing the worldwide use of GMO products is destroying land, causing chemically induced human diseases, creating super weeds, super insect pests, and economic havoc in many parts of the US farming areas, particularly in the Midwest and the South. There have also been countless protests in India and Brazil.

The fear is that left uninhibited, Monsanto and its ilk would create a world where 100 percent of all commercial seeds are genetically modified and patented, a world in which natural seeds would be virtually extinct.

Another concern of the anti-GMO groups like the Food Sovereignty Ghana is that AGRA and the Gates Foundation speak about 'land mobility' which means moving farmers off their farms so the land can be used for large-scale mechanized agriculture whiles where these people will reside and how they will be re-employed is often neglected.

However, the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) says passing the bill would enable Ghanaian plant breeders to protect crop varieties that they developed and enjoy royalties from them, adding: “Just like other intellectual properties, such as a piece of music, a book, a computer software and an artwork, plant breeders have the right to protect crop varieties”.

Unless milled, the import of GM foods is banned in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The debate rages on.