FSG to challenge Bt cowpeas in court

Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG), a food advocacy group, says it would go to court to challenge the commercialisation of Bt cow peas.

Mr Raswad Nkrabea, Deputy Chairperson of FSG who gave the hint said it would be the first time the body would be going to court to challenge what members see as the “imposition of GM foods on Ghanaians, without public awareness and participation”.

Mr Nkrabea was speaking at a Conscious Lifestyle Seminar marking the 40th Anniversary of the Etherean Mission Church in Accra.

“Quite recently, on 13 December 2014, it was announced that the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), at Nyankpala, in the Northern Region, has developed genetically modified cow peas.

A former Principal Investigator at SARI and a consultant to the Bt cowpea project, Dr I. D. K.

Atopkle, even proudly announced that ‘the Bt cowpea will not look different from the conventional Songotra that farmers knew already and were planting currently’.

“Our very right to know what we are eating is clearly being targeted and undermined. And if care is not taken, very soon it will be extremely difficult for the ordinary person to know what is actually inside the food that we buy from the market or even on our own farms," Mr Nkrabea observed.

He said the decision of FSG to go to court demands the prayers and support of Ghanaians “in this difficult struggle against the principalities and the powers of darkness behind such unconscionable moves”.