Our lands are fertile - Greenstreet boots out GMO foods

The Convention People’s Party presidential candidate has restated the party’s disdain for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with a stern indication it would never taste the soils of Ghana under a CPP-led government.

At the launch of the party’s manifesto ahead of the 2016 general elections on Saturday, Ivor Greenstreet could not come to terms with why Ghana should accept GM foods in spite of arable lands available to Ghanaian farmers.

Genetically modified foods or GM foods are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering.

In 2015, the CPP together with some civil society organisations, albeit unsuccessful, tried several means including the courts to stop the commercialisation of GM foods in Ghana. Mr. Greenstreet reiterated that the party’s position has not shifted, it still remains “no” to GM foods. “We shall reject GMOs, we are not interested in GMOs with all our fertile lands, thousands and millions hectares lying fallow. We reject GMOs!”he stressed.

CPP rejects EPA

Ivor Greenstreet also insisted that the CPP government would reject the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, which Ghana signed the interim agreement in July this year.

The agreement will ensure that businesses and industries in Ghana can export to the EU market quota-free and without paying for any duties on their products.

Also, firms in the EU in return can also export goods and services to the Ghanaian market, quota-free, duty-free. But the Convention People’s Party does not see the EPA as a fair trade agreement.

Rather, it is a move to further impoverish the country, Ivor Greenstreet pointed out. “We reject the Economic Partnership Agreement…we don’t believe such agreement should be entered into unilaterally. They are not agreement, they are imposition,” he said.