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Zimbabwe: Food Shortages Re-Ignite GMO Concerns

hunger stalks the land, forcing Government to seek to import more than 700 000 tonnes of the maize to feed 4 million people, we find ourselves locked in that difficult situation again: to eat genetically modified foods (GMs), remain strictly organic, or eat both. The question is: What you would like to eat? At a time of food shortages, what choices, if any, are available to hungry consumers over the food they can or cannot eat? That choice is severely limited, am guessing that should have been your answer.

Indeed, empty stomachs tend to abdicate decision making to the giver, reluctantly. That giver is the Government, the global aid agencies, and the multiple individual and corporate groups that have been authorised to bring in maize or maize meal from South Africa, Zambia and elsewhere.

And herein lies the risk. Private organisations have in the past imported genetically modified maize from South Africa for food and processing with ease, contravening Government policy against GM foods. Authorities remain reasonably uncertain of the true impacts of genetically modified foods on human health and that of the environment.

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