Ghana does not need genetically modified foods,
Presiding Bishop of Perez Chapel International, Charles Agyinasare, has
said.Genetically modified foods (GM foods) are produced from organisms
that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic
engineering.
There is currently a Plant Breeders’ Bill before Ghana’s
parliament, which anti-GMO group Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG), as well as other
groups such as Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana and the Convention People’s
Party (CPP), is fighting against. They argue that passing it as well as adopting
the ARIPO Arusha PVP Protocol, will be detrimental to local
farmers.
Preaching in church at the Perez Dome at Dzorwulu in Accra on
Sunday July 31, Bishop Agyinasare added his voice to the anti-GMO campaign
saying: “…I’m not being political, but genetically modified food is not what we
want. … Genetically modified food is not what we want. What we want is the
natural one that God gave us. In every seed, when you plant it, you get a
harvest and when you get a harvest, there is seed in the harvest. … Some of the
genetically modified foods, they make [them] in such a way that in creating it,
they mix chemicals and when they produce the corn, no insect can eat it because
they have put the genes of the corn in it so animals cannot spoil it, God made
sure that when you have a seed, it can be destroyed, when you have fruits, it
can be destroyed. With genetically modified foods, there are times you see an
apple … you know some of the apples they sell by the road side, the apple, for
six months it doesn’t get rotten. [For] proper apple that is not genetically
modified, when you put it down, three to four days, you see that it starts
changing colour. You see banana, one month the banana hasn’t changed colour.
Normally when you take banana from the tree and it’s ripe and you put it down,
three days, the banana will be changing colour; that is how God made it because
God has a cycle that things must go [through].
“…It is only genetically
modified foods that want to break the cycle [of natural regeneration of seeds].
It’s true. In genetically modified foods, the kind of grain that they give, when
you plant that grain and it yields, what you get, you can’t plant it again
because that is man-made. So you would always have to go to them to look for
seed …” Bishop Agyinasare added.
Food Sovereignty Ghana in March issued a
statement saying it was “stunned” and “disappointed” to learn that the Plant
Breeders' Bill was returning to the floor of Ghana’s parliament without the
promised consultation with stakeholders as ordered by the Speaker of the
House.
“To this end, we are in full support of the press conference
organised by CSOs/FBOs on March 1, 2016, at which they called for the protection
of farmers’ rights and food sovereignty in Ghana.
The statement signed by
Edwin Kweku Andoh Baffour, Communications Director, said at the last time the
bill came up on the floor of the House at the consideration stage on Tuesday,
November 11, 2014, Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho urged Majority Leader Alban Bagbin,
who was, at the time, Chairman of the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary
Affairs Committee, to have the body undertake “further consultation” with
stakeholders before proceeding further with the bill.
“So far, there have
been no consultation and no attempt to inform, apart from some propaganda
efforts by the GMO lobby,” FSG said, adding: “We, therefore, find it strange
that the Plant Breeders’ Bill is coming back to Parliament without a single
consultation with any of the groups (Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana
(PFAG), Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development, General
Agricultural Workers Union, Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference, Ghana Muslims
Mission, National House of Chiefs, Christian Council of Ghana, Apex Farmers
Network of Ghana, Food Span and Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition) that have
petitioned Parliament.
|
| |
|
|
|
