Zambian Leader Defends Ban on Genetically Altered Foods

By HENRI E. CAUVIN

OHANNESBURG, Sept. 3 — The president of Zambia said today that his country, which is inching toward famine, would continue to refuse relief food that may be genetically modified, calling such food "poison" and saying it is "intrinsically dangerous."

Speaking to journalists at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development here in South Africa's biggest city, President Levy Mwanawasa said the desperate plight of his nation would not drive him to disregard his better judgment and accept genetically modified food.

Advertisement

"I'm not prepared to accept that we should use our people as guinea pigs," Mr. Mwanawasa said.

Zambia and five other countries in southern Africa are critically short of corn, the staple in the region, and the World Food Program is carrying out a relief operation for more than 13 million people.

The food agency is already feeding just over a million Zambians, and agency officials predict that the number will approach 2.5 million by the end of the year.

Much of the aid being earmarked for the region is from the United States, where crops genetically engineered for better production are widely grown and the foods produced from them are widely consumed.

The United States says that it is donating the same food Americans eat and that in any case, it has nothing else to offer.

Last week, the head of the Agency for International Development visited Zambia to urge the government to distribute the American food already in the country and accept the additional supplies headed there. This week, the world food agency's director, James T. Morris, is flying into the region, seeking to allay the hungry countries' concerns.

Genetically modified foods, which entered American commercial markets in the mid-1990's, have been the subject of intense international debate among environmental activists and consumer advocates, particularly in European Union countries.

Critics say such foods have not been sufficiently tested. Regulators in the United States, along with many scientists, counter that extensive studies already carried out have not found any reason to believe that the products are not safe to eat.

But along with fearing possible health effects, critics have said that planting genetically modified seeds could threaten the diversity of a country's plant and animal life. In Zambia's case, that could complicate and perhaps even jeopardize trade with the European Union.

Such food is grown and eaten in parts of the union, but the union has generally been more circumspect. It mandates, for instance, that genetically modified foods be labeled.

With its limited capacity for scientific food analysis, Zambia, now nominally free of genetically modified food, would not be able to keep modified crops separate if it did introduce them.

Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland have accepted the modified food. Mozambique and Zimbabwe have insisted that corn be milled before being distributed, to eliminate any risk that genetically engineered seeds could cross-pollinate with naturally occurring seeds.

But President Mwanawasa and his agriculture minister say that even if the corn were milled, too many questions remain unanswered, namely whether eating such food poses health risks. "We may be poor and experiencing severe food shortages," Mr. Mwanawasa said, "but we aren't ready to expose our people to ill-defined risks."

At the invitation of the United States, a team of Zambian scientists will be visiting to meet with American experts on genetically modified organisms, said Mr. Mwanawasa, who added that he remained "open to conclusive scientific evidence."