USAID sends unfit food aid to Latin America

Food unfit for human consumption and banned from use in the United States of America has been sent in USAID food packages to Latin America. Environmental groups have discovered this scandal, which involves GM crops and could have reached consignments of food to Africa.

The government of Zimbabwe refused to accept a consignment of USAID food a fortnight ago after the US food agency was unable to state whether or not the food contained Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The consignment was promptly redistributed to neighbouring Zambia.

The alert was raised by the environmental organisation, Friends of the Earth, which denounced the practice of exporting GM food by the US and German governments as proof that “genetic technology is out of control”. The same organisation has documented evidence that food containing GMO has recently been sent to Mexico, among other South American countries.

Genetic Resources Action International has revealed that every year, the USA exports more than two million tonnes of food containing GMO to developing countries. A further 1.5 million tonnes of transgenic crops is distributed annually by the World Food Programme, using food donated by the US government.

Ana Lucia Bravo, of the Ecuadorian environmental group, Accion Ecologica, has denounced that “Food Aid programmes when used systematically in impoverished countries serve as instruments for the dumping of production surpluses from northern countries, creating dependence and contributing to the destruction of local food production”.

As Oxfam points out, “Introducing GMOs through food aid may have adverse effects on bio-diversity, since part of it is used as seeds, contaminating local species”.

It would appear that the definition of Axis of Evil and Evil Empire countries needs to be hurriedly redefined.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru