WFP says may substitute wheat for maize in Zambia
Date: 10-Sep-02
Country: ZAMBIA
"Since wheat is non GM, we are looking at it and exploring ways of providing it to starving people," WFP executive director James Morris told reporters.
Morris is also U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for the humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa, where aid workers say up to 13 million people in six countries - including Zambia - face famine.
Zambia has repeatedly rejected genetically modified food, mainly from the United States, out of concerns over its safety and the environmental consequences of GM grains being planted.
Malawi and Zimbabwe have also expressed concerns over the issue, although Morris said last week in Harare that Zimbabwe had dropped its objections to GM crops in a step which may encourage other countries in the region to follow suit.
Milled GM grain has been more widely accepted because it cannot be planted.
Morris said that Zambia had initially proposed that rice be substituted for maize, but that this would be too expensive. If the wheat substitution was successful, the WFP might extend that effort to other countries in the region, he said.
Zambia would in the next two days send a team of scientists to Europe to study GM investigations to reach a basis upon which it could either continue to reject GM food or accept it, Morris added.
He repeated that the food crisis was worsened by the spreading HIV-AIDS epidemic in the region - which was also draining financial resources - and urged international donors to step up their support.
"This crisis is not just a crisis of food, but it is a crisis of HIV/AIDS, a crisis of the weather and government management by politicians," Morris said.
Very little of a $611 million appeal for southern Africa had been released by various donors, he added.
