Might ask why, given no world shortage of gm-free food, the nation is only being offered something they didn't ask for? could be that someone wants a fait accompli.

And since you mention bullshit arguments: Uni's might not have advertising budgets, but the research they're doing is funded by agri-business firms whose advertising budgets are quite generous, actually.

One reason for avoiding GM seed is that crops grown from it cannot be exported to countries such as the UK. African countries rely on exports to earn enough money to buy farming machinery, etc, from abroad. If GM blocks off their markets, they earn less money from agro-exports and they get poorer. Frankly, I think this is a ploy by Americans to undermine Africa's competitive advantage in agriculture. Ultimately, the American policy will make Africans poorer.

Also, there are concerns that GM food damages health. The fact that independent scientific research on the health effects of GM is so sketchy and biased is probably making many African governments anxious.

Lastly, from my sources in Zambia and Swaziland, I can confirm that much of the US 'food aid' is rubbish. The grain has perished, probably because it has been stockpiled for so long. One aid worker told me that he opened up a sack of American grain and found it was little more than dust.

The Americans could not care less about the plight of Africans. They just want to make money out of poverty. It is all down to their culture of consumption, racism and imperialism.

If African countries want to avoid GM food, why doesn't Europe, which grows no GM crops, offer it to them?

It is striking that in all this argument as far as I can tell not a single non-GM growing country has offered alternative supplies except some African states which barely have enough for themselves.

So why is the only food being offered coming from America?

Surely it is not because Europe has no surpluses after years of multi-billion Euro CAP subsidies?

Is it because Europeans actually don't give a shit for Africans and won't endorse GM food in case it undermines their anti-GM case at any future WTO arbitration. Better that millions starve than one has to change ones mind.

If African countries want to avoid GM food, why doesn't Europe, which grows no GM crops, offer it to them?

It is striking that in all this argument as far as I can tell not a single non-GM growing country has offered alternative supplies except some African states which barely have enough for themselves.

So why is the only food being offered coming from America?

Surely it is not because Europe has no surpluses after years of multi-billion Euro CAP subsidies?

Is it because Europeans actually don't give a shit for Africans and won't endorse GM food in case it undermines their anti-GM case at any future WTO arbitration. Better that millions starve than one has to change ones mind.

Ziggie: It's fair to say that the entire developed world is not taking the problem of the southern African food disaster seriously.

The UN's World Food Programme estimates that up to 14.5 million people are faced with food shortages in the region. It states that: "In mid-July, the United Nations requested US$611 million in food and non-food support for southern Africa. To date, WFP has confirmed 36 percent of the US$507 million for food aid, and is confident about an additional 30 percent under a final stage of negotiations. On the non-food side, however, only US$12 million has been pledged. Without the needed non-food support, the risk of disease outbreak and a prolongation of the crisis will be inevitable."

But there is a difference between failing to give enough and giving 'aid' which is ultimately detrimental to Southern Africa's economy in the long-run. Europe might not be doing enough, but what the US is doing is a deliberate attempt to destroy Africa's agricultural sector through imposing GM seed that, if planted, could seriously affect these countries' external markets. The Americans know this and are holding Zambia and other countries to ransom.

Why do we go out of our way to provide famine relief to people so stupid they wont even accept the food offered to them. Perhaps if we let a few million starve to death there will be less mouths to feed meaning more food for all next season. nature is thining the herd.

Perhaps we should apply your policies of natural selection to the Americans. The World Trade Centre bombing was good because it killed a removed 3,000 American parasits from the world.

This Article first introduces the old Imperialist idea that Africans are so stupid, they need to be told by Greenpeace or the Bio-Tech industry what's good for them. Africans have learned from bitter experience that the West has NEVER had their BEST interests at heart, and never was that more true, than now!

Africans are not stupid, they know USAID is exploiting their predicament to find a market for GMO's that nobody else wants. What genes have been inserted into to the seeds? How would we ever know? We have to ask who promoted GM for Africa, (Mr. Wolfenstein) after the IMF made them sell off surplus grain to pay debts. Do YOU trust the World Bank?

Monsanto and Aventis should immediately announce GM is NOT safe and apologise publicly to the world and Africa for
risking exacerbating disease and eco-contamination by misleading lay people with lies and pseudo-scientific-research. GMO's are spreading to independant farms which Monsanto lays claim to, because it contains their patented product.

The racist Globalists want Africa, lock, stock and barrel, but without Africans. It seems like with AIDS, war and "climate change" that their wildest dreams are being realized and millions will die. How's that for luck?

Tickety-boo hit the nail on the head. The West has offered lots of advice to African states, much of which has ended in disaster - eg the depletion of Malawi's food reserves and the collapse of Mozambique's valuable cashew nut sector. There's no compensation for these disasters, just a grudging apology from the World Bank and IMF - and yet more unsound advice.

Africa has opened its markets to Western corporations, which maintain colonial relationships whereby Africa is increasingly made to produce for consumption and profit in Western markets. Now Africa is turning against the West's free market fundamentalism and its agendas and staking its claims. That's why the Western media is whipping up a storm over GM seed.

These governments must be cruel and stupid, the argument goes, because they are typically African. But the true cruelty comes from Western governments and corporations that refuse to listen to African voices and seek to maintain colonialism through the plunder of resources, the sale of arms and the creation of puppet states, such as that led by Thabo Mbeki.