LONDON - Zambia will refuse to accept food aid that has been genetically modified even though it faces an acute hunger crisis, its top diplomat in Britain said last week.
Zambia is struggling with a huge maize shortfall, brought on by drought and floods over the last two growing seasons. The U.N. World Food Programme urged Zambia this week to decide whether to accept genetically modified maize, saying a shipment destined for the country could otherwise be diverted.
Asked if there was any way his government would accept the GM maize, Silumelume Mubukwanu, Zambia's High Commissioner to London, said: "The answer is an emphatic no on the grounds that too much is unknown about GM foods yet.
"The fact that the people are starving doesn't mean that we should allow them to eat what they don't know," he told BBC radio.
President Levy Mwanawasa, who declared a national disaster in May saying up to four million people faced starvation, said in July the country would not accept GM maize until it had determined whether it was safe for human consumption.
Mubukwanu said Zambia was appealing to nations like Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States for money to buy "the ordinary food that the people in Zambia normally eat".
Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have all expressed reservations over offers of GM grain, despite a food shortage that threatens up to 13 million people in southern Africa.:
