Three million starving Zambians are not happy with Europe these days. The Director of the European Union Commission on Consumer Protection recently admitted that Europe funds the very environmental organizations who stirred up anti-biotech hysteria in Sub-Saharan Africa, prompting Zambia’s “President” to reject U.S. food aid.
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Consumers International are perhaps the loudest opponents of genetically improved foods in Africa, and they also happen to receive funding from European Governments. Greenpeace rakes it in through European-taxpayer-pampered Oxfam. The two groups even host an anti-biotech website together. Friends of the Earth takes money from the Dutch and the Swiss (so much for neutrality). And Consumers International is funded by all kinds of European governmental authorities, including the E.U.
The public position of the E.U. is that genetically enhanced foods are as safe as conventional foods. So why is it funding activists who export Europe’s homegrown biotech paranoia to Africa? One Greenpeace spokesman says about biotech foods: “Science is not a church or a religion. It is not enough anymore for European consumers to have somebody with a white coat, a professional, say it’s O.K.”
It might not be enough for Europeans, but a scientific consensus ought to be enough for a Africa’s starving people.
