GENETiCALLY MODiFiED FOOD

Genetically modified food, also known as GM food or genetically engineered food, entered the food supply in the 1990s. GM foods contain small pieces of foreign DNA from other organisms and often from another species, however SA companies are not required to label foods that use GM ingredients. The foreign DNA in GM foods is engineered into the food in hopes of producing desirable traits like resistance to herbicides and pesticides, or resistance to specific pests. Insect resistant maize, for example, is modified by inserting a bacterium gene that produces toxins and acts as an insecticide. Others have a gene that makes them indestructible when sprayed with certain herbicides. The proGM faction mainly GM seed producers such as Monsanto, Du Pont, Dow, Bayer and Syngenta say GM increases crop yields, reduces farming costs and increases food security for developing countries. Environmental bodies worldwide are strongly against GM food growth, saying that this is a dangerous experiment with health and could have a bad effect on the environment. They say it "violates a natural organism's intrinsic value; that modified genes are being spread through pollination; and that it allows a few giant corporations to control food production worldwide, forcing farmers to buy new, expensive, patented seed from them year after year." Many countries, including most of Europe, most Australian states, Angola, Sudan, Venezuela and Zambia, have declared themselves GM-free zones, refusing to grow GM crops. So strong is the anti-GM lobby in the UK that the industry has abandoned all attempts to get GM seeds approved for growing in that country. South Africa, on the other hand, has adopted the crops wholeheartedly. Since 1997, South Africa has grown GM crops, including maize, soya beans and cotton commercially. The Government does not require GM crops to be separated from non-GM crops during production, processing and distribution, which means there's no way of tracking GM food from farm to plate; if one strain caused adverse effects in humans or animals, it would be virtually impossible to trace the offending variety.