We hear the Zimbabwean cabinet has allowed GMOs to be imported into Zimbabwe for human and livestock consumption and they say they must be handled with caution.
1. Is this to suggest that before this cabinet meeting, GMOs were not permitted for importation into Zimbabwe since the expiry of the 2021 SI that permitted them before the subsequent bumper harvests of 2022 and 2023?
2. Where did the current GMOs that we found in Innscorβs food come from? Were they being imported into the country during bumper harvests without this recently issued permission of government? Or were they being grown illegally in Zimbabwe?
3. Why did cabinet only mandate importation of GMOs instead of giving a quota to import organic, nonGMO and GMO maize for those who donβt want to eat GMOs and can afford organic or nonGMO? Because when they donβt mandate suppliers to supply organic, nonGMO and GMO, the millers simply import GMOs and consumers have no choice to have organic or nonGMO because the market gets flooded with only GMO.
Why are they not giving Zimbabweans the choice of eating nonGMO if they donβt want GMOs?
4. Has our cabinet done any studies to determine that GMOs have no health effects? As I have said before, I met a high ranking member of the government who said they do have science to show that cancers increase in Zimbabwe when they use GMOs.
5. What studies has government done on the impact of the cancer causing HHPS (Highly Hazardous Pesticides) like glyphosate that we found in the Innscorβs GMOs and that usually go hand in hand with Round Up ready GMOs?
6. Why didnβt cabinet reemphasize the necessity of millers to label the GMOs and inform people of the HHPs like glyphosate that are found in these foods, so that they can choose between nonGMO, toxin free food, GMOs and toxins?
By Rutendo Matinyarare, Chairman of ZASM.
