Hi everyone. I am a first year university student from South Africa. As one of our assignments, we were asked to express our opinion on a topic of interest to us, so the following is merely my opinion on the topic of GM food, as a South African student. I recently attended a seminar on the topic of GMOs and both the positive and negative effects of them on public health as well as the local agricultural industries that was presented by a fellow student.
South Africa has an economy that depends greatly on agriculture. Much of the lower class population (making up greater than 60% of the 60 million population) consists of subsistence farmers or farm workers that are the sole bread winners of their households. South Africa also depends greatly on money brought in from exportation of crops and food products that come from local farms. The perception that many (of those people who are aware of GM food) share is that GMOs threaten the existence of local farmers as they offer quicker production with a greater yield. Most people in a first world country would view this as a positive, but when your population is widely made up of local farmers, the fact that only the big farmers would be able to afford to implement these GM crops to their farms poses the risk of eliminating the need for the poorer subsistence farmers and farm worker. In this regard, the poorer portion of the South African public view GM food in a negative manner.
The idea of GMOs in South Africa is still relatively new and as a result, does not feature in public discussion and opinion as often as it would in first world countries that are more health conscious and more developed with regards to genetic modification. One local media station decided to focus on the effects of GM chickens and their food products on the health of the public. While the growth in production size was positive compared to non GM chicken products, the side effects that could potentially effect the health of the public caused many to be opposed to the idea of GMOs. The topic of GM food is still new however and as South Africa's knowledge on the subject develops, the public opinion of GM food may change. Until then however, we remain uncertain on the matter.
