Friends of the Earth Are Not Friends of Hungry Africans

Ronald Bailey | November 27, 2006

Just as the US Department of Agiculture has ruled that a biotech variety of rice is as safe to eat as conventional rice, the so-called Friends of the Earth (FOE) are trying to frighten African governments into refusing shipments of rice from the United States. FOE periodically launches anti-biotech disinformation campaigns in poor developing countries. FOE rolled out its latest low-down lying deceitful campaign in Africa. In this case, local FOE activists are demanding that Ghana and Sierra Leone recall rice imports from the US because they are "contaminated" with a harmless herbicide resistance gene.

One overwrought FOE anti-biotech activist  Arthur Williams declared,

“We are shocked that unapproved genetically modified long grain rice has been sent to our country [Sierra Leone] through food aid channels. We are a nation just recovering from years of civil war and now to attack us in this manner is now making our people once more vulnerable."

Attack? Sending perfectly safe food is not an attack. The FOE anti-biotech campaign is a scientifically unjustified attack on poor hungry people. Shame on the Friends of the Earth! Shame!