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Hunger is seen as the most critical manifestations of poverty. Globally, around 800 million men, women and children are chronically hungry. Thousands of children die each day of hunger and diseases they would not succumb to if their parents were not poor. Hunger causes illness and death, robs people of their potential to work and cripples children’s learning capacity. Since 1981 people around the world celebrates the World Food Day on the 16th of October in commemoration of the plight of worldwide hunger.  The theme of this year is "Fight hunger to reduce poverty." 

According to the World Food Programme, nearly 13 million people in southern Africa require food aid to stave off hunger brought on by dry weather and erratic rainfall over the last two years in the region. The affected countries are Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

In Swaziland about 66% of the population is said to be living below the international poverty line. Further, about 144, 000 Swazis are said to be at the brink of starvation with the Lubombo and Shiselweni districts being the hardest hit. According to the National Disaster Task Force the number of affected victims will shoot up by 87 000 during the current ploughing and planting season. 

The donor community has been assisting millions of people starving in six countries in southern Africa, Swaziland included. However, some countries in the region have been rejecting the food fearing that it could be contaminated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The rejection of food aid has fuelled debate over the role of biotechnology in alleviating hunger. In the subsequent sections we look at the debate around genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and food aid. 

"The Debate"
It has been argued that, by introducing genetically modified foods, scientists will be going against nature’s course. The debate however, is two sided as there are benefits and bad effects to biotechnology. The fact that food aid may be genetically modified has sparked a lot of debate across Africa and especially in the countries that have signed and ratified the Cartagena Protocal on Biosafety that was, adopted on 29th January 2000. The objective of this Protocol is to contribute to ensuring an adequate level of protection in the field of the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health, and specifically focusing on transboundary movement.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines biotechnology as: 
"any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use."

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) contends that biotechnology provides powerful tools for the sustainable development of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, as well as the food industry. When appropriately integrated with other technologies for the production of food, agricultural products and services, biotechnology can be of significant assistance in meeting the needs of an expanding and increasingly urbanised population in the next millennium.

While there is little controversy about many aspects of biotechnology and its application, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have become the target of a very intensive and, at times, emotionally charged debate. FAO recognises that genetic engineering has the potential to help increase production and productivity in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. It could lead to higher yields on marginal lands in countries that today cannot grow enough food to feed their people. There are already examples where genetic engineering is helping to reduce the transmission of human and animal diseases through new vaccines. 
However, FAO is also aware of the concern about the potential risks posed by certain aspects of biotechnology. These risks fall into two basic categories: the effects on human and animal health and the environmental consequences. Caution must be exercised in order to reduce the risks of transferring toxins from one life form to another, of creating new toxins or of transferring allergenic compounds from one species to another, which could result in unexpected allergic reactions. Risks to the environment include the possibility of out crossing, which could lead, for example, to the development of more aggressive weeds or wild relatives with increased resistance to diseases or environmental stresses, upsetting the ecosystem balance. Biodiversity may also be lost.

Sure, gene technology is bright with promise, but also fraught with unknown but possibly very significant risks into the indefinite future. One could argue that, "Genetic engineering is like piloting a jet plane with a blindfold on." With GMOs, potential harmful effects are not just more difficult to predict but even more difficult to trace to their origins than is the case with radioactivity, hormone disrupting chemicals, or diseases like Mad Cow Disease. Released GMOs cannot be recalled. Of one thing we can be sure, there will a continuous series of "surprises" which will underline the need for precaution. 

Food security specialists have argued that large-scale U.S. producers benefit from offloading surpluses on poor countries, while some African scientists have argued that rejecting new agricultural technology is a luxury that only rich countries can consider. Biotechnology will have an impact on food security if you could make drought resistance or increased yield or increased nutritional value, if you make the technology available to subsistence farmers and produce what they need. The owners of the technology must allow that. At the World Food Summit held in Rome sometime in mid-June 2002, among its final declarations included a call for biotechnology to be encouraged. 

At the same time others are of the opinion that the main purpose of food aid from the E.U. and the United States is to open new markets for exports rather than ending hunger. In general, food aid is negative because it undercuts the ability of local producers to produce and creates dependency, but when it is necessary in an emergency situation, the best practices are to purchase the food as locally as possible. 

It has been argued that food aid is tied aid. It is dumped food. It is subsidising rich farmers in the west. These are not small hill farmers but giant agribusinesses who are mopping up most of the subsidies. This is a classic real case of dumping surplus food aid. It is wrong for the U.S. to try and offload its surplus GM food on countries that might not have got to the point of making decisions on whether they want it or not.

In other words the ability of farmers to put food on the table to feed their families is being undermined by patents and the patent system, is agreed upon and supported by mainly western countries. Groups like ActionAid accuse companies of stealing the natural resources of developing countries. They say putting intellectual property rights (IPR) on crops creates unfair profit potential.

Small-scale commercial farmers attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, South Africa rejected the technology of genetically modifying plant organisms saying it will deprive them of the ownership of the seeds they produce. They cited fears that if farmers use GM seed, it would disempower them to an extent that they will rely on companies that produce seed every year. International companies producing GM seeds patent them. Farmers are expected to pay for licences to use the seed every year. 

Oxfam International has condemned the distribution of food aid contaminated with GMOs. Oxfam stresses the need to guarantee human health and biodiversity, and respect the social and cultural context of food aid recipient countries, and urges governments and FAO to develop and implement food aid standards that prevent the distribution of GMO's in food aid. According to Oxfam, food aid distributed by USAID recently tested positive for carrying StarLink, a genetically modified variety of corn not authorised for human consumption anywhere in the world due to its potential to affect human health. 

The governments of Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland are all accepting relief food aid of GM origin. Zambia is undecided regarding GM relief food, though it has banned commercial imports of GM food. While Mozambique has requested that GM food relief on transit to Malawi should be covered with plastic to ensure that there is no spillage along the way.

Zimbabwe turned down an offer of cheap corn from the United States. It expressed concern that, unless the grain was milled before distribution, it could be used for planting and damage the country's chances of exports to European consumers who reject genetically modified (GM) products. An officer with a London based organisation Panos Information Institute argues that it is entirely up to countries to reject or accept GM food, according to the existing law and opinion in their country about GM food. "There certainly can't be any right or wrong answer that GM food shouldn't be offered to them in food aid or that they must accept it. If the government turns it down and we the donors think that people ought to be given food to eat, then we must provide food that the government won't reject," the officer argued.

Swaziland unlike her counter part food aid recipient countries has not made her stand with regards to GMO contaminated food.  Most developing countries have no laws or regulations on biosafety and lack the capacity, and technological and financial resources to regulate genetic engineering. The biggest handicap is that there is a lot of misinformation, disinformation and lack of information surrounding the GM discussion. 

A priority in national biosafety legislation in developing countries is the need to have full knowledge of any pending imports that are genetically engineered, and the ability to take informed decision based on full assessment of risks and applying the Precautionary Principle. Stemming from such a legal and policy matrix, institutional structures either have to be established or strengthened for specific biosafety regulation. Multi-disciplinary scientific expertise must be mobilsed for risk assessment, risk management and other technical biosafety regulation needs.

Developing countries need to ensure that GMOs that have not been approved are not slipping into the country illegally, or even released domestically. The principle of prior informed consent, which places the onus on the exporting country to seek the approval of the importing country, has to be enforced strictly.  Some countries are implementing and enforcing bans, restrictions and moratoria. 

Food labelling is central to the debate of GM foods. This debate is not limited to food aid but to GM products that are finding their way into developing countries. However, the bottom line in this debate is that consumers or end users of GMOs or GM products should be able to make informed decisions about them because some people will wish to choose not to buy or eat GM foods however carefully they have been assessed for safety.

In conclusion therefore, genetically modified crops have been conceived with a view to getting control of the world's food supply. And eventually biotechnology will be a cause of social, economic and biodiversity damage.

Food that has been labelled as unsuitable for human consumption should not be sent to third world countries as food aid. The debate however continues and evidently the choice is ours, we may be able to change the famous notion that " beggars cannot be choosers" it is up to us.