The CPP is raising "serious" concerns that if Parliament goes ahead to pass the Plant Breeders bill, it will introduce dangerous modifications in the DNA of foods causing diseases and deformities.
The Party at a press conference Wednesday says the bill which has entered consideration stage in Parliament, is an attempt by "an overwhleming lobby" of multinational companies such as Monsanto, Du Pont, Sygenta, Bayer to push a "sinister" agenda to control Ghana's food chain through unsuspecting lawmakers and on the blind side of Ghanaians .
Genetic Modification involves the mutation, insertion, or deletion of genes. When genes, usually come from a different species, are inserted into a new organism such as plants or animals, and take on properties and behaviours that it otherwise did not have.
Genetically Modified (GM) tomatoes for example can bounce and its potatoes can glow in the dark, according to scientific reports cited by the CPP.
The Party explains that apart from assimilating nutrients in these foods, GM consumers will now be taking in genes that can influence human health in previously unanticipated ways.
Supporters of GMOs argue that the genetic modification of foods allows for increased food production and more resilient and nutritious crops. They believe GMOs offer a valuable tool for responding to the serious problem of malnutrition facing many people around the world.
But citing scientific research findings and case studies of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM), the CPP statement read that “several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.
In the Philippines, a group of 400 farmers recently stormed a field at a government research facility and destroyed roughly 10 football fields’ (1,000 square meters) worth of a GMO rice test citing strange ailments in villages linked to GM farms.
Chairman of the CPP Samia Nkrumah is therefore demanding that all 275 MPs in Parliament kick against the Plant Breeders Bill 2013 to send a clear warning to multinatinational companies that Ghana's answer to malnutrition is not bioengineering, but alleviating poverty.
She is calling on students, civil society, farmers and ordinary Ghanaians to rise up an resist the passing of the bill which could happen in the next few weeks.
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