EU disapproves of US GM food aid to Africa 

Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique, threatened by starvation, have rejected US genetically modified (GM) food aid, fearing that it could harm their agricultural exports to the EU. They also fear GM food may be harmful to people.

Washington appealed on Brussels to give assurances to African states that GM food was safe. However, Commission officials said the US can solve the problem by buying food aid locally, the way the EU does, to provide the African nations with non-GM food.

The US is supplying 500,000 tonnes of food, which is about half the food aid requirements, to southern Africa by the end of the year. The rejected food is being stockpiled in South Africa's port of Durban. The State Department is worried that thousands of lives will be sacrificed due to "misinformation about the safety of agricultural biotechnology".

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), starvation threatens 13 million people in southern Africa, and could claim 300,000 lives in the coming months.

The WHO is organising a three-day meeting with southern African governments from 26 to 28 August in Harare to try to find a compromise on controversial GM food.