Welcome
to AFRICABIZ, 
Welcome
to the quarterly issue
of Africabiz Online /free access Synopsis
& RSS Feed edition. Previous issue available at this
link
Click here
for the beginning of the article
G8-L'Aquilla's Promise to Assist African Countries Feed Themselves: Time to be (more) on Alert!
By
Dr. Bienvenu-Magloire Quenum
Last delivery dealt with the G20 summit gathering in London, UK, April 2-3, 2009 (in fact an extended G8-Summit) - expressing doubt about the implementation of the promise made to assist developing nations, and African countries in particular, with a global financing package amounting to US$ 250 million, to stop economic decline and pursue the developing process.
Three months later, another G-8 summit, at L'Aquilla, Italy, July 8-10, 2009, made another promise to pledge $20 billion in aid to help poor nations - and as stated by the final Communiqué, to assist African countries in particular, feed themselves.
Nowhere in the final G8-L'Aquilla's communiqué had it been specified that the latter pledge is separate from the one made at G8-London gathering.
This is not a surprise for Africabiz Online, which editorial team had been screening G8 summits since 7 years running, to come to the conclusion that G8 will never deliver - as proved by successive G8-summits's outcomes [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Kind words, but no money given. However, these kind words make the news in the developed countries's media and citizens believe that their countries are doing good. Some even thinking that their countries are doing to much - which, in turn, fuels racism against African migrants!
This time however, as briefly explained in the introduction to the current delivery, there is the possibility that some kind of implementation might occur.
- Which Entity Would Decide About What to Plant?
Indeed, NGOs and private international agribusiness companies would certainly help implementing the "generous" G8 proposal/promise. However, that may have huge implications on food-security, and the environment in selected African countries, depending on which kinds of crops are developed; and particularly which species and categories of seeds are used.
As we all know, there is a great debate going on worldwide about the "noxiousness" of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Would the G8-assist based on GMO?
Further, would seeds used to develop the plantations be provided by big agribusiness companies, which not only engineer genetically modified seeds, and patent them; but also chemically structure them not to be used after crops's harvest. That is, the seeds obtained from the first crop cannot be used to plant again. Farmers need to purchase new seeds from the provider, and any attempt to using seeds originating from crops leading to litigation between farmers and seeds's providers.
The problem is paramount as in African countries, farmers, for centuries, are accustomed to using seeds from crops to plant again. In case they are obliged to purchase new seeds from big agribusiness corporations, one can foresee the increase of exploitation costs, that would be eating out the meager profit margin, and pushing African farmers deeper and deeper into poverty - from an already existing horendous level of poverty!.
This problem had been extensively exposed by F. William Engdahl in a bestseller book titled: Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation - in which the author focuses on how big international agribusiness concerns seek to establish control over the very basis of human survival that is the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you control the people."
The perils exposed by Engdahls is spreading fast into the rural areas of poor countries, as farmers are not knowledgeable of the dangers, and agree for anything, believing that the new seeds proposed to them would save them from poverty. When they find out about the enslavement of buying compulsorily new seeds from the original seeds's provider, and the litigation costs for not complying, it is to late. They are entrapped and desperate.
- High Time to be on Alert!
So, African decision-makers need to be on alert and vigilant if G8-L'Aquilla's promise to assist African nations feed themselves is really
implemented. They should control the agricultural development policy - from the start - and see to it that lands are not given away for the development of industrial crops, to establishing agribusiness dedicated to the production of biofuels; in detriment to producing foodstuffs - at reasonable selling prices - for the local and regional African markets.
The African decision-makers have to be vigilant about the sourcing of the seeds, and not to opt exclusively for GMO seeds.
In case such precautions as above briefly outlined and extensively developed in Engdahls's book are not adopted, troubles are ahead; because instead of diminishing poverty, the new G8-assist to help African nations feed themselves would turn out to be a nightmare, as poverty would rocket in African rural areas - as occurring right now in India.
About the author: Dr.
Bienvenu-Magloire Quenum is the principal/
managing director of Dr. Quenum & Associates, IBC. He is an experienced Investment & Business
Planner with 25 years consulting practice in African countries. He is the
editor in chief of Africabiz Online
-VIP MEMBERSHIP LIVE RUNNING
We did it. The
new brand paid VIP-Membership/VIP-Lounge is running live - in
addition to the existing free access services: The quarterly delivered
magazine - with its flagship "Opportunities
Section" and the permanent Africabiz
Online Global - which exposes regularly updated newsfeeds and videos
(some times hourly and at least once per day or weekly) about news, events,
reports and strategic studies.
Register to become a
VIP-Member to take advantage of wealth
of information, data, documents, projects and reports - that are streaming
daily into the VIP-Lounge. Become a partner in progress in African countries - "the only
virgin investment territory left over in the whole world to grabbing double
digit growth rates on vested money".
| MORE ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS |
1- World Hunger and the Global Controversy over GM Crops
by Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Ebbe Schiøler (Paperback - Sep 26, 2001)
2- The Impact of Genetically Modified Crops on the Environment
by Jennifer A. Thomson (Paperback - Mar 2007)
3- The Seeds of Conflict in Food Biotechnology
by Thomas Bernauer (Hardcover - Nov 17, 2003)
4- Handbook Of Seed Science And Technology
by Amarjit Basra (Hardcover - May 25, 2006)
5- Seeds Handbook: Processing And Storage
by Babasaheb B. Desai (Hardcover - April 22, 2004)
6- The World of Soy
by Christine M. Du Bois, Chee-Beng Tan, and Sidney Mintz (Hardcover - Aug 4, 2008)
7- Heterosis and Hybrid Seed Production in Agronomic Crops
by Amarjit Basra (Library Binding - Oct 7, 1999) |
8- Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto:
The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest
by Peter Pringle (Paperback - Feb 8, 2005)
9- Genetically Modified Organisms in Agriculture:
Economics and Politics
by Gerald C. Nelson (Hardcover - April 16, 2001)
10- Mutants, Clones, And Killer Corn:
Unlocking The Secrets Of Biotechnology (Discovery!)
by Stathis (Paperback - Nov 14, 2006)
11- The Regulation of Genetically Modified Organisms:
Comparative Approaches
by Luc Bodiguel and Michael Cardwell (Hardcover - Nov 15, 2009)
12- Environmental Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms:
Methodologies for Transgenic Fish
by A.R. Kapuscinski, K.R. Hayes, S Li, and G Dana (Hardcover - Dec 13, 2007) |
"CONTRIBUTOR'S
GUIDELINES" are
available here.
We invite you to contribute to AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE -
with articles related to "How Africa Could Bridge The Developing
Gap".
| Your
feedback / objection / contribution is welcome. Visit WorldWide
BizCenter,
and choose General
Information (as topic) to
create a thread for discussion. On the top of the WorldWide BizCenter page,
there is a HELP link to assist you making an efficient
use of the discussion board. This
link also is useful |
Many
thanks for subscribing to Africabiz. See you here on October 15, 2009.
Dr.
B.M. Quenum
Click for email address
|
| Business
Opportunities MISCELLANEOUS SERIES: - STRAW AS RAW MATERIAL TO PRODUCING ENERGY: PART III: ECONOMICS TO SETUP A SORGHUM PLANTATION
The previous delivery of this series, available here, briefly described the potential of hey/straw as raw material to producing energy/electricity and a table exposes sorghum plantations' yield with regards cultivars/species.
Dating back to year 2001, a delivery briefly exposed the cultivation of Sorghum as an Income Building Power for African rural communities
This delivery deals with the setting up of a plantation of red sorghum to obtaining "operational" quantities of hay/straw/sticks to producing electricity (- issue: isfront116.php - Oct 15, 2009 - Jan 14, 2010); (3) to producing bio-gas (- issue: isfront117.php - Jan 15 - April 14, 2010); and (4) to producing ethanol (issue: is118front.php - April 15 - July 14, 2010).
An investigation report is available at this link, that provides useful information about (1) soil preparation; (2) cultivars; (3) cultivars; (4) fertilizers (5); and (6) an estimate to establishing a 500 acres/202 hectares of plantation.
Click
here to read more about the matter
Control Your Desktop
TIPS AND TRICKS TO SURF ANONYMOUSLY
Previous delivery briefly explained "Why You Need to Surf Anonymously"
This issue exposes tips and tricks that help you do that for pennies.
There are basically two kinds of clients/software that assist surfing anonymously: (1) Clients which do not install; and (2) clients that need install. Both categories are anti-censorship or (anti-jamming) products, that enable users inside countries with heavy Internet censorship to visit any public web sites in the world safely and freely, or permits users in so-called "free democratic countries" to surf unnoticed and invisible.
The first category is composed of .exe files that
sit on your system opening way to anonymous surfing. The most popular, below listed, are available for free download at the website an anti-censorship consortium called: InternetFreedom
For
more on the matter visit this link
|
