Hmm! Only one solitary comment and it hardly makes sense! Ghanaians! If it were something abt Woyome or the elections, this trend would have been flooded with all kinds of junk from the members of the Brotherhood. I am not sa ... read full comment
Hmm! Only one solitary comment and it hardly makes sense! Ghanaians! If it were something abt Woyome or the elections, this trend would have been flooded with all kinds of junk from the members of the Brotherhood. I am not saying they might still not do so.
Anyway, I've to say this well written article is not only alarming, as it sheds another light on the GE debate, esp. the reported Burkinabe success, but it must serve as a wake up call to the authorities and civil society. Just a while ago, I watched on CNN that Kenyan Prof of Harvard, Calestuous, oozing lyrically about the GE cotton success in Burkina. Despite what I already knew about the hazards of GE crops, I was almost sold on the idea of adopting same elsewhere. Now this! So let's stop and reflect!
Andy-K
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro. 10 years ago
Hi C.Y. Andy-K,
Good day, Sir!
You are very right! It is probably due to the fact that the article does not even appear in the board of OPINION published today. You only see it on the yellow tabs when you click on the N ... read full comment
Hi C.Y. Andy-K,
Good day, Sir!
You are very right! It is probably due to the fact that the article does not even appear in the board of OPINION published today. You only see it on the yellow tabs when you click on the News column. This is a shame!
Meanwhile, this is a serious matter of national security and the safety of all Ghanaians. There is a concerted effort to impose it on Ghanaians, and yet few people are raising their voices against it.
If this article had been about homosexuality, football, or some ethnocentric diatribe, this thread would have been flooded with several comments. Salman Rushdie writes in "The Satanic Verses", that "Every oppressed people deserve their oppression".
It is a duty to resist all forms of oppression. Failure to do so qualifies one to deserve it. I am going to publish the following article to help open our eyes:
GE Food Is A Weapon Of Mass Destruction!
Feature Article, by Nana Akyea Mensah
Food is a weapon. - Earl Butz, 1974, the United States Secretary of Agriculture
To borrow from Napoleon, quoted as saying, "An army marches on its stomach," it should be easier to understand that a nation also "marches" on its stomach. If the British had had absolute control over our food, we could probably still be a British colony even today. It would have certainly been a formidable task, even under the great leadership of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Just as "procuring enough food to support an army in the field is a paramount concern for all commanders. Although weapons, clothing, and shelter are of the greatest immediate importance to soldiers, logistical support to provide food and material is often the decisive element in winning wars", so in the same way our survival as a sovereign nation depend upon our own abilities to feed ourselves.
The focus of this segment is to take a look at the implications of seed patents, disappearance of natural seeds, and the monopoly of food by giant multinational corporations. Fortunately, if we are to learn from our own history, we would not require a genius to point out the extreme dangers associated with having foreign multinational corporations in control of whether we live or we die. Our history over the period of the past 500 years has been a history about foreign domination. A people with a history of slavery and colonialism must not find it too hard to understand the new forms of bondage that are being surreptitiously introduced into our lives, without any discussion or consent from us.
The new chains creeping in are being designed and reinforced with materials difficult to break, and much more effective than the metal shackles, plus all the military accoutrements associated with slavery, gin, gun powder, cannon balls and all! This is what the topic of food as a weapon is about. It is about the use of food to control a targeted population, or country. The drive to replace natural food with genetically modified foods is gathering steam, and we need to know and understand that we should take our history of slavery and colonialism seriously because the use of food as a weapon surpasses all chains.
It is a widely known fact that hungry people will do anything in order to get food. Whoever is able to control the access to the food of the people, controls the people. Anthony Gucciardi puts it nicely in How food is being used as a weapon, when he writes: “When people begin to starve instinctive primal triggers lead to a desire to do absolutely anything for food. Those with food, whether it is the government or a nearby family, will have complete power over others. Food could essentially be used as a weapon, thousands of times more powerful than money or most any other resource. But even in current times, food is used as a weapon by those in power through the use of government regulations and chemical additives that destroy both your health and your bank account. Artificial inflation and speculation, toxic substances hidden in the food, and government regulations are but a few examples. But where did the idea of using food as a supremely powerful weapon begin?” [1]
Of course, throughout history, examples are replete with the use of food as a weapon of war. "Sieges of fortified positions have been used since time immemorial to starve, demoralize, and physically weaken the ensconced combatants. Pictorial representations in Egypt depict sieges over 4,000 years ago, while the Iliad of Homer describes the siege of Troy by the Greeks over 3,000 years ago. It, like many of the numerous sieges that followed, ended not through force of arms, but through deception and treachery." [2]
The current sanctions against Iran could have been far more devastating and effective if Monsanto had a monopoly over the seeds in that country.
In surrendering our natural and fundamental rights to seeds to multinational corporations, we surrender our very sovereignty to them. The real challenge facing our generation today is whether we would be born as free and die as slaves. The power of the patent on life has put a veritable instrument in the hands of those who wish to dominate and control access to food, unprecedented in history. Anthony Gucciardi answers his own question in the article quoted above, he explains that, in 1974, the idea of using food as a weapon was introduced in a 200-page report (wlym.com/text/NSSM200.htm) by US politician and former Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger. The report, entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, stated that food aid would be withheld from developing countries in need until they submitted to birth control policies that would effectively sterilize large numbers of the population to curb growth.” [3]
In this document, Dr. Kissinger writes:
"There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion." [4]
The transition from the use of “food aid” as a tool in international diplomacy to “food monopoly” as a weapon of control has only been made possible through the patents on life-forms. Where powerful nations with a history and appetite for domination, who "oppose the right to water and sanitation as a fundamental human right," begin all of a sudden, a campaign to assure our "food security and nutrition", while millions of their own citizens, particularly, African-Americans, who are worst hit by the on-going economic downturn, go hungry on a daily basis, we need to take that with a pinch of salt, if not smell a rat!
Long live Ghana!
REFERENCES:
[1] "How food is being used as a weapon", by Anthony Gucciardi, Wednesday, August 17, 2011 www.naturalnews.com/033343_food_weapons.html#ixzz2MNkYO9hF
[2] Food as a Weapon of War Study Guide & Homework Help - eNotes.com www.enotes.com/food-weapon-war-reference/food-weapon-war
[3] "How food is being used as a weapon", by Anthony Gucciardi, Wednesday, August 17, 2011 www.naturalnews.com
[4] "How food is being used as a weapon", by Anthony Gucciardi, Wednesday, August 17, 2011 /www.naturalnews.com
Kwesi Mensah 10 years ago
Ghana's rotten ruling class will do anything for money! Parliament under K4 received bribes from Vodafone to give away entire telecom infrastructure for peanuts. We saw how both the NPP and NDC governments and our judiciary c ... read full comment
Ghana's rotten ruling class will do anything for money! Parliament under K4 received bribes from Vodafone to give away entire telecom infrastructure for peanuts. We saw how both the NPP and NDC governments and our judiciary connived, colluded, and collaborated with foreign entities in the now well-known, infamous "judgement debt" payments. What else wouldn't they do? Anything for personal profit, damn if the nation burns!
Europe has been forcefully standing up to the notorious purveyor of GMO poisons, Monsanto, so much so that Monsanto has announced it won't try marketing there anymore. Why, oh why, will African elites accept what Europe has rejected???
Not only are GMO crops hazardous in themselves but they can also contaminate non-GMO crops airborne proximity. It is entirely possible that some of the cotton farms along Ghana's border with Burkina have been contaminated already. As a matter of national security Ghana should be stockpiling samples of all of its food and cash crop seeds - for any eventuality, particularly against contamination and extinction. But, as I have no hope that our corrupt, ignorant and incompetent ruling class will take this course of action, I appeal to conscientious Agriculture students and lecturers at our universities to start this security stockpiling project even with most rudimentary methods and facilities at their disposal. If I may add, the purveyors of GMO poisons have been stockpiling original seeds! Shouldn't we too?
fuck npp 10 years ago
Why would Ghanaians want to go down this terribly GMO path?
Why would Ghanaians want to go down this terribly GMO path?
Whatever 10 years ago
Parliament has failed this nation. how can you approve a bill which goes to the heart of the gene pool of the nation with the effect of changing it. We are what we eat. And if parliament doesn't know this then I'm sorry for t ... read full comment
Parliament has failed this nation. how can you approve a bill which goes to the heart of the gene pool of the nation with the effect of changing it. We are what we eat. And if parliament doesn't know this then I'm sorry for this country. You eat these things and you begin to accept gay and lesbianism as normal. They don't even know the real intention behind this GMO campaign in Ghana
kusi 10 years ago
hey get away with your lies
hey get away with your lies
Sankofa 10 years ago
This is sheer madness!!
Stop the trials at once!
We do not need GM in our country.
Why do we want to adopt a technology whose safety is not proven?
New Zealand has banned the use of GM.
If those countries which ... read full comment
This is sheer madness!!
Stop the trials at once!
We do not need GM in our country.
Why do we want to adopt a technology whose safety is not proven?
New Zealand has banned the use of GM.
If those countries which invented GM are not prepared to use the technology on their own people, why should we be guinea pigs for trialling GM.
We have enough problems as it is without importing more from outside.
Stop this trial at once!!
OSAHENE MARTIN 10 years ago
The question here is now that they have invested in trials in ghana here of which I know of one trial fields and paying huge amount to care takers, can it be abandoned? Hmmmm.
The question here is now that they have invested in trials in ghana here of which I know of one trial fields and paying huge amount to care takers, can it be abandoned? Hmmmm.
Why there- OMG
Hmm! Only one solitary comment and it hardly makes sense! Ghanaians! If it were something abt Woyome or the elections, this trend would have been flooded with all kinds of junk from the members of the Brotherhood. I am not sa ...
read full comment
Hi C.Y. Andy-K,
Good day, Sir!
You are very right! It is probably due to the fact that the article does not even appear in the board of OPINION published today. You only see it on the yellow tabs when you click on the N ...
read full comment
Ghana's rotten ruling class will do anything for money! Parliament under K4 received bribes from Vodafone to give away entire telecom infrastructure for peanuts. We saw how both the NPP and NDC governments and our judiciary c ...
read full comment
Why would Ghanaians want to go down this terribly GMO path?
Parliament has failed this nation. how can you approve a bill which goes to the heart of the gene pool of the nation with the effect of changing it. We are what we eat. And if parliament doesn't know this then I'm sorry for t ...
read full comment
hey get away with your lies
This is sheer madness!!
Stop the trials at once!
We do not need GM in our country.
Why do we want to adopt a technology whose safety is not proven?
New Zealand has banned the use of GM.
If those countries which ...
read full comment
The question here is now that they have invested in trials in ghana here of which I know of one trial fields and paying huge amount to care takers, can it be abandoned? Hmmmm.