The honourable chairperson and members of the Portfolio Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on our concerns with GMOs and the GMO amendment Bill.
I am coming from a family of 10 members. I have four children. I used money that I gain from farming to plant different crops such as sweet potatoes, mielies, peanuts and madumbe. I started farming in 1998. By that time I was just plowing some small fields of about 1 hectare and planted mielies and peanuts. I also have a piece of land near the river where I plant sweet potatoes and madumbe.
I sell these products to the community. Farming is part of our tradition and culture. My family help me and sometimes I do temporary jobs in the community.
Every year I save seed to plant the next year like cabbages, onions, carrots etc. I also buy seeds from the shops.
I now have more hectares to plant. From 2003 I started to attend meetings at Makhatini Flats. By that time I leant how to plant cotton then I decided to plant cotton. I made a small sample plot of bt cotton but our sample failed.
Vuvuzela Farmers association is at the Mabaso tribe. It has got 100 members – 25 male and 75 female. I am the chairperson of this organisation. All members plant mielies and peanurts. We also plant vegetables in the off season. Each member has got 1 to 5 hectares. Two of our members continue to plant bt cotton. The rest decided to stop planting bt cotton.
We decided to stop planting bt cotton because:
The sample given to us failed even though the soil was tested and found to be suitable for cotton.
The sample was planted in two demonstration plots. The one plot was planted with manure but produced nothing. The other plot was planted without artificial fertiliser, only a few cotton balls were produced.
The drought in the area also made us decide not to plant bt cotton.
We were trained to grow bt cotton. This training was conducted in Makhatini – far from us and not at our level of understanding.
We could not understand the formation of Bollguard (bt) particularly on our environment and soil.
During training it was indicated that cotton farming has high input costs and therefore farmers needs financial assistance or a loan to plant cotton. We were scared of this because we area aware of farmers in Makhatini who are not farmers anymore because of debt from loans to grow Bt cotton.
What we want Government to do:
The GMO amendment bill must protect small farmers like me against big companies. Big companies want to sell their products – seeds and fertilisers, but farmers take all the risks.
The GMO amendment bill must make certain that our household food security is no jeopardised. We plant vegetables and staple crops for household consumption. These vegetables are planted with natural fertilisers from the soil.
The GMO Bill must protect our indigenous seeds and vegetation.
The Government must provide education to farmers on the impacts of GMOs and not the seed companies who want us to buy their products. The Government must say why they are promoting GMOs and not our own seeds.
GMO companies must give assurances that their will be markets to sell GMO products, that they will not cause health risks and damage our soil and environment. When our farmers go to the cotton company to sell their cotton they are told that the price of cotton is down which results in debt and not being able to pay their input costs. But they are the same people who tell us to plant Bt cotton.