SAFEAGE ANNUAL REPORT

SAFEAGE ANNUAL REPORT – 1 MARCH 2006 – 28 FEBRUARY 2007

Summary/Overview

Introduction

The year started off with a move. For the first time since its inception in 2000, SAFeAGE moved into its own premises. This also involved something of a symbiotic severance from our fellow campaigner organisation, Biowatch. We are now freer to express our own unique missions and purposes. We bade farewell to Biowatch’s premises in Observatory and moved into premises in 43 Mountain Rd , Woodstock .

The first four months of the year were financially challenging as we were coming to the end of a small grant of E10,000 received from HIVOS in November of 2005, while also working on submitting a proposal for a larger grant.

We received funding from HIVOS for two out of the three proposed projects applied for, the GM Free Food List campaign and a Labelling campaign. Ultimately the proposal for GM Free Zones submitted by our KwaZulu Natal office was not supported, but this important strategy is something we would like to pursue in future.

The labelling campaign was developed with the able aid of Jeremy Burnham , Melody Emmett (who had designed the concept), John Campbell and Mariam Mayet. Around this time Professor Chris Viljoen of the GM Testing Facility at the University of the Free State completed his research regarding the testing of GM food in South Africa . This formed a vital component of our work and gave a sound foundation to our ‘GM Free Food List’.

Interventions

January 2007:The GMO Amendment Bill

GMO Amendment Bill: The South African GMO Act has been widely criticized as being a permitting system for GMO’s rather than a biosafety regime designed to transparently manage and minimize the risks that they pose.

SAFeAGE members had hoped to see this remedied in the GMO Amendment Bill. In January 2006 SAFeAGE attended a Biowatch intervention at the Amendment Bill hearings. Even though individual parliamentarians were shocked at the problems and challenges with GMOs, the Bill was ultimately passed without any significant changes due to strong lobbying from both industry and regulators within the Department of Agriculture, who see little reason to change the system.

February 2007: Intervention in State Biofuel Strategy

The issue of biofuels (now more appropriately referred to as agrofuels) is a significant issue for Africa . The fuel industry has made a strong case to African governments that this is a clean, green technology that can create jobs and other economic benefits. A meaningful analysis of whether agrofuels are actually able to produce clean energy has been lacking amidst the hype. There has been little consideration on how this industry will impact on food prices, land issues, small-scale farmers and biodiversity. In fact, industry argument has been so strong that genetically modified, mono-cropped agrofuels may potentially be accepted under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). It is under this same treaty that the International Biosafety Protocol (Cartegena Protocol) was created to manage threats and uncertainties arising from genetic engineering of crops. Our concern is that this may further open the door to the mainstreaming and all-out acceptance of GMOs in agriculture.

The South African government has embraced the concept of agrofuels as a strategy for job creation and enhancing the economy. The Department of Mineral Affairs and Energy produced a Biofuels Strategy that included an enormous potential to increase the cultivation of GM crops for agrofuels. This is testament to government’s confidence in GM crops.

We remain concerned that GMO’s continue to be promoted rather than regulated by Government.

August: Consumer protection Bill

During the drafting of the Biodiversity Bill in 2002, designed to fulfil our obligations to manage the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Treaty the Department of Environment included clauses relevant to regulating GMOs. This was watered down at the insistence of the Department of Agriculture.

This happened again this year during the Drafting and public input to the Consumer Protection Bill; the Department of Agriculture insisted that reference to GMO’s be removed from the original text, insisting that GMO’s are dealt with under GMO Act. SAFeAGE members have given input on this dilemma and continues to track the process.

If all reference to GMOs is removed this means that there is no meaningful consumer protection. The GMO Act makes public participation in decision making extremely difficult and complex, while simultaneously ignoring the need for environmental impact assessments. It has no mechanisms for liability and redress. Existing labelling laws are weak and undermine consumer choice. We remain concerned that the Consumer Protection Bill has avoided dealing with this issue under pressure from the Department of Agriculture. The mandate of the Department of Agriculture is to promote GM crops for economic growth, not to ensure consumer protection.

This example validates and underlines the need for our strategy to educate consumers on the risks of GMOs and build and broaden support for SAFeAGE’s labelling campaign. Government has failed to protect consumers. It is our strategy that the focus must shift towards applying pressure on food retailers and service industry to uphold consumer safety and rights. Our message is to emphasise the importance of granting consumer choice and information. . As SAFeAGE has gained the support of over 3.6 million consumers in building this labelling campaign, we can demonstrate to commercial entities that hiding behind South Africa ’s weak legislation will ultimately damage their business and undermine consumer confidence in their products.

ORGANISATIONAL CHANGES

During this reporting year we finalised our registration as a Non-Profit Organisation, under the Department of Welfare, in January 2006. This allows us to solicit tax free financial contributions.

This has changed our organisational emphasis somewhat in that we are now directly formulating SAFeAGE projects rather than being an umbrella for member’s activities. The strengthening of SAFeAGE as an independent entity - less as a networking umbrella - resulted in some changes in our modus operandii. We shifted towards autonomous decision making through our steering committee and away from reliance on a networking basis of decision making.

Other evolutionary factors contributing toward this autonomy was that some of our strongest ‘member organisations’ changed their focus away from GMOs, happy to do so as they felt SAFeAGE was coping with these tasks and they could focus on other issues.

We do still enjoy the support and/or participation of most of these organisations in our campaigns. On the other hand, relationships with organisations like the South African Faith Communities Environmental Institute (SAFCEI) and South African Council for Organic Development and Sustainability (SACODAS), Schools Environmental Education and Development (SEED), Soil For Life, and various others were formed and strengthened.

Our relationship with the African Centre for Biosafety remains strong – without their ongoing advocacy work we could not have had the depth and amount of information we need to alert consumers to the problems arising from permit applications and ongoing biosafety issues.

STAFF
In addition to employing a coordinator, we took on an additional staff member during this period to assist in administration and manage an increasing workload. Firstly we had the pleasure of having An-Li Theron with us but she was unable to give us sufficient time and took up her own full time job. Then in August we employed Maarten Bazuin who took over the post as Assistant to the National Coordinator, who served in this post until the end of June 2007.

Maarten dealt with an application for field trials for GM Grapes and teamed up with AndrewTaynton, Pete Riley from the UK Freeze Alliance and Robert Vint. This resulted in a strong and highly successful opposition to these field trials which were refused but are now being appealed.

We also rely on many dedicated volunteers from within our membership who serve in various roles such as Media liaison officers, campaign core steering group members, etc.

EVENTS AND MEDIA

In April 2006, Charmaine went to RAEIN-AFRICA’s “Public Awareness, Education and participation in Biosafety and the Environment” workshop in Gabarone , Botswana . She gave a presentation entitled “Developing Countries’ Concerns about the use of GMO’s”.During this visit, Charmaine debated Prof Diran Makinde from AfricaBio live on national television. The debate was clinched he stated that GMOs were good for ending ‘demeaning work like weeding’. She responded by pointing out that there was a lot to be said for people who had not lost touch with the land.

In August, Charmaine attended a DEAT workshop in Mpumalanga called Empowering Women for Environmental Action. It was at this workshop that she met Angelica Pino from HBS and began building a relationship with DEAT. Two other valuable contacts made were with Elizabeth (Queen) Thabethe, MP Deputy Minister, DTI and Rejoiie Mabudafhasi, Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Both of these women were given 'Seeds of Deception' and The Future of Food and Hidden Dangers in Kids' meals by Jeffrey Smith. It was through contact with Thabethe at a later date that SAFeAGE enjoyed a direct link to the Chairperson of the Draft Consumer Protection Bill.

Following that workshop at DEAT, SAFeAGE attended the African Center for Biosafety and Consumers International workshop on GMO Labelling held in Johannesburg . The opponents to GMO labelling, including industry PR leader and spin-master Hans Lombard together with a squad of militant students ambushed an event aimed at establishing whether consumers read labels. They were particularly vindictive toward Consumer International’s Dr Michael Hansen. It was later reported in the Star that someone had been hit by a handbag! Ultimately industry managed to turn a low-key activist training session into front-page news highlighting their unwillingness to label GMOs and give consumers choice.

During this time we also showed the movie ‘The Future of Food’ several times at the Labia, stimulating further interest and support for the campaigns.

Later in August, Charmaine went to Zimbabwe to the ZIPAM Symposium, at the invitation of Angela Munzara and Andrew Mushita of Community Technology Development Trust in Harare .

The name of the conference was Awareness Raising Regional Conference on Agriculture Trade Policy and gave SAFeAGE a voice in regional issues and made good regional contacts. Among these were Andrew Mushita from Community Technology Development Trust (hosts), Arthur Nkonde from the Biodiversity Community Network, an activist organisation in Zambia who showed a keen interest in our consumer campaigns, and Solomon Sacco from SAHRIT, a human rights NGO. The subject of Sacco's talk was "Human Right to Food and Agricultural Trade Agreements. Another person who showed interest in the progress of our campaigns was Anne Maina from Pelum in Zambia.

Directly following ZIPAM, Maarten flew up and met Charmaine for the CURES Biofuels workshop in Johannesburg .

This built our capacity on this emerging issue and was an excellent networking opportunity and we were able to inform delegates of our consumer campaigns. They all signed up.

In September SAFeAGE had a presence at the Celebrate Life Festival hosted by Renaissance Magazine where Maarten gave a talk. This event raised SAFeAGE’s profile, educated the public on GMOs and grew our database of supporters.

Later in September SAFeAGE did a presentation on Food Sovereignty at the International Labour Research and Information Group.( ILRIG ) Globalization School , broadening the outreach of our organisation as many representatives attend this event from around the country and Africa .

Other noteworthy events during the year were showing The Future of Food to UCT Medical School faculty, stimulating debate at an academic level. We also attended the Heinrich Boll Stifting School of Biopolitics in October where we said a sad farewell to Stefan Cramer, who generously enabled our Jeffrey Smith tour in 2005. We also attended a GRAIN International workshop in Durban , where we got our name into international activist circles and supported the struggle against the thrust of the multinationals to force GMO’s into Africa through South Africa .

For the end of year break the co-ordinator holidayed in India where she had been invited to Lucknow Montessori School (the biggest Montessori School in the world) to give a talk to Civil Society. The event was the 7^th Annual Global Symposium for Peace, Justice and a sustainable and nuclear free world. The civil society component was a parallel conference to the World Judiciary Summit’s 7^th International Conference of Chief Justices of the World. Charmaine made good networking contacts on GM issues with global counterparts, notably Hon.Judge CG Weeramantry from Indonesia who has done a lot of GM work in his country; Hon Madam Justice Gracia Dixon from Panama who is also against GMOs and expressed an interest in learning about our campaigns. Another lasting contact was made with Mr Hugh Steadman a peace activist from

New Zealand

, founder of Sympol and international peace and sustainability organisation.

After employing an assistant to the co-ordinator there was a marked pickup in campaigning. We were able to reach a number of religious leaders with the kind cooperation of Bishop Geoff Davies of *SAFCEI. Religious leaders represent the largest numbers of organized consumers in the country and their opinion carries considerable weight. A broadly representative cross section of faith-based leaders have signed the Safe Food List and put their weight behind the campaigns. They have done so because of the many ethical issues associated with GMOs that concern them and their constituencies.

Several of the SAFeAGE ‘members’ are consistent contributors to letters columns and are proactive about writing articles on GM related issues for various publications. SAFeAGE serves as an important source of information and awareness raising on current happenings. SAFeAGE also writes and disseminates press releases on new developments. Although SAFeAGE is not always mentioned by name, articles on the problems related to GMOs appeared in a wide array of print media over the year, including The Cape Times, The Mercury (KZN), The Star (Gauteng), Mail and Guardian, Farmers Weekly, Biophile, Christian Science Monitor, IRIN (UN) and the South African Journal of Natural Medicine, amongst others.

We would like to give our thanks to Josie Eastwood - formerly of Winstanley Cullinan - who shared her extensive legal insight into this complex arena and provided valuable contributions towards the legislative aspects of our campaigns.

Also to Fahri Hassan who gave the issues good airtime on radio 786, Cape Town . Anthea Torr and Steve Venter from Biophile for giving us regular slots in their outstanding magazine. Thanks also to Glenn Ashton and Andrew Taynton who regularly scour the news and respond accordingly.

During this year we obtained the official rights to sell the Future of Food and our thanks go to Justin Friedman for bringing this vital piece of educational material to us from the

and arranging that we hold local rights to use and distribute this film.

Lastly our deep and heartfelt thanks goes to our stalwart volunteers who give of themselves and their resources so freely. Without you we would not survive. Glenn Ashton, Andrew Taynton , Mariam Mayet, Leslie Liddell , Jeremy Burnham , Elfrieida Pschorn Strauss, An-Li Theron. Melody Emmett, Mark Wells and Trevor Wells, and many others. You know who you are!

And of course we must give thanks to our funder, HIVOS for their continued confidence in our projects and management. We look forward to our continued relationship.