By Wambui Chege

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The prospect of the United States delivering genetically modified food aid has inflamed a debate in starving southern Africa about the gene-altered foods.

At stake are the lives of 13 million people in six countries in the region in desperate need of food. Without urgent assistance, their situation will deteriorate to famine in the next few months, aid agencies have warned.

The United States, which is the biggest contributor of relief food to the world's biggest food agency, the World Food Program (WFP), said last week it could not guarantee its food aid would not be genetically modified (GM).

But accepting the aid will endanger the poor countries' key markets in Europe, which has been shaken by food safety scares such as mad cow disease. The EU has banned new biotech crops from other parts of the world for the past three years.

Debate is raging in the region with food experts and campaigners divided over the issue. Activists in South Africa, which has a food surplus this year, have called for a five-year moratorium on genetic engineering and patenting in food.

"We must be very, very cautious about genetically modified foods. We must not put our markets in jeopardy," said Nico Hawkins, an economist with Grain South Africa, which groups 9,000 producers.

Zimbabwe, worst hit by the current food crisis with some six million people at risk, has said that it will not accept imports of genetically modified whole maize, citing fears that local farmers could use it as planting seed.

That would undermine its grain seed variety development program through cross-pollination.

It says consumption of GM maize by livestock could also jeopardize Zimbabwe's beef exports to Europe.

Namibia has refused genetically modified yellow corn from neighboring South Africa on the same grounds, Grain SA said.

LET THE WORLD DEBATE

But support for bio-engineered foods in the world's poorest continent is growing. Proponents argue biotechnology is a tool that can be used to raise crop yields, create drought-resistant crops and boost nutrition for millions of malnourished people.

Kenyan scientist Florence Wambugu, who pioneered the first genetically modified sweet potato in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s, says farmers growing tissue-cultured bananas in the East Africa were able to triple income and double yields.

A sample study of 500 farmers involved in the project in Kenya now earned $120 per month from $42 previously and yields rose to 45 tons per hectare from 20 tons per hectare.

"We got 10,000 families out of abject poverty. It was good to realize what many anti-GM groups say can't be done. That it won't help small farmers, is only a myth," she told Reuters.

The disease-resistant transgene sweet potato is currently under field-testing in Kenya.

Wambugu has been invited by the South African government to work with small-scale farmers among the black majority.

Africa's priority right now is food security in the face of wars, capricious weather, backward farming practices, pests, diseases and poverty.

Europeans can afford to debate as they are arguing from the comfort of a food surplus, Wambugu said.

"Let the world continue to debate. Hungry people want something to eat. It is okay to reject GM foods but what alternatives are they giving people," she said.

GM WHITE MAIZE IN SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa is by far the most advanced in the region in the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Genetically modified yellow corn is often fed to animals while GM cottonseed is used to produce textiles.

For the first time, genetically modified white maize will be available to South African consumers in 2003.

Bully Botma, chairman of Grain South Africa, said the seeds had been sold for the new planting season starting mid-October.

"They have the blessing of the department of agriculture but we have our concerns as far as identity preservation and what the market is going to do," Botma said.

Anti-GM group South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering (SAFeAGE) wants the government to hold off all GM food imports and exports as well as their cultivation until there has been sufficient public debate.

"Our biggest concern now is that white maize will be introduced in South Africa without any notification and it's a staple crop," said Gill Kerchoff, SAFeAGE coordinator.

The African continent is the biggest market for South African cereals. If the GM white maize is rejected by local consumers, where will they turn to, asked Botma.

"African farmers can't compete with European or American farmers anyway because they get subsidies," he said.

Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited.