Zambian government sparks anger by refusing to feed GM grain to the starving

Pastor Steven Grabiner opened the door of his warehouse in Chipapa, half an hour south of Lusaka. Inside, sunlight slanted on 20,000 bags of neatly stacked maize meal. The American shook his head in frustration.

In the villages, people were hungry. Some families had one meal a day; others foraged for wild fruit and roots. "This is nonsensical," the pastor said, shutting the door. "I can feed 40,000 people for a month. But I can't give it out."

The threat of famine looms over southern African and more than a million are at risk in Zambia alone. But the Zambian government has refused to accept US genetically modified (GM) food aid, even at the risk of starving its people.

Two weeks ago President Levy Mwanawasa banned imports of GM maize, citing fears that the food could endanger health and jeopardise food exports to the European Union. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, with at least 500,000 at risk, President Robert Mugabe ordered a similar ban.

Overnight, Zambia's aid operation was paralysed. Food in dozens of warehouses around the country was impounded; supplies from South Africa were stopped at the border. The next day Pastor Grabiner had to face 300 angry people expecting food. "A couple said, 'You're not leaving until we get it'. We're lucky Zambians are a peaceful people."

Alarmed aid officials and Western diplomats have protested, saying fears were unfounded, and warning that the lives of thousands of Zambians were at risk. But the government, buoyed by support from local organisations, stood firm. "It is certainly awkward that people are going hungry when the food is there," Vice-President Enoch Kavindele says. "But we are listening to scientists who say agriculture could be affected and we could be hungry for ever."

Now Zambia's aid effort is in crisis. The fragile "food pipeline" – the supply of emergency aid that would sustain Zambians for six months – has been broken. American maize was to make up half of the UN World Food Programme's planned distribution of 200,000 tons. Since the ban, less than one month's supply remains, mostly non-GM maize bought with a British donation. "After that, we have zero," Richard Ragan, WFP country director, says.

Some Zambians have applauded Mr Mwanawasa's stance. Newspapers have run headlines about "Frankenstein's Fodder", and campaign-ers accuse America of using aid to introduce GM foods to Africa by stealth. President Mwana-wasa has worried aloud about the possible "toxicity" of GM maize. He also fears if GM seeds are planted by Zambian farmers the EU will refuse Zambian imports of cut flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables. "If Europe has rejected the GMs then why should be accept them, just because we are poor?" he says.

Harried aid officials and Western diplomats say many of the perceived risks are exaggerated or non-existent. "There seems to be some confusion," Ambjorn Berglund, the acting EU ambassador to Zambia, says. The EU already accepts five varieties of GM maize, he says, and even if Zambia was growing modified maize, that would not prevent it exporting other agri-products.

And Zambians have already been eating GM. At least 10,000 tons of US maize were distributed and eaten last year. Even now, cornflakes sold in Lusaka come from South Africa, where some of the maize crop is GM. The standoff may be resolved by milling the donated grain into powder, eliminating cross-pollination fears. But the World Food Programme says it has no funds and Washington is refusing to pay.

American officials are refusing calls to donate cash instead of grain, as Britain does, saying the scale of the crisis is such that US maize would have to be bought anyway.

The voices absent from the debate are those of 1.3 million Zambians living under the threat of famine. Food should have been distributed last week in Kabweza, a drought-stricken village surrounded by barren fields of withered maize stalks. Instead, there was nothing.

David Chinkumbi, aged 72, says: "There is very much hunger. Everything is getting thin." His wife had just fed wild papaya fruit to their daughter, who had given birth the day before. Mr Chinkumbi admits he knew little about GM technology, but he says: "If we had the choice, we would eat that food, because otherwise we are going to die anyway."