This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PRETORIA 002374 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EB/TPP/ABT, AF/S AND AF/EPS 
STATE FOR OES/STC, OES/ETC/H.LEE 
USDA FOR FAS/BIG/JPPASSINO 
USDA FOR FAS/OA/BIOTECH, FAS/ITP AND APHIS/BRS 
STATE PASS USAID FOR EGAT/EGAD/AFS 
STATE PASS USTR FOR PCOLEMAN 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ETRD SENV TBIO SF
SUBJECT: SOUTH AFRICA, BIOSAFETY UPDATE AND STATE SENIOR 
BIOTECH ADVISOR VISIT 
 
REFS: A) PRETORIA 1256; B) 04 PRETORIA 5345 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary.  During a June 8-15 visit to South Africa, 
State Department Special Advisor for Biotechnology Madelyn 
Spirnak met with government officials, researchers, private 
sector representatives and officials from the New Economic 
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to discuss 
agricultural biotechnology and biosafety issues.  Ms. 
Spirnak also participated in a workshop on Biotechnology and 
Food Aid, where participants from African governments 
highlighted needs for assistance in capacity building. 
South African government officials voiced an interest in 
becoming more assertive within Africa on biosafety issues; 
Agriculture Department officials noted capacity challenges 
in implementing GMO regulations; and researchers at the 
parastatal Agricultural Research Council reported on 
developments in commercializing local GMO research.  NEPAD 
representatives described a new biotech advisory panel and 
other biotech initiatives.  Private sector representatives 
noted how the proportion of transgenic crops in South Africa 
is steadily increasing. End summary. 
 
Science & Technology, Environment and Health Departments 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) During a June 8 discussion with visiting State 
Department Senior Advisor for Agricultural Biotechnology 
Madelyn Spirnak, South African government (SAG) policymakers 
from several government departments provided feedback on 
recent COP/MOP meetings of the Cartagena Protocol on 
Biosafety held in Montreal.  They noted that South Africa's 
position was out of sync with much of the rest of the 
"Africa group" and that in meetings of the Africa group, 
South Africa was the only country to provide any push-back 
to the dominating influence of the Chairperson, Ethiopia's 
Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher.  They noted that while 
African country representatives espoused different 
viewpoints in bilateral conversations, none but the South 
Africans would take Dr. Tewolde on in group settings.  And 
when a few African delegates strayed from Tewolde's script 
for Africa in individual statements made during the 
meetings, he disciplined them. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Department of Science & Technology's Director for 
Biotechnology, Ben Durham, offered his personal view that 
South Africa needs to be even more assertive, given the 
country's position on and support for biotechnology.  Newly- 
appointed Director for Biosafety of the Department of 
Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), Wadzi Mandivenyi, 
reported that the South African delegation leader, DEAT 
Deputy Director General Fundisile Mketeni, told her that he 
wants the South African government to strategize better and 
identify ways to counter the influence of Dr. Tewolde. 
(Note: Mandivenyi a Zimbabwe-born scientist who worked with 
biotechnology stakeholder organization AfricaBio prior to 
assuming the new position at DEAT, is a welcome choice; as 
Ref A noted, some government sources were concerned that 
DEAT would select a Biosafety Director with anti-GMO 
leanings.  End note.) 
 
¶4. (SBU) According to the SAG officials, during the COP-MOP, 
South Africa offered to support and host a regional 
technical working group on liability and redress issues. 
South Africa also hopes to engage more proactively with 
individual countries in the region and in regional contexts 
such as NEPAD's southern region working group, to discuss 
biotechnology and biosafety issues in a more constructive 
and practical way, and thereby gain some allies for the SAG 
perspective. 
 
Workshop on Biotechnology and Food Aid 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (U) Spirnak attended the final sessions of the 
USAID/State Department sponsored workshop for African 
Policymakers on Biotechnology and Food Aid on June 10. 
During the closing discussion among participants, the 
facilitator requested that each country select a 
spokesperson who could provide input for the workshop report 
on biotechnology areas in which his/her country had 
particular needs.  Almost without exception, participants 
called for assistance in developing a policy framework, 
capacity building for developing the framework as well as in 
biotech research, and public outreach/awareness.  Spirnak 
gave brief closing remarks in which she summarized the 
apparent consensus on needs of African countries but 
stressed the importance of having in place a system which 
would allow food aid to be received from the United States 
should it be needed and desired. 
 
Visit to Agricultural Research Council 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (U) On June 13, Spirnak visited Dr. Kobie de Ronde and 
her staff at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and was 
briefed on the status of their USAID-funded transgenic 
potato project in cooperation with Michigan State 
University.  The project is in the third year of contained 
field trials with a projected commercialization time-frame 
of 2007.   The potato contains a Syngenta-developed gene in 
a South African cultivar engineered to resist the tuber 
moth, which is particularly important for subsistence 
farmers storing their potatoes after harvest. Dr. de Ronde 
explained that before petitioning for commercialization, a 
"socio-economic impact" questionnaire would be completed in 
order to gain the views of farmers and their communities 
about the use of the genetically-engineered potato.  The 
contained trials are taking place in six regions, 
representing different ecological areas of South Africa. 
Five of the six planting trials are completed.  Storage 
trials so far show 100 percent control of the moth and no 
damage to non-transgenic lines. 
 
¶7. (U) ARC is also working on a drought-resistant soybean, 
which is locally-produced with a gene licensed from Belgium. 
The earliest that the soybean could be commercialized would 
be 2008.  The group is also working on: a virus-resistant 
ornamental plant, which has shown some success; a virus 
resistant sweet potato that has not been successful due to 
weevil problems; and virus resistant tomatoes.  ARC is a 
UNESCO biotechnology training center for Africa.  It also is 
working on gene mining projects on cow peas, sorghum and 
potatoes to develop locally genes that will help resource- 
poor farmers. 
 
¶8. (SBU) During Spirnak's June 8 meeting with Department of 
Science & Technology's Ben Durham, he advised that he (and 
presumably his Department) would be pushing for insertion of 
terminator genes in South Africa-engineered traits.  He 
asserted that South Africa's economy should benefit 
economically from the fruits of its research.  Spirnak asked 
Dr. de Ronde (without reference to Durham) if there was any 
thought of insertion of terminator genes into ARC's 
transgenic plants.  She said that the idea had come up in 
recent interagency meetings but she did not think that it 
would come to anything. 
 
Agriculture Department's GMO Officials 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Spirnak and AgCouns Reynolds visited Julian Jaftha, 
Senior Manager, Genetic Resources, and Michelle Vosges, GMO 
Registrar on June 13 and had a good discussion.  They had 
not been in Montreal but were following the COP-MOP  II 
issues.  Julian said the South African delegation's final 
report has not been completed, but he understands that the 
technical working group on liability and redress did not 
make much progress and that "may contain" will be with us 
for some time to come.  Michelle confirmed that she has only 
3 staff to support her work which includes administering the 
GMO Act, the Plant Breeders Right Act, and setting up and 
maintaining a joint website, a clearing house for 
information.  On the positive side, her superiors have 
approved 5 additional positions and have funded two of those 
positions which she plans to advertise soon.  (Note: we 
informed both Pioneer and Monsanto the following day about 
the two new positions and they immediately saw the benefits 
from encouraging qualified applicants to apply.  End Note) 
 
¶10. (SBU) Jaftha noted that the Amended GMO Act, to comply 
with the Cartegena Protocol, has been approved by the 
Cabinet and is now with the State Law Advisors prior to 
making its way to Parliament for final passage.  He said his 
biggest challenges are interdepartmental coordination and 
the need for increased capacity of decision makers, 
particularly on the advisory committee which is appointed by 
the Minister of Agriculture.  He noted that there is little 
that the USG can do about these problems in a direct way, 
because there is now a high level of engagement from anti- 
GMO lobbyists and any hint of U.S. involvement fuels the 
outcry against the initiative. 
 
¶11. (SBU) In response to a question about the status of 
applications for deregulation of stacked events, Jaftha said 
the Executive Council would be discussing this matter next 
week.  He asked what additional information is required by 
U.S. regulators when reviewing an application for stacked 
events when each of the events has already been approved 
separately.  Spirnak and Reynolds have received a brief 
summary of what is required from Washington agencies and 
have already forwarded this to the GMO Registrar's office. 
Comment: We believe that the GMO Registrar's office does not 
have a problem with the stacked event applications but that 
they need further information to share with the Department 
of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) which has 
reportedly held back its concurrence seeking further 
information.  End comment. 
 
NEPAD S&T Advisor and Biosciences Coordinator 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) Spirnak and AgCouns met with Dr. John Mugabe, 
NEPAD's Science & Technology advisor, and Prof. Aggrey 
Ambali, his biotech coordinator, during which Mugabe 
discussed NEPAD's three major biotech initiatives.  First, 
Mugabe reported that he was about to issue a press release 
announcing the fifteen members of a NEPAD-African Union 
biotech advisory panel.  In response to Spirnak's request 
for the identities of the panel, he mentioned in particular, 
Egypt's Ismael Serag Eldin, Ethiopia's Tewolde Berhan Gebre 
Egziabher, Calestous Juma of Harvard, along with 
representatives from other African countries.  Mugabe noted 
that panel members were chosen to represent a diverse 
scientific community, some of whom had no biotech 
experience.  Their focus would be managing transboundary 
risks of LMO's, while maximizing benefits.  Questioned about 
the inclusion of Tewolde and the possibility of his 
overpowering those with no biotech experience, Mugabe said 
that he doubted that Tewolde would be able to assert his 
will because of the high caliber of others on the panel. 
Mugabe said the panel would be assisted by an expert group 
which would provide reports to them on key issues.  The 
panel is expected to have an eighteen-month life.  It will 
begin with a meeting in August 2005 in South Africa and is 
to report its findings at the July 2006 AU Summit in Addis 
Ababa.  In advance of that Summit, African agriculture, 
trade, and environment ministers would be invited to an 
inter-ministerial meeting in May to hear preliminary 
findings of the panel.  He expected that panel meetings in 
advance of the Summit would take place primarily in South 
Africa.  Asked if the panel would endorse the AU Model 
Biosafety law, Mugabe responded that there would be no model 
law for Africa.  It was up to each country to make its own 
legislative decisions, but the advisory panel would try to 
provide un-biased, scientific information to help countries' 
policy-making. 
 
¶13. (SBU) The second NEPAD biotech initiative involves 
networking of four African biosciences Hubs, taking 
advantage of existing regional biotech leaders:  Senegal, 
Egypt, South Africa and Kenya.  Steering committees for 
these hubs also would focus on biosafety/transboundary 
issues.  The third initiative involves building public 
awareness and it will be launched with the assistance of the 
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which 
already has conducted seminars in South Africa and Zimbabwe. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Spirnak informed Mugabe that she was headed to the 
West African Biotechnology Ministerial in Bamako and asked 
if he or his representative would attend.  Mugabe responded 
that he had made a "conscious decision" not to attend based 
on last year's Ministerial in Burkina Faso.  He explained 
that he felt that it was improper for Ministers to be asked 
to approve papers that had been written by USAID 
contractors.  He noted that several ministers were quite 
exercised about this, including the Nigerians "who are still 
talking about it." 
 
Meetings with private sector biotech/seed companies 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶15. (SBU) Spirnak and Ag Counselor met on June 14 with 
leading American seed and grain trading companies present in 
the Johannesburg area.  Monsanto explained that more than 90 
percent of the cotton harvested in South Africa is 
transgenic, about 50 percent of the soybeans are transgenic, 
and about 20 percent of the corn is transgenic.  Although 
new approvals are slow in coming, biotech seed sales in 
South Africa have been good, and these percentages are 
expected to continue to rise over time.  Monsanto reported 
that they applied for a stacked event in late 2001 (Bollgard 
with round-up ready cotton) and that they believe all of the 
members of the GMO Executive Council except DEAT have 
approved it for commercial use.  Monsanto also applied for a 
stacked event in corn (810 with NK603) about six months ago, 
and no decision has been made by the GMO Executive Council. 
 
¶16. (SBU) Cargill's Managing Director for South Africa 
explained that their primary goal is to meet the demands of 
all customers with the appropriate products.  They are busy 
sourcing many non-GMO truckloads of corn for Zimbabwe.  This 
is not difficult because many cooperatives in northern South 
Africa are oriented to exports to Zimbabwe and only carry 
non-GMO maize in their silos.  However, he noted that it has 
become very difficult to guarantee non-GMO corn from South 
Africa in the case of large ocean vessels.  The risk of 
rejection at discharge is getting higher each year.  In his 
opinion, once the transgenic content in South African corn 
reaches thirty to forty percent, perhaps as early as next 
season, then the quote Game is Over unquote.   There will no 
longer be a capability to segregate and certify that large 
shipments of South African corn have no transgenic content. 
 
¶17. (U) Spirnak also met with journalists from South African 
Broadcasting Corporation, Farmers' Weekly and vernacular 
Landbou (Post will forward any articles resulting from the 
meeting) and with a leading food safety and nutrition 
researcher, Dr. Lisa Korsten at the University of Pretoria. 
 
¶18.  Ms. Spirnak has approved this cable. 
 
FRAZER