South Africa market gardening products flood Mbare musika

Cheap genetically modified organism (GMOs) market gardening products imported from South Africa are flooding Mbare Musika posing unfair competition against the local farmers.

The market place is dominated by tomatoes, apples, onions and potatoes, among other products which are smuggled into the country. Heavy trucks are always seen at Mbare Musika off-loading that good quality looking products which can easily steal the limelight from locally produced brands. They are cheaply priced that local producers are feeling short changed by these illegal goods sold on our markets.

 The bone of contention here is that, these foreign products are GMOs which are fairly bigger and good looking than the locally produced original products. But the national policy on GMOs is quite clear that we do not allow their consumption locally.

GMOs are associated with some health hazards which include being the source of perilous diseases like cancer. Cancer is an ailment sending shivers down the global spine in contemporary times because at the moment it has no known treatment. And the final fate of all its victims is death. In view of this calamity, we are watching GMOs penetrating our nation and the local population is being subjected to such artificial health problems.

It is high time that authorities should step up investigations into the matter to authenticate the real situation on the ground in order to apply suitable measures to curtain this pervading problem. This should be deflated timeously to avert a possible carnage associated with feeding on GMOs.

The frustrating ripple effect of the GMOs splashed on the local market is that, local traditional small scale market gardeners from Mutoko, Uzumba, Domboshava, Chipinge, Chihota, Nyanga, Honde Valley, Chimanimani and other districts are disadvantaged by cheap imports which are sold alongside their original products.

The most ordinary buyer cannot tell which one is GMO and which one is not. The elementary aspect they employ is to buy a product which is cheap and appealing to the eye. They have no capacity to read through incisively to identify GMO tomatoes or potatoes.

The Government should work hyper-actively through the Ministry of Agriculture to rescue the vulnerable citizens who are consuming GMOs unknowingly. If ever one is ready to eat them, they should do so consciously as part of their personal choice.

Sadly, the same GMOs are flooding the local supermarkets, and fast food outlets are also buying the same potatoes from these supermarkets to fry chips which are consumed by a lot of people in towns and cities. This is synonymous with application of holocaust on the unsuspecting innocent citizens.

Zimbabwe cannot be unjustly held to ransom like that, particularly in the post-Land Reform era. Local farmers have the capacity to produce original products for the generality of the populace. Therefore, there is need to protect the interests of the local farmers and local consumers so that we do not allow the plight caused by GMOs to take precedence over the health interests of our citizens. Neither should we allow the foreigners to unjustly enjoy a lion's share on the local market-place.

It is critical that we cannot afford to under-estimate the unprecedented impact of GMOs on human lives. Recently, some nations in the developed world banned the selling and consumption of GMOs after discovering the dangers associated with such products.

The Government policy on GMOs is quite clear that they are not permissible in the country. So it means whoever is facilitating their influx into Zimbabwe is involved into some illegalities. It's high time that we expose and flash-out such bad elements in our society, lest we perish.

If we look at this matter from another angle, it reflects that our borders posts are too porous that criminals can smuggle whole trucks full of illegal goods which they sell locally and go back to South Africa without being detected. This is incredible and poses a teaser to our security arms. The obvious sure case here is that, there are some criminal cartels which are well syndicated, which probably involve some very influential people in our society.

The security details are challenged to step-up security and policing the nation against such ravenous activities which endanger lives of Zimbabweans.