Topic: 2024-GMOs and Food Security
Country: Afghanistan
Delegate Name: Jack Cook
The republic of Afghanistan is favorable towards the positive economic and agricultural effects created by GMOS. With this being said the potential downsides of GMOS are also an area of concern in the republic of Afghanistan. For multiple decades now, the nation of Afghanistan has ranked consistently low in terms of the global hunger index. This promotes the integration of GMOS to increase crop yields locally as well as increase drought tolerance which is a major issue in Afghanistan. Furthermore, nearly 61% of households in Afghanistan make their income from agriculture. With such a high number of Afghan citizens living off of agriculture and farming the increased crops yields promoted in GMOs could significantly help the Afghan economy which also ranks very low amongst other countries in the world. One study previously conducted on the effects of GMOs showed that crops grown from GM seeds yielded 160.4 bushels of Bt corn per field, while crops grown from non-GM seeds yielded 147.7 per field. Such a profound difference could be extremely beneficial towards the nation of Afghanistan’s economy but also food security.
In the past, the republic of Afghanistan has struggled greatly with food security for its citizens. More than 17 million Afghan citizens experience high levels of acute food insecurity this is approximately 40% of its citizens. Nearly 3.4 million of which experience IPC phase 4 levels of food insecurity. Some initiatives have helped to serve the food security situation in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021 however it is not nearly enough. The Republic of Afghanistan has graciously accepted the help of the World Food Program (WFP) in supporting drought affected areas throughout Afghanistan as well as the assistance of the UNICEF in providing emergency nutrition assistance in Afghanistan. In addition, since the withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan in 2021, The United States has contributed over 11 billion dollars to various assistance programs across Afghanistan. This includes 280 million USD towards the WFP which helped over 18 million people in food assistance. Afghanistan also received 81 million dollars through the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund which also provided crucial support to Afghan citizens. Needless to say, Afghanistan relies pretty heavily on outside support and food security initiatives. Even though the Afghan government is not currently in power the government of Afghanistan still feels strongly about the topic of its citizens in relation to food security and advocates strongly for further assistance and or measures to reduce food insecurity and economic instability in the area of agriculture. Recognizing this standpoint the government of Afghanistan does not support the limiting or banning of GMOs which could show major improvements in many aspects of Afghanistan including food security and local economies.
Recognizing the last two paragraphs the republic of Afghanistan strongly supports and encourages any helpful relief initiatives based on the topic of food/food security and or any friendly treaties or trades in the interest of obtaining new methods for reliable food sourcing for afghan people. Whilst the citizens of Afghanistan continue to struggle with food security the government of Afghanistan would not be open to any relations that clearly violate any Afghan laws or trading regulations. This also includes any potential relations looking to clearly take advantage of the people of Afghanistan and or Afghanistan’s resources.
