Two Misleading Articles on Kenya's Biosafety Bill
BiotechBloggers
Tanzania and Rwanda, in its latest edition, has published two articles
on genetically modified food crops. One claims that the Kenyan
government is conspiring with some multinational biotechnology
companies to force new genetically modified food crops on Kenyans.
The other chastises the secrecy with which the Kenyan parliament is
considering a bill on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). One
environmental lawyer is quoted in that article as saying: "...there has
been so much secrecy that most stakeholders do not even know where
they should go to get a copy of the Bill." This is a ridiculous and
sensational statement. It lacks substance because nowhere on earth,
even in dictatorships, are laws debated in secrecy.
I know with certainty that the Biosafety Bill currently being
considered by the Kenyan parliament isn't shrouded in secrecy. The
media has been freely reporting on the bill. All stakeholders were
involved in its drafting. And those who want a copy of the bill can
obtain it, hassle-free, from either the Attorney General's office or
the Government Printer.
It surprises no one anti-biotech activists would fancy trivializing
the GMOs debate at a time when other countries are falling on each
other to increase acreage of GM crops cultivation. Presenting hard
scientific facts is not their preoccupation, and as Norman Borlaug,
the American scientist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his
efforts to increase food supply in poor countries, once said they're
just saber rattlers who have never produced a tonne of food.
Kenya's quest to enact a biosafety law started about eight years ago.
The process has been all-encompassing, bringing together stakeholders
from all shades of lives. As recently as 2003, the Kenya Agricultural
Research Institute (KARI), which is now being accused of "conspiring"
with multinational biotech companies to ram GM crops down the throats
of Kenyans was holding weekly forums, where scientists, journalists,
policy makers and even farmers would freely brainstorm on the
Biosafety Bill. I, myself, have attended numerous workshops,
conferences, and seminars on this bill.
A more productive debate on GM crops is urgently needed in Kenya and
Africa as a whole. Rhetoric, however high-pitched it is, will never
change the reality that GMOs are a formidable phenomenon that will be
with us for many years to come. Doubters of benefits of genetic
engineering, perhaps, need to visit South Africa where cotton and
maize genetically modified to resist bollworm and stem borer,
respectively, have changed the fortunes of hitherto poor farmers.
And there's ready market for GM crops. I, last week, wrote that
countries that embrace GM crops stand to gain immensely from the fast-
growing biofuel industry. Dr. Florence Wambugu, a pioneering Kenyan
agricultural biotechnologist, is right to warn that the U.S.-sourced
food aid Africans complain contains GMOs will soon be unavailable as
farmers turn to the more profitable biofuel industry. The European
Union (EU), two weeks ago, announced its readiness to outsource
biofuels from developing countries. Unless developing countries like
Kenya fail to put their acts together, by for instance enacting
biosafety laws to fast-track the adoption of high-yielding herbicide
and pesticide-resistant GM crops, the biofuels bonanza will,
definitely, by-pass them.
http://www.gmoafrica.org/2007/07/two-misleading-articles-on-kenyas-biosafety-bill.html