The Debate On Genetically Modified Crops Continues

Filed in archive Food and Agriculture on November 25, 2005

Recent developments seems to show that there is increasing reluctance globally to embrace genetically modified crops.

In Africa, South Africa is the only country with extensive genetic crops, although Zimbabwe has field trials of maize. According to Florence Wambugu, a Kenyan scientist, much of the resistance and ban on GMO crops is not so much as against the technology itself, but against the foreign companies introducing them. A tailored program such as GM sorghum, for example, will be more publically acceptable. In South Africa a new applications on the import of GM maize is currently put on hold.

"Although no moratorium has been placed on the importation of GM maize into South Africa, new applications to import GM maize will be pending until the outcome of a study into their potential impact on South African trade is released," said agriculture spokesman Steve Galane.

In Switzerland, environmentalists want to impose a moratorium as well.

...there is no evidence to date that transgenic products are a successful way of combating hunger or that there is a demand for them.