GMO Africa

ISAAA reports a surge in biotech crops cultivation

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) has released a report that shows a surge in  cultivation of biotech crops. Contrary to many anti-biotech critics, the surge seems to portend biotech crops striking a nerve with farmers. 

What’s perhaps more interesting is the fact that developing countries continue to perform as well as developed countries in growing biotech crops. This disambiguates a widely held argument that biotech crops are a preserve of developed countries. On this blog, in August 2006, I argued that smallholder farmers benefit from biotech crops as much as large-scale farmers. 

Despite this, sadly, Africa continues to lag behind in the adoption of biotech crops. To the continent, crop genetic engineering remains an enigma. Politics has, unfairly, been infused into this debate.  As the rest of the world angles itself to share the spoils of modern agricultural biotechnology, African countries, with the exception of South Africa, are still haggling on whether or not to admit biotech crops to their farms.

The 2007 ISAAA’s latest report, perhaps, sends an unambiguous message that there’s something striking in modern crop genetic engineering that Africa, and other parts of the developing world, can’t afford to ignore. Africa ought to know that a lot of debate swirling around biotech crops, principally, is meant to mislead and confuse. There are groups ought to hijack landmark scientific innovations, especially in the field of agricultural biotechnology, for their own selfish ends. Let’s all take a lesson from the ISAAA report, whose other highlights include: 

• §  Biotech crops cultivation grew by 12%, which translates to 12.3 hectares.

• §  There are currently about 114.3 million hectares of land under biotech crops.

• §  The number of countries growing biotech crops increased to 23 from 21 in 2006. The new entrants are Chile and Poland.

• §  From 1996, when the first biotech crop was commercialized, to 2007, the accumulated hectarage of these crops stands at 690 million hectares.