By Bernard Muthaka

A study by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has allayed
fears within the continent that introducing genetic technology in
agriculture may lead to loss of markets.
It indicates that even should such products be rejected, the decline in
exports from the three East African countries would be quite insignificant.

The Comesa study says that there is little justification in the
precautionary stance taken by countries, ostensibly in the conviction that
they are preserving their trade interests and niche markets.

The low level of trading risk is attributed to the fact that most of the
agricultural exports that importers may reject as possible GMOs have not
been commercialized as yet. These include tea, coffee, cocoa, pyrethrum,
sugar tobacco, bananas and a wide range of horticultural products.

GM varieties of these commodities have not been developed and commercialised
anywhere and so far there has been little commercial interest to develop
them. The study analysed the value and volume of agricultural food and feed
exports by African countries to various regions of the world including the
EU.

The findings revealed that the share of total export value that might be
rejected translates to 1.1 per cent for Kenya, 6.5 per cent for Uganda and
6.2 per cent for Tanzania. European countries have been the most vocal in
the campaigns against GM crops, even though some European countries such as
Poland have started growing GM maize. Last year marked the second highest
global increase in area under GM crops in the last five years, with the
total area now being estimated at 114 million hectares.

There are now 12 countries in the developing countries that are planting
biotech crops, compared with 11 in the industrialised countries. Last year's
growth rate in the developing world was three times that of industrialised
nations (21 per cent compared to 6 per cent.)

Out of the global total 12 million beneficiary biotech farmers in 2007, over
90 per cent were small and resource-poor farmers from developing countries.
Of these, most were cotton farmers followed by those growing biotech maize
and soybeans.

According to Kenyan scientist Prof Calestous Juma, biotech crops must play
an even bigger role in the next decade if African countries are to achieve
the Millennium Development Goals of cutting hunger and poverty by half by
2015.

In Kenya, the regulatory frameworks are still in construction stage. The
Biosafety Bill was time-barred in the last parliament, with the house being
dissolved just as the Bill was going through its third and final reading.

The issue of agricultural biotechnology in Kenya has been characterized by
tit-for-tat squabbling between pro and anti GM lobbies, with the real issues
being so convoluted that the average Kenyan can hardly keep score.
www.checkbiotech.org