By GERALD ANDAE, gandae@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
The controversy over Kenya’s plan to release
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) for field tests deepened yesterday
after the Agriculture ministry turned down a request for a policy
direction.
The ministry said it cannot draft a legal framework for
field trials as requested by the National Environmental Management
Authority (Nema) because it does not have expertise on biotech crops.
Nema had approved GMO field trials but later wrote
to the ministry asking it to craft a policy framework before any such
material is released for field use.
“Nema is better placed than us when it comes to
policy matters in regard to the impact of the crop, if any, on field
trials of the GMO,” Agriculture Secretary Willy Bett told the Business Daily.
The move implies that Nema will have a hard
decision to make because it had already approved field trials of the GMO
crop before subjecting it to the Ministry of Agriculture for policy
direction.
Nema had told the Kenya Livestock and Research
Organisation (Kalro) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation
(AATF), who had applied for the field trials, that they had to wait for
the ministry to give a go-ahead.
The National Bio-safety Authority (NBA), the sector
regulator, said the applicants have already raised concerns over the
delays. “The applicants have told us that they should have started the
field trials this month but they will not because of the policy
direction that Nema is seeking from the Agriculture ministry,” said
Willy Tonui, NBA chief executive officer in an earlier interview.
The researchers will now have to wait until next
year to perform the field trials, if the government will allow them, now
that the short rain season that they were banking on is passing.
If approved, the decision will effectively give the
greenlight for trials to be conducted nationwide by Kenya Plant Health
Inspectorate Service (Kephis) and other government agencies.
The trials are expected to take up to two years.
After trials, seed multiplication and supply will be conducted paving
the way for large scale commercial farming of GMO crops in Kenya for the
first time.
If the trials reveals that the seeds meet
expectations such as pest and drought resistance, then Kephis will go
ahead and approve it for large scale cultivation.
AATF said they were targeting 2018 for commercialisation but this could be delayed by the ongoing impasse.
The ban on importation of GMO products is still in force and it can only be lifted by the Health Cabinet secretary.
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