A confined field trial of GM banana plants in Kawanda, Uganda. PHOTO | MORGAN MBABAZI | NMG
Stakeholders are urging caution in the Rwanda’s quest to adopt
genetically modified organism technology, with some proposing that other
options for increasing agricultural productivity be exhausted before
reverting to GMO’s.
Like many countries in East Africa,
Rwanda has been apprehensive about introducing GMOs over fears that
their impact on the environment and health of human beings is not well
known.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Social
Affairs, outgoing director-general of the Rwanda Agricultural Board,
Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe, said it was time for Rwanda to adopt GMO’s.
Divergent views
“It
is a time we had a debate about GMOs because we are exposed to them on a
daily basis, since many imported food products are GMO,” he said.
Dr
Bagabe was appearing before the Senate to explain what was holding back
agricultural development in the country. He said debating adoption of
GMO’s would help harmonise divergent views and this would later inform
official policy.
However, agronomists argue that
Rwanda has not exhausted the full potential of yield-enhancing legacy
technologies such as increased use of fertilisers and better land and
crop management.
“Rather than introduce GMO technology,
we should exploit existing approaches in biotechnology to increase
output. GMOs call for more skills and expertise that we don’t currently
have and could end up costing us heavily,” said agronomist Bernard
Gatebuka.
“There are also fears around safe use of GMOs
and these fears will have to be addressed before GMOs become acceptable
to the public,” he added.
Concerns
The
senators raised concern over the country’s agricultural research and
development plans, which were not being fully implemented due to
financial constraints, a centralised budget and poor co-ordination
between research centres.
“The pace of research is
wanting especially if you measure it against set goals, targets and
government investment,” said senator Perrine Mukankusi.
The
senator said lack of informed policies is one of the reasons programmes
like land consolidation and crop intensification are still facing
resistance from the public.
“There is a lot of
resistance by the public on a number of programmes including land
consolidation, crop intensification, which should have been informed by
research,” she added.
Land consolidation policy
In
2012, the government adopted a land consolidation policy to help
promote more efficient use of land and application of agricultural
interventions for increased productivity.
The
legislators also questioned the effectiveness of some research stations
whose output has remained low and called on the agricultural ministry to
work on proper co-ordination between the research centres.
“Based
on our observations, many research centres are dormant and working at a
snail’s pace. We need to see changes,” said committee chairperson
Gallican Niyongana.
Dr Bagabe, cited lack of of skilled workers and low investment as impediments to more research.
He
said the budget allocation for research needs to be increased from the
current Rwf5 billion ($5.9 million) to Rwf30 billion ($35.4 million).
Related content
No comments :
Post a Comment