Rwanda has expressed concern that it could face an influx of genetically modified crops from Kenya and Uganda, which are in the process of legalising genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
According to allafrica.com, Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources Geraldine Mukeshimana has warned that GM crop imports, particularly maize and bananas, will flood Rwanda as it has no regulatory mechanisms to check such imports.
“We need to fast track our biosafety standards to enable us deal with GMOs once they are in the country. They [EAC members] are ahead in setting biosafety standards, while we are still defining ours,” said Dr. Mukeshimana.
She was speaking during the seventh Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) which took place between 13th -16th June 2016, in Kigali, Rwanda.
Rwanda is one of the African countries that has no biosafety law or agri-biotech related research. Her neighbors however have made great progress in this area. Kenya has a biosafety law and is doing a lot of research on GM crops. As of December 2015, the country’s biosafety authority had received two applications for open field cultivation of GM maize and cotton.
Uganda is working to pass its National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill into law and remains one of the leading African countries on GM crops research. Tanzania, on the other hand, recently revised its biosafety law to allow for research on GM crops.
In a separate interview by Rwanda New Times, Dr, Mukeshimana said that there is free movement of seed that was harmonized in the entire COMESA region, meaning that if a seed is released in one country, it can be released in others.
This is partly why she feels her country should prepare itself for regulation of GM crops. “The question is not if we are going to adopt it or not, my issue is can we get ready as fast as we can to deal it with. Can we build the capacity to understand it and deal with it rather than being scared of it.”
Photo credit: Rwanda New Times