How are you suppose to help our world-wide famine issue if your policy around the GMO seeds cause the price in seeds to rise beyond the affordability of a third-world farmer??

Expert response from Gilbert Arap Bor

Farmer, Kenya

Friday, 07/11/2014 12:32

 “As we begin a new year, we often express our hope for the future. In Kenya, there is hope that 2014 will bring a lifting of the ban on GM imports and mark the first time Kenyan farmers will have access to important tools of agricultural technology that have been withheld from them.

“One of the world’s great scientific hoaxes has been ratted out.

“That’s the good news. The bad news is that his false claims already have done enormous damage to the cause of food security—and it will take a big effort to undo the harm here in Kenya and elsewhere.

“The story began more than a year ago, when the academic journal Food and Chemical Toxicology published a shocking  study by French researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini. It asserted that genetically modified crops—routinely grown by farmers and eaten by consumers—caused tumors in rats.

“…The future of food security in Africa and everywhere depends on good science. We have to grow more food on less land, at a time when climate change and disease threaten staple crops. In Kenya’s Rift Valley, grain farmers are watching a deadly virus cut yields by more than 70 percent. I, for one, harvested a mere 20 bags (about 2 tons) from one hectare of maize that normally yields 80 bags (7.5 tons)! Kenya now faces the stark reality of a shortage of over 10 million bags of maize, according to Minister of Agriculture CS Koskey. This significant loss of harvest due to disease could be minimized by the quick adoption of biotech seeds. Without access to GM maize seeds and the immediate lifting of the import ban on GM food, it is difficult to see how Kenya will avert a looming food crisis.

“We need more scientists like Norman Borlaug, whose centennial year is now upon us: men and women committed to safe advances in agricultural technology and food security, as opposed to charlatans who somehow manage to give even rats a bad name.”

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