Biotech Updates

Kenya to Start Planting Biotech Crops

March 4, 2011

The Kenyan government anounced it will release its biotechnology guidelines in two month's time, which is a step closer towards joining other developing countries that are planting genetically modified (GM) crops. Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki has signed the Biosafety Act in 2009 but the law needed guidelines to facilitate implementation.

According to Roy Miguiira, acting chief of the National Biosafety Authority, they are working with the State Law Office because they need to prescribe packaging that will be acceptable. "We will borrow from Kenya Bureau of Standards because it already has standards of packaging and labeling of biotechnology products," he added. He also said that Africa cannot continue to ignore biotechnology since Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) is at the forefront of biotechnology as it is developing biofortified sorghum.

Read more at http://allafrica.com/stories/201103010225.html.