1^st All Africa Biotechnology Congress in Nairobi

Over 400 scientists, policy makers, media experts, farmers, researchers, development partners, regulators and entrepreneurs from all over the world met in Nairobi, Kenya on September 22-26, 2008 to discuss the future of biotechnology in Africa. An insight was that despite Africa’s need to apply modern biotechnology to boost agricultural productivity, it has been affected primarily by prolonged delays in enacting requisite biosafety laws and fear of jeopardizing trade with the European Union. The heightened anti-biotechnology activities in Africa have not helped matters too.

In his keynote address , Dr. Clive James, chair of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), stressed that "there is no silver bullet to the food insecurity in Africa and the rest of the developing world, but biotechnology must be looked at as one of the most important tools that will contribute to increased food production and thus, poverty reduction." He suggested combining the best of conventional technology with biotechnology to increase food production.

Kenya’s Agriculture Minister William Ruto  told the Congress of his desire for all African countries to adopt enabling biotechnology policies to “fast-track the integration of Africa into the global bio-economy". In a final communiqué, the congress participants resolved to support responsible application of modern agricultural biotechnology in the fight against hunger, malnutrition, poverty and disease on the continent. The two key core organizers of the Congress - African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF) and African Union (AU) - were mandated to hold another congress within two or three years to review progress in biotechnology development and adoption on the continent.

 For more information, contact Daniel Otunge of ISAAA AfriCenter at d.otunge@cgiar.org.