Test Biosafety Proclamation, Says Ethiopia Agriculture Minister

Ethiopia's State Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development H.E. Abera Deresa advised researchers and technology developers to test the recently enacted Biosafety Proclamation first before calling for its repeal. "Only with concrete evidence of the gaps can the government ascertain its limitations and weaknesses," said the Minister at a stakeholders meeting in the capital city Addis Ababa last February 1 to 4, 2010. The meeting was organized by the Government in partnership with USAID, State Department and Croplife International to discuss the future of modern biotechnology in the country.

The stakeholders who included public researchers from four local Universities, the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) and MOARD affiliate centers, various private and civil society organizations, the cotton sub-sector and the World Food Program were appealing for a review of the Biosafety Proclamation saying it was very restrictive. Contributing to the discussion, a cotton expert Dr. Geremew Terefe said the law was a threat to the cotton industry as technology providers are unwilling to partner with them even for research purposes. With a potential hectarage of 3 million suitable for cotton growing, Geremew told the meeting that the country is only utilizing a paltry 2.5% of this land. Cotton production in Ethiopia is constrained by many factors among them lack of quality planting seed, limitations in input supply, poorly developed human and infrastructural capacity and pest damage of which bollworms are the most important.

Echoing similar concerns, the Director of Crops Research at EIAR Dr. Adrefris said: "While we initially thought enactment of this law would provide the required favorable domestic policy environment for R&D in modern biotechnology, our attempt to access technologies from proven sources has proven impossible as the Biosafety Proclamation is highly prohibitive than facilitative". Prof Magdy Madkour, founder of the Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute (AGERI) shared Egypt's experiences in research, development, commercialization and regulation of agricultural biotechnology where he emphasized the importance of developing local capacity and sustained political support for the technology. The need to embrace public-private partnerships in harnessing the benefits and mitigating against potential risks from agricultural biotechnology applications was stressed by Jacob Mignouna of the AATF based in Kenya.

An official from the Environmental Protection Authority, Mr. Wondwossen Siatayehu who was representing Dr. Tewolde Berhan, author of the Biosafety Proclamation, said EPA welcomed open and constructive discussion surrounding the legislation. As a way forward, the Minister pledged to support an all inclusive task force that would look into the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for implementing the biotechnology strategy and also ensure stakeholder engagement as learnt from the Kenyan experience.

Email Margaret Karembu, Director, ISAAA AfriCenter at m.karembu@cgiar.org for more news about crop biotechnology in East and Central Africa. For more information on the Ethiopian Biotechnology workshop contact Dr. Mandefro Nigussie, Coordinator, Rural Capacity Building Project of MOARD at rcbp@ethionet.et and Getachew Cherinet of Croplife Ethiopia at cherinet-getachew@yahoo.com