African Countries Urged to Speed up the Passage of Biosafety Legislations

African countries have been urged to speed up their biosafety legislations to allow the commercial production of biotech foods. Professor S. Alhassan of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) particularly called on Ghana to hasten the passage of its draft biosafety legislation to allow full-scale application of biotechnology in crop of Ghana. South Africa, Egypt, and Burkina Faso are the African countries with intact biosafety legislation and with access to biotechnology tools.

"After 15 years of commercial GM crops, perceived risks such as toxicity, destruction of non target organisms and allergenecity have been proven scientifically. Nevertheless, there is need for precaution as the use of the technology is promoted," he added.

Endorsing the call, Dr Alhassan Yakubu, Member of Parliament for the Mion Constituency and Chair of Parliament's Committee on Agric, said "As a country, we live in a global setting and we cannot afford to be left behind." He points out that "those who have fears are forgetting that already things are going wrong without GM," adding, "every position we take to condemn GM must be taken from scientifically informed positions."

Read the original article at http://allafrica.com/stories/201103290683.html.