US Embassy in Gambia Conducts Biotech Seminar for Policy Makers

The United States Embassy in Banjul, Gambia, conducted an outreach seminar for policy makers on September 15, 2011 bearing the theme "Using Biotechnology to Fight Hunger and Poverty in Africa." The U.S. Department of State invited Dr. Hortense Dodo, a biotechnology and molecular biology professor at Alabama A&M University in the U.S. Aside from Gambia, the expert will also visit other East African countries to talk with policy makers, farmers, and members of the scientific community about biotechnology applications in agriculture and in attaining food self sufficiency.

Cynthia Gregg of the U.S. Embassy delivered the opening remarks during the seminar and expressed her fervor for the various impacts of biotechnology. Biotech crops, she said, "can play an important role through increasing productivity while decreasing costs of production by a reduced need for inputs and ploughing." She also said that the adoption of biotech crops has significantly reduced insecticide use and has allowed many farmers to adopt farming practices that reduce soil erosion and consumption of energy and water.

Read the complete story at http://allafrica.com/stories/201109191478.html.