Global food politics is riddled with paradoxes. While threats to global food security are becoming increasingly evident, efforts to stall the adoption of new technologies appear to intensify.
There is a clear disconnect between comfort with familiar agricultural practices and the food challenges that lie ahead. Though food is recognized as a national security issue, it has yet to acquire the strategic importance it deserves, especially in African countries. The lack of strategic thinking underlies many of the poor decisions that many African countries make regarding agricultural biotechnology.
The world food outlook for 2013 has been the subject of grim forecasts based on evidence of drought in the United States and other regions of the world. But amid these concerns countries such as Kenya have taken the unusual decision to ban the importation of genetically modified (GM) food pending further information on their safety.
View the original article here: Commentary – Biotechnology and Africa’s strategic interests
