Don't turn Kenyans into guinea pigs

GMO surveys being bandied around by some biotechnology institutions remind me of the 2010 Constitution referendum. Quite a number of Kenyans voted for the Constitution without a clue of what it contained.

Use of opinion survey not only demonstrates a bankruptcy of ideas by GMO proponents, but also shows lack of scientific depth by turning a provable technological debate to a populist affair to hoodwink Kenyans.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to go on a roadshow displaying rats that they have been feeding with GMO food for the last five years? And how on earth should an opinion survey take three years to conclude? Isn’t such a survey prone to manipulation and easily overtaken by new scientific developments?

The noted conflict of interest and web of commercial link by NGOs and biotechnology institutions have raised more questions than answers.

The arguments that Kenyan institutions and universities have invested heavily on GMOs without conducting local research is like putting the cart before the horse.

Fifty million Kenyans cannot be turned into guinea pigs through populist surveys.