By Kenya Biodiversity Coalition
NAIROBI, KENYA: We, the members of the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBiOC), representing over 60 member CSOs who work with over a million small scale farmers, wish to express our deep appreciation for your incisive and critically important article, Blind Faith in Science and Technology has eventually become our bane that was published in The Sunday Standard of May 11, 2013.
KBiOC appreciates the initiative The Standard On Sunday took in cautioning Kenyans that although humanity can attribute tremendous progress to science and technology, if adopted blindly and without adherence to nature’s laws, the latter could become a double-edged sword with the potential of creating worse and more complicated problems than what they were meant to solve in the first place.
Without overly paraphrasing the story’s wise counsel, we note with absolute gratitude, its concern over the unquestioning acceptance of Genetic Engineering that has bequeathed to the world unnatural organisms, the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). We share this concern and have indeed gone out of our way to make Kenyans appreciate the hidden and unspoken perils inherent in GMOs.
And unlike claims made by giant biotech companies and the increasingly vocal and well-heeled GMO lobby, KBiOC is not against the introduction of technology in agriculture nor are we against improvements that can positively influence the lives and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers.
What we are against is the big push to have Africa accept GMOs without giving her a chance to appreciate the inherent, long-term and strategic consequences they pose to human health, environment, local economy as well as societal setup in which farmers freely stored and shared seed with each other. We share the article’s sentiments that farmers are increasing finding themselves required to return to the seed company shops each planting season.
We in KBiOC have been calling upon the Kenya Government as well as other African governments to tread carefully before embracing the GMO option.
Our stand is informed by the fact that the applications of ‘traditional’ options such as land reforms, irrigation, and adoption of organic farming as well as preservation of indigenous farming techniques have been proved to offer better, long-term and sustainable results for societies struggling to feed an ever-growing population.
This is a stand that millions of Kenyan farmers are increasingly resonating with. Our hope is that other leaders, scientists and policy makers will eventually embrace this stand for the greater good of Kenyans and humanity at large.
