Agency's move to approve trials of GMO maize contradicts policy

Oversight is a muscle that requires intensive and regular exercising. Prolonged preoccupation with the Presidential elections may have distracted the Cabinet from a matter of national interest. While they have been away campaigning, the cats may have given the mice a playing ground. This week, National Biosafety Authority Chief Executive William Tonui unilaterally approved the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) to start national performance trials of genetically modified MON810 maize across the country. The September 8 approval is significant in two respects.

Allow me to get little distracted before I discuss this significance. Our bodies and all plants and animals around us are made up of billions of individual cells or genes. Each of these genes carry instructions that determine the colour of our eyes, texture of our hair and our resilience to disease and aging.