Kenya doing well in Biotech

Kenya is among three states in Africa making steady progress towards commercialising Genetically Modified (GM) crops, a report by Biotech experts shows. Malawi and Nigeria are the other two countries where a new acceptance wave is gaining momentum in the race to catch up and embrace the technology.

The latest global progress report on biotechnology for last year estimates that the countries controlled a global market value of Sh1.6 trillion. The report dubbed Global Status of Commercialised GM crops for the year 2015 says the estimated revenues of the harvested commercial end products is more than 10 times the value of the seed of the crops.

However, experts at the KALRO centre, led by Dr Charles Waturu, say Kenya would have done better were it not for bad politics.

“Bad politics is a threat to an efficient functional research system. Lack of goodwill leads to less funding for research in this country as some countries move own towards commercialisation,” said Dr Waturu. He says other countries are making significant strides towards commercialisation while Kenya remains stagnant amid a food crisis.