The most recently approved GM crop on the continent is the GM cassava, which Kenya has successfully greenlighted.

This becomes the second GM crop approved in the Eastern African country after Bt Cotton in 2019. It is however, the fifth GM crop approved on the continent after maize, cowpea, cotton and soya bean.

Developed using modern biotechnology techniques, GM cassava provides huge resistance to the cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) which destroys vast swathes of the crop across the continent.

In Ghana, the technology has been employed by local scientists from the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to develop two crops, the Nitrogen-use-efficient rice and the Genetically Modified cowpea also known as the pod borer resistant (PBR) cowpea.

None of these crops are commercialized yet, though they have gone through various stages of evaluation and field trials.

“We can ignore GMOs alright and go through a process where farmers continuously replant seeds of plants they find with desired traits. After some 20 to 25 years, farmers may have the ideal varieties they want. But why wait for that long when we can do it now?” [researcher Samuel Amiteye] quizzed.

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