Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Has Kenya joined list of countries contanminated with GM crops?

A Genetically Modified contamination register report by both the Greenpeace International and Green-watch details 39 new cases of GM crop contamination in 23 countries over the past one year.

Most of this contamination involved such stable crops as maize and rice, and included cotton, bananas and papaya.  

According to the report, since 2005 the GM register has recorded 216 contaminated events in 57 countries since GE crops were first grown commercially in large scale in 1996. 

This year's annual report on the register comes against the background of a controversy surround Genetically Engineered seed varieties. 

Kenyan environmentalists and farmers in the country confronted the government and the seed giant Pioneer Company for importing and selling genetically modified maize seed variety from South Africa.  

This followed revelation by the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC) that maize seed variety imported and sold to Kenyan farmers by Farmchem, local distributors, was genetically. 

Pioneer's seed maize PHB 30V53 was found to contain MON-810 a GE variety and that it was infused with insect resistant components which were highly harmful not only to the environment but to human being.  

GE has no approval for planting in Kenya and this particular variety is banned in several countries including South Africa.

~ read on... ~

 

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