October 2014

Agricultural biotechnology has been used to address constraints in agriculture and has the potential to make a major contribution to the overall goal of sustainable intensification. The adoption of agricultural biotechnology, and specifically genetically modified (GM) crops, by many African countries has been quite limited to date, however. To further inform the debate over agricultural biotechnology, this report collects current information on the status of biotechnology in Africa—with an emphasis on GM crops—and assesses the opportunities offered by and constraints on adoption. The authors provide information about the region’s limited financial, technical, regulatory, and legal capacities while additionally focusing on the role of trade concerns and conflicting information as limiting factors that affect adoption. The authors also identify several initiatives that could help overcome these obstacles, such as increasing public investments in agricultural biotechnology research and development; improving regulatory frameworks and regulatory capacity; and developing an effective and broad-based communications strategy. These and other recommendations should be useful to policymakers, development specialists, and others who are concerned about the potential role that biotechnology could play in Africa as an additional tool for sustainable agriculture development.

PDF file: pbs_afdb_report.pdf(7.3MB)

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Informe destaca el valor de la innovación agraria para ayudar a la agricultura africana a ser competitiva 

Source: Fundacion Antama

Un nuevo informe elaborado por el Banco Africano de Desarrollo (AfDB) y el Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones sobre Políticas Alimentarias (IFPRI) resalta la necesidad de África de adoptar innovaciones agrarias para poder ser competitiva en el mercado global.

El informe titulado ‘GM agricultural technologies for Africa: A state of affairs’ pone énfasis en el valor de los cultivos modificados genéticamente y evalúa las opciones que ofrecen y las limitaciones existentes actualmente para su adopción.

El informe también analiza la necesidad de transformar la agricultura africana de baja productividad a una agricultura de de alto rendimiento que impulse el desarrollo económico.

Los autores identificaron varias iniciativas que podrían ayudar a superar los obstáculos, como el aumento de las inversiones públicas en investigación en biotecnología agrícola, la mejora de los marcos normativos y la capacidad de regulación, o el desarrollo de una estrategia de comunicación eficaz y rigurosa.

El informe ha sido elaborado por los científicos Judith A. Chambers, Patricia Zambrano, José Falck-Zepeda, Guillaume Gruère, Debdatta Sengupta, y Karen Hokanson.

Website: http://www.ifpri.org

Published: November 3, 2014