by
Karl Haro von Mogel on 18 December 2009
This was a pleasant surprise in my news feed. Israel Deladem Agorsor, in the department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana just published a column on GE crops and the future of African Agriculture. The debates on Genetically modified organisms at crossroads: Which way for Africa? Africa is busy trying to catch up to the developed world in order to feed itself on into the future, and genetic engineering is a contentious topic over there. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is it as touchy of an issue, for a variety of reasons that Agorsor details. Is Africa embracing biotechnology an inevitability, welcome or not? Will it help with adaptations to climate change?
Here is a good excerpt:
Now, here we are at the crossroads with what looks like a monkey business, confronted with a choice as to whether to go east or west, as to whether to embrace or ignore plant genetic engineering and GMOs.
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Although half of my day was spent traveling to the BIO convention There was still plenty for me to see starting at lunchtime. During Tuesday’s lunch, they gave awards to high school students for biotech-related research, and the Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue gave a speech positioning Georgia as a future center for biotech research.
It was his state of Georgia, however where those infamous stickers disparaging evolution could be found – Cobb County to be precise. In 2004, his statement for a “balanced” approach to teaching evolution – where it is not taught as “fact.” Apparently he wants the benefits of a thriving biotechnology industry in his state without supporting the bedrock of modern biology in his state’s high school science classrooms. It seems that Florida is not the only state where the living is contradictory!
The star of the lunchtime diversion from our food, however, was Elton John.
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