From Ghana News Agency website

Accra, March 24, GNA - Parliament has been asked to expedite action on the passage of the Bio-safety Bill to allow for the production of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in the country, which farmers have been clamouring for.

The Bio-safety Bill, which received Cabinet's approval about a month ago, when passed, would specify the framework and level of genetic modification to be conducted on specific crops yet to be identified.

It would also help prevent abuse of the GM technology, which ensures rapid growth, high-yielding of crops and enhances nutritional values.

Professor Walter Sandow Alhassan, Project Coordinator for Safe Biotechnology Management in Sub-Saharan Africa (SABIMA) under the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), who made the call, said the bill would address the fear of some sections of the public on the health safety of technology.

He was speaking at the launching of the 2009 Global Status of Commercialised Biotech/GM Crops report at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday.

Professor Alhassan noted that contrary to perceptions, no scientific finding had proven that GM products were harmful to human health.

He said Ghana's immediate neighbours including Togo, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, had promulgated the Bio-safety Law allowing for field trials of the GM technology.

"It is just appropriate for Ghana to pass the bill because such produce from neighbouring countries would still find their way into the country", he added.

Professor Alhassan said GM technology did not only improve crop yield but also ensured insect resistance which made farmers to save substantial amount of money that would have been spent on pesticides, enhanced nutritional values and increased the shelf life of produce.

He said though Parliament was yet to pass the bill, Ghanaian farmer-based organisations had been clamouring for the GM technology to enable them to improve their production in order not to be outdone by their Togolese, Nigerian and Burkinabe counterparts who would flood the local markets with such products.

Professor Alhassan said some GM products had arrived in the country, adding that it was not true that such products were unsafe for human health and questioned: "If they were unsafe, would people not develop some side-effects?" He called on government to muster the political will to pass the bill to allow Ghanaian farmers to use the GM technology and improve their production which would ensure food security and contribute towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The report was prepared by Dr Clive James, Founder and Chairman of the International Service for Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), an organisation providing information and knowledge sharing service to the global community on biotechnology, and dedicated to the late Nobel Peace Laureate and Father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug.

The report showed an increase in the number of countries applying the GM technology from 24 the previous year to 25 the following year, while the number of hectares cultivated also increased from 125 million to 134 million during the same period.

It recorded an increase in the number of farmers who used the GM technology at 14 million currently, as against 13.3 million in 2008, while developing countries topped the list of countries planting crops with stacked traits or multi-purpose pesticidal effect.

On specific country basis, the report cited Burkina Faso as using the GM technology to increase its cotton production from 8,500 hectares in 2008 to 15,000 hectares in 2009; Egypt's maize production rose by 15 per cent and South Africa also recorded an increase of 17 per cent maize production within the same period.

On global basis, the report showed record hectare production for all four major biotech crops: soybean occupied more than three-quarters of the 90 million hectares; cotton rose to 33 million hectares; maize increased to over one-quarter of the 158 million hectares and canola moved to more than one-fifth of the 31 million hectares.

Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, Member of Parliament for Mion and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, gave the assurance that Parliament would this year begin work on the bill to ensure that it was passed as soon as possible.

He said Ghana was part of the global scientific community and could not afford to be passive on the scientific arena and pledged his support for the bill.

Dr Alhassan who is a soil scientist, said the country had capable scientists who could work on the application of the GM technology if the bill was passed and allayed fears of skeptics who held the view that GM products were unsafe to reconsider their position.

He said the country should embrace the GM technology and incorporate it into the newly launched National Science and Technology Policy to ensure overall development.