Africa: The next frontier for GM crops?

Recent forecasts indicate that the current century could be the hungriest on record, with the global population estimated to increase three-fold. To feed all those people, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO) says twice as much food will have to be produced – and under weather conditions less friendly than now – due to prolonged and severer droughts as a result of climate change. Yet there’s hope. Scientists – and some of our policy makers – believe that new and emerging technologies such as agricultural biotechnology now hold real promise of increased food production without expanding farmlands even in the hostile drought-prone zones of Africa.

The project, known as Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) is being implemented in Tanzania by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC) and coordinated by the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). One of the core messages for WEMA is: Africa is a drought-prone continent, making farming risky for millions of small-scale farmers who rely on rainfall to water their crops.

View the original article here: Africa: The next frontier for GM crops?

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