Ghana should brace up for bio-technology
A senior research expert with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has said Ghana needs to brace up for modern agricultural bio-technology in order to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on food sufficiency.
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Dr Margaret Ottah Atikpo said the challenges of the times which had resulted in population increase and the attendant higher demand in food requirement for the populace warranted new methods to increase yields without compromising the health of the population.
She said it was only through new methods that agriculture and its yields would see a significant increase to meet the demands of the growing Ghanaian population to enable the country to achieve the MDG target on food security by 2015.
The time-based MDGs require Ghana to among other things, eradicate extreme hunger and poverty by the close of 2015.
At a day’s workshop for farmers, agricultural extension officers, policy makers and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector in Wa, organised by the Ghana chapter of the Open Forum for Agricultural Bio-technology (OFAB), Dr Atikpo said the fear of the supposed dangers of the genetically-modified food were unfounded since there were no basis.
She said there had been no proven example of an ailment or some other adverse medical condition caused by the consumption of such foods, and said many of the arguments against agricultural bio-technology had been generated by emotions rather than facts and science.
“All these anti-campaigners are only misinforming and deceiving the public,” she said.
Dr Atikpo, who is also with the Food Research Institute and remains OFAB’s Ghana Focal Person, questioned the real intentions of advocates against agricultural bio-technology, given that there were hardly such campaigns against medicine even though some therapies required the injection of compounds into the human body.
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The Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Abu Kabiebata Kasangbata, said the high levels of misconceptions about bio-technology needed much more efforts to address.
He said the country’s quest for food security, meeting the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, as well as ensuring environmental sustainability by 2015, required that the country adopted appropriate technologies in food production.
He said food security was closely related to the attainment of those MDGs, and, therefore, any form of technology that sought to promote agriculture would have to be supported.
“The need to grow more food under modern agricultural practices can, therefore, not be overemphasised. It is, therefore, heart-warming that modern methods of food production through appropriate technologies are high on the agenda of scientists and researchers all over the world,” he said.
The Paramount Chief of the Dorimon Traditional Area, Naa Sohiwminye Daana Gore II, who chaired the function, said Ghana belonged to the comity of nations and could not be left behind in terms of new agricultural technologies if it was to attain its MDGs by the end of 2015.