Business News of Thursday, 31 July 2014

Source: Graphic Online

Two Ghanaian research scientists made a case for Ghana to adopt genetic engineering (GE) or genetically modified organisms (GMOs) instead of sticking to the conventional method of breeding.

While agreeing that conventional plant breeding had been going on for hundreds of years and had dramatically increased the productivity and quality of plants for food, feed and fibre, they maintained that it could no longer be sustained.

At the opening of a three-day symposium, organised by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) on GMOs last Monday, Dr Ibrahim Dzido Kwasi Atokple, a researcher at the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), Tamale, said Conventional breeding is the basis, but with that alone we cannot make progress.

According to Dr Atokple, practising conventional breeding could no longer be done exclusively, in view of the population explosion and developments that are taking up the arable lands. So we need to combine all biotechnological tools to increase the productivity of the few lands that are left.

He said although the USA depended on hybrids for maize till the 1990s, the trend changed for more improved yields by adopting GMOs (inserting genes to improve yields and make maize more tolerant to insects).

In any case, we started eating GM maize from 1996 till today, he said, adding that although there had been a few success stories in Ghana, the country could do better. Almost all the improved varieties grown in Ghana are from conventional breeding but we cannot continue to do this.

We need to adopt the modern plant breeding strategies and multi-disciplinary and co-ordinated process where a large number of tools and elements of conventional breeding techniques, bioinformatics, molecular genetics, molecular biology and genetic engineering are utilised and integrated to overcome the vagaries of the environment, with respect to climate change, soil degradation and increasing biotic factors, he stated.

Dr Atokple, who is credited with introducing varieties of Maruka-resistant cowpea (beans) and rice, said it even became more imperative to employ GMO breeding because it was a faster, less laborious and more efficient way to improve crop yields.

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Scientists push for GMO adoption in Ghana

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