Ethiopia’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture, predominantly occupied by small scale subsistence farming. Although agriculture provides a living for 85 percent of the population and contributes about 50 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for about 90 percent of the export, its productivity is very low. The major factors that contribute to this situation are recurrent drought, erratic rains and low soil fertility, low productivity of livestock resources, fragmentation of land holdings, limited infrastructure, and shortage of skilled manpower and technological backwardness in agricultural production, etc. As a result there is an urgent need for the improvement of agricultural productivity. This includes the intensification of production per unit area through the application of techniques for development of high yielding, stress resistant plant and animal varieties suitable particularly for vast majority of the country. It also requires the creation of a mechanism to conserve and sustainably use varied genetic resources and indigenous knowledge existing in the country. In spite of such a need for increased agricultural productivity, there exist only limited and uncoordinated efforts to use biotechnology especially modern agricultural biotechnology to improve productivity in the agriculture sector. However, the use of modern robust biotechnology, namely genetic engineering demands competence and a true understanding of complex environmental and socio-economic issues pertaining to biosafety in Ethiopia or elsewhere in developing countries. The following points highlight these concerns.
Poverty
Ethiopia as one of the least developed country, the money that can be made available to ensure safety is bound to be inadequate. Thus, should a risk materialize, combating it would require financial and technical capacity that the countries do not have. For these reasons, a risk that is acceptable in an industrialized country is likely to be unacceptable in a developing, especially least developed country like Ethiopia. The Protocol recognizes this fact in its Preamble Paragraph 8 states: “Taking into account the limited capabilities of many countries, particularly developing countries, to cope with the nature and scale of known and potential risks associated with living modified organisms”. One would think that, given this situation, socio-economic conditions (Article 26, Cartagena Protocol, 2000) would constitute a very important component in decision taking as to whether to import a Living Modified Organism (LMO) or not. Besides, as agriculture is the main stay of the country’s economy and sources of foreign exchange, where the country intends to sell its agricultural products at premium prices in certified non-Genetically Modified Organisms (Non-GMO) markets, unintended introgression of transgenes may pose a threat to the commercial position of our country. Gene flow therefore could result both in loss of markets and in additional costs associated with labeling and separation of GM-free produce because Ethiopia is dependent on a few agricultural products for export, thus the country cannot afford market loss through GM gene flow and, given that there is a current preference for GM-free products. Currently, the export market requires GM-free certificate for most of agricultural produces distained to export market including flowers, vegetables, oilseeds, coffee, tea, etc.
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