Women activists back Museveni on GMO Bill
KAMPALA.
Women activists have backed the President’s stance on National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill, 2012 alias GMO bill.
Speaking at the status of women forum on Thursday, the women activists under their umbrella body, the Uganda Women’s Network (Uwonet) applauded the President’s refusal to sign the Bill into law.
Under the theme: Challenges and Opportunities in Achieving Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Rural Women in Kampala, the Uwonet xecutive Director, Ms Rita Aciro, said the GMO Bill does not favour women, especially in rural areas and questioned the motive behind the proposed genetic engineering of indigenous seeds.
“We are very proud that the President this time stood up for the people by rejecting the technology of GMO because it disempowers indigenous technology that our people have been using,” Ms Aciro said.
“Our problem is not use of GMO, the problem is modernisation of agriculture by ensuring that we have the right tools because Uganda is one of the countries with the most fertile land. We need large scale farming to catch up with huge production gaps, but not the use of GMOs. The moment we assent to use GMO it means our indigenous knowledge of harvesting, storage and reusing the seeds cannot be used again.”
In his December 21 2017 letter to Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, the President outlines why he is sending the Bill back to Parliament to clarify among other issues, its title, patent rights of indigenous farmers and sanctions for scientists who mix GMOs with indigenous crops and animals.
Mr Museveni said he has been informed that there are, “some crops and livestock with unique genetic configuration like millet, sorghum, beans, Ankole cattle, Ugandan chicken, enkoromoijo cattle which have a specific genetic makeup which our people have developed for millennia through selection (kutorana for seeds, kubikira (selecting good bulls), enimi or empaya (he-goats).”
Mitooma District MP Jova Kamateeka said since the Bill was not signed there is still window of opportunity to review the GMO Bill and make necessary amendments which have been proposed by other stakeholders, especially on gender sensitive perspective. Others asked the architects of the Bill to withdraw it from Parliament.
“We need to revise the GMO Bill so that we can include what was missing to favour women, especially in the rural areas so that even small scale farmers can be beneficiaries,” Ms Kamateeka said. Those in support of the Bill say the genetically engineered crops will produce higher yields.
Biosafety Bill
The Bill seeks to provide a regulatory framework that facilitates the safe development and application of biotechnology, research, development and release of genetically modified organisms.
Biotechnology is any technique that uses living organisms or substances from living organisms to make or modify a product, improve plant, animal breeds or micro-organisms for specific purposes while biosafety is the safe development, transfer, application and use of biotechnology and its products.
