Official calls for home grown biosafety solutions

Gasingirwa

Director General for Science, Technology and Research in Rwanda’s Ministry of Education, Christine Gasingirwa has called for the use of biotechnology to develop crops that can withstand drought since most of our crops depend on rain.

She also said Rwanda should formulate bio safety policies tailored to its own experience and not any other country’s.

Gasingirwa who made the remarks during a three-day bio-diversity meeting involving scientists, lawyers and policymakers from over 15 countries noted that the country needs evidence based policies that are backed by knowledge of the country.

The meeting, which is organized by Rwanda Centre of Science Technology and Research in collaboration with International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), was aimed at providing a platform for participants to share experiences on bio safety.

Gasingirwa said that the meeting would guide participants to develop capacity in bio-safety thus enabling them to train others and to be able to formulate bio safety policies suitable for Rwanda.

“We have the capacity in our higher learning institutions. However, we also need to train, the grass root population, especially those involved in farming,” she said.

“They need to be educated so they know the need for bio safety and biotechnology.”

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Posted by AfricaSTI on December 6, 2011. Filed under Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry