Africa's Regulatory Approach to Biotechnology in Agriculture: An Opportunity to Seize Socio-Economic Concerns

Abstract

The use of modern biotechnology (in this context genetically modified organisms – GMOs in agricultural crops) presents a number of challenges, including that of regulating biosafety, international trade and intellectual property rights over GMOs. Biosafety is concerned with the risks that GMOs may pose to the environment and human health. Issues around international law and intellectual property rights arise from efforts to eliminate trade barriers and to allow patent protection over plant genetic resources for commercial gain. Regulators setting out to address these issues must, importantly, not lose sight of the socio-economic concerns generated by the use, and regulation, of GMOs in agriculture. Africa’s (regulatory) approach to biotechnology in agriculture has been mixed: few countries (such as South Africa, and possibly Egypt) have adopted, what might be called, a permissive regulatory approach, giving the ‘green’ light to agricultural biotechnology, with minimum regulatory intervention. Most African countries have opted rather for cautious (with stringent regulatory measures in place) or even restrictive regulatory approaches where a total ban is placed on the import and use of biotechnology in agriculture, although such an approach may breach a country’s international trade obligations.