Governor Stephen Sang backs government move on GMO adoption.

Nandi Governor Stephen Sang supported the government adoption of genetic modified organism as one of the food security mitigation measures.

He said if the move to introduce GMO commodities into the country, governor urged the farmers to support the initiative to scale up the agricultural production for commercial purpose.

Speaking yesterday while presiding over the swearing-in of the CECs, Governor Sang called upon the government not import genetically modified food but allow GMOs seed varieties to be grown locally.

“If the GMO will end the food crisis in the country, why should the government import the commodities from outside country yet the farmers can grow them locally?” he posed.

Governor Sang’s remarks comes shortly after a section of North Rift leaders protest against the government move to allow the importation of the GMO maize to leverage the shortage of food in the country.

The lifting of the GMO ban has raised fierce responses from a section of the political and religious leaders, claiming that the modified crop varieties are not fit for human consumption.

Governor Sang who is also the chair person for the North Rift Economic Blog (NOREB) said that the counties should be involved in the food security initiatives that focused on the sustainable crop production .

“The billions of money which the government uses to imports maize among another cereals should be used to produce GMOs food crops locally. We cannot import commodities which we efficiently produce in our farms and scale up the volume of cash crops,” he stated.

Noting that the local farmers are conservative on typical farming practices, Governor Sang claimed that the farmers should be sensitized to fully adopt agribusiness production by opting for crop varieties with high yield.

“GMO in future might be the way go and the farmers should consider growing them for commercial purposes only grow the traditional maize crops for domestic use. Let’s see the bigger picture of the agricultural innovations to better our economy,” he said.

However, he urged the Mps to stop misleading the farmers and instead, urged them to formulate legal policies to protect the maize farmers and consumers like tea and coffee sector.