Binyam Tamene
17 December 2008
Addis Ababa — Amid the price of chemical fertilizer showing little sign of decreasing, Federal Environmental Protection Authority urged on Tuesday for a paradigm shift to ecological agriculture.
Dr. Teweldeberhan Gebregziabhere, Director General of FEPA said during a national conference on Ecological Agriculture for Sustainable Food Security in Ethiopia said that the country must diversify its source of fertilizers.
While expressing his support to using chemical fertilizers to attain food security in the country, the Director said the country has as much as much as possible stick to ecological agriculture, adding the country's high capacity to produce compost could support the shift.
FEPA also proposed a new draft law for the use and application of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country.
The proposed law entitled the Bio-safety Draft Law, which will focuses on GMOs, will be instrumental especially at this time when use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture remains controversial, the Director said.
Dr. Tewolde said the law was currently under consideration by the Prime Mister's Office, before heading to the parliament which is expected to approve it.
"If genetically modified remained unregulated in the country, they could suffer the general set up of our society as well as the environment," Dr.Tewolde said.
The Director was speaking at a national conference on Ecological Agriculture for Sustainable Food Security in Ethiopia.
According to the Director, the draft law prepared to regulate and monitor GMO products produced inside the country, as well as those that are imported in to the country.
But since there is no any legal instrument to control, the country categorically prohibits GMOs, according to Dr Teweldeberhan.
Advocating for the regulation of GMOs, Eco Yeshmachoch Mahiber, a local Consumers association, expressed concerns over the impacts of genetically modified food saying it is hazardous to the natural environment, and sees the generation and use of GMOs as "intolerable." "The generation and use of GMO as intolerable meddling with biological processes that have naturally evolved over long periods of time," said Director of the Association, during the conference.
Director of the association said he preferred the general ban on GMOs to remain in tact.
"We are very much concerned about the impact of GMOs on the environment, including: unknown effects on human health, ethics of interfering with nature, freedom of consumer choice and patenting life forms," he said.
These concerns make it essential for the whole of society to participate in policy decisions, though our capacity in producing the GMOs is limited, he added.
Experts in the field recommend that the pros and cons of fertilizers, the risks, management of the risks and the science behind genetic engineering need to be debated in society on an ongoing basis.
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