Uganda: Why Uganda Needs GMOs

23 July 2014
opinion

On account of population pressures and diseases that are affecting Uganda's coffee, maize, banana and cassava production, GMOs are necessary to address the food insecurity and hidden hunger in the country

On May 21 2014 the Daily Monitor (a local Ugandan daily) carried a photograph of a woman in Karamoja climbing a tree to get wild fruits to feed her family. A local television station, the NTV, had a few weeks before filmed graves of people who had died of starvation in the Karamoja region. According to some press reports an estimated fifty people died in the dry period. The rains had failed and all the crops planted by the farmers in the region had dried up. Elsewhere in western Uganda a river had burst its banks due to heavy rains and the flooding had displaced thousands of people and caused untold damage including washing away a hospital and a few schools. Extreme weather incidences such as these in Uganda, manifested in the form of severe droughts and floods, have become more frequent in the recent years resulting in reduced national agricultural production.

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