{"id":282811,"date":"2019-07-30T08:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T12:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMiVmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmV0aGlvcGlhb2JzZXJ2ZXIuY29tLzIwMTkvMDcvMzAvZXRoaW9waWEtaXMtZW1icmFjaW5nLWdtb3Mtc2xvd2x5LXF1aWV0bHkv0gEA?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-14T13:07:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:07:44","slug":"ethiopia-embracing-gmos-slowly-quietly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/282811","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia is embracing GMOs slowly and quietly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global seed, fertiliser and agrochemical companies were moving into Ethiopia in 2019, raising questions about whether they would solve the country's food-security problems or create new dependencies.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n

A farmer ploughing with cattle in southwestern Ethiopia (ILRI \/ Stevie Mann \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)<\/em><\/p>\n

Ethiopia Observer reported that 25 large French agricultural firms planned an exploratory visit in September 2019, led by the cooperative Limagrain Group, which controls the seed company Vilmorin and in 2014 bought a 28% stake in SeedCo, one of Africa's largest home-grown seed companies. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) criticised that deal.<\/p>\n

Limagrain said it was offering hybrid varieties, not GMOs. But critics noted that farmers cannot save and reuse hybrid seed because yields fall when it is replanted, so they must buy new seed each year. \"Whoever controls the seed market controls the food supply and the people,\" said Teshome Hunduma, a researcher on seed systems at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.<\/p>\n

Other companies were already active. The Israeli non-profit Fair Planet had supplied vegetable seed to Ethiopian farmers for three years, working with Syngenta, Enza Zaden, East-West Seed and Bayer-Monsanto. BASF had been in the vegetable seed and crop-protection business since August 2018, and Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture arm of DowDuPont, opened an Addis Ababa office in April 2019. AFSA pointed out that most food in Africa still comes from farmers' own saved seed.<\/p>\n

For years Ethiopia resisted GMOs, largely because of Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, the long-serving head of the Environmental Protection Authority. He led the African group in negotiating the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, agreed in 2000, and championed a precautionary biosafety law in 2009.<\/p>\n

In 2014, however, Ethiopia amended that law, approving commercial cultivation of genetically modified Bt cotton for its growing textile industry and field trials of GM maize. Teshome argued the change was made without an independent review of other countries' experience, citing Burkina Faso, where Bt cotton lost its insect resistance and yield advantage over time. He said Ethiopia's regulatory system was still weak, with responsibilities split between agriculture and environment agencies.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> Ethiopia Observer<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Global seed, fertiliser and agrochemical companies were moving into Ethiopia in 2019, raising questions about whether they would solve the country’s food-security problems or create new dependencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ploughing-with-cattle-southwestern-ethiopia.jpg?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bzt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837772,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282811\/revisions\/837772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}