The first ever conference on agricultural biotechnology, bio-safety and seed systems was held in Kampala a fortnight ago and brought together more than 120 leading agricultural scientists, mainly from Africa,  but some from the rest of the world.

Dubbed the "Agrisofaseed 2010", the meeting was the brainchild of a number of Ugandan and East African agricultural organizations.

Agrisofaseed 2010 focused on biotechnology research and development; the case for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with attention to biotech trends in the sub-Saharan Africa; safety issues; and, addressing global challenges like climate change, famine and food insecurity and improving nutritional levels.

According to one of the organizers, Arthur Makara, the Chief Executive Officer of the Science Foundation for Livelihoods and Development, Scifode, said the meeting was the "turning point in the execution of agro-biotechnology and bio-safety in agriculture in Uganda".

The meeting also marked the yearly review and advance of the global status of commercialized biotech and genetically modified crops since their inception in 1996.

Sponsored by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), the conference also paid tribute to its founder and Nobel Laureate, Prof. Norman Borlaug, who died in 2009, for "contributing to the feeding of one billion people in the world" since the 1950s.

Launching the global status report, the Programme Manager of the Entebbe-based Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), Dr. Charles Mugoya, noted that Uganda was the second in the Africa region after Mali, and that there are increasing trends of the biotechnology crops in Africa. He said that the volume of production of the biotech crops has overtaken that of the conventional ones.

He said that the impact comes from three areas. Firstly, the economic gains in farm inputs have translated to $44 billion since 2007. Also, the crop production has doubled on the same land mass, saving the opening up of more land.

And thirdly, that there has been a significant environmental relief from the use of chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, and fuel rejuvenating the atmosphere from the release into it of 14 billion kilogrammes of carbon dioxide.

Further the status report notes that, "A record 14 million small and large scale farmers in 25 countries planted 330 million acres in 2009, an increase of 22 million acres over 2008….The 80-fold increase in biotech crop hectares between 1996 and 2009, is unprecedented, and makes biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the recent history of agriculture."
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