Category: Blog

September 28, 2022 The Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) has honoured Africans who have contributed to the accelerated development of biotechnology to increase agricultural productivity in the continent. OFAB, a project of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), awarded the nominees during a ceremony to mark the 2nd OFAB Day, an annual event held […]

[Abuja, Nigeria: August 4, 2022] AATF has announced the appointment of Dr Jean Baptiste De La Salle Tignegre as the new manager of the Pod Borer Resistant Cowpea (PBR) project being implemented in Nigeria, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. Jean Baptiste, a Burkinabé, joined AATF on August 1, 2022, from the World Vegetable Centre, Mali Office, […]

By Aimable Twahirwa KIGALI, Jun 15 2022 (IPS) – A few years ago, after coming up with a project of launching the first-ever unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in Rwanda, entrepreneur Mamy Muziga Ingabire identified the need to provide farmers with information related to their activity – such as the health status of crops. “Major focus […]

BY ABDALLAH EL-KUREBE Dr Rose Gidado, Country Coordinator of Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), said the new rice variety on field trial as genetically modified crop would boost food security in Nigeria. She named the variety as the Nitrogen-use Efficient, Water-use Efficient and Salt Tolerant (NEWEST) rice project in Nigeria. According to her, NEWEST […]

BY DERESE TESHOME If one requests saying, “Should we be worried about losing our indigenous crops because of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?” The answer is an outright No. A range of reasons can of course be cited along this line. As we have all read in newspapers, watched on television and heard in discussions on […]

Agricultural experts are making a case for adopting agricultural biotechnology as crop production remains insufficient for both local consumption and exportation yet Rwanda’s economy relies on agriculture. Plant or agricultural biotechnology bio-technology can be defined as the use of tissue culture and genetic engineering techniques to produce genetically modified plants that exhibit new or improved […]

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine comes at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs, as the global community is grappling with increasing climate shocks, conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rising cost of living, all of which are threatening livelihoods of hundreds of millions of poor and vulnerable people around the world. The Ukraine-Russia conflict […]

Uganda is fast-tracking the enactment of a biosafety law aimed at tapping into biotechnology for the country’s prosperity, a key biosafety forum in Kampala was told. The new bill will help the country to expand its biotechnology scope to include health, agriculture, and processing.  Martin Ongol, the acting executive secretary of Uganda National Council for […]

A project targeting eradication of late blight disease in potatoes has been launched in Jos, north central Nigeria. Global Biotechnology Potato Partnership (GBPP) project, under the USAID Feed the Future programme, is aimed at utilising cutting-edge research to promote a robust potato value chain through commercialisation of the 3 R-gene LBR tuber capable of improving […]