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{
    "id": 177241,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/177241/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 211,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ruteere",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 92,
        "legal_name": "Silas Muriuki Ruteere",
        "slug": "silas-ruteere"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am here to oppose the Bill. With all the reasons given, I am not convinced because I know contrary to what has been advocated for--- The countries that use Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) like maize or sorghum in the United States of America (USA) and Australia grow them for animals. They are fed to animals. We should not confuse GMOs and tissue culture in bananas. They are entirely different. The tissue culture in bananas is not going to be safeguarded by Biosafety Bill. We want to introduce GMOs in this country but the mechanisms for issues to do with warehouses, proper control and for the lack of control of contamination of our conventional seeds that are there have not been provided for in the Bill. We must be sure that our farmers are protected and will not be at the mercy of multinationals for their seeds. This country is made of small-scale farmers and not the large-scale farmers that are able to buy seeds at whatever price that multinationals will say for the GMOs. We cannot store seeds from one season to the next because GMO seeds cannot be stored. You deal with them this season and for the next season you have to buy others. Our farmers are used to preserving the best seeds out of their crop. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there are controversies all over the world on GMOs because they have not been tested to the satisfaction of the nations that are using them or intending to use them. The health issues have not been guaranteed. People are said to have serious illness or allergies because of using GMOs. So, we must be guaranteed that our health is not at risk. The Catergina Protocol demands that before you introduce GMOs, there should be public education, public consultation and everybody should participate in the enactment and drafting of the Bill. This country has left it to one section of the people; the academicians and scientists. What about the others? Their concerns are supposed to be put in the Bill. That is lacking in this particular Bill. This Bill is called Biosafety Bill and it is only handling GMO issue but it is not talking about environmental concerns. It will go beyond seeds and food. We are talking of food safety. We are having problems of food in this country not because we do not have GMOs. It is because of our improper planning. We do not have irrigation and water harvesting methods. Floods come and go. Since we do not have water harvesting methods, all the water that we would have used in dry areas go away. We are destroying our own forests. So, in essence there are climatic changes. Food security is not guaranteed by GMOs. It might be the opposite. We may introduce GMOs and the country could face worse famine than we have ever seen. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if the Bill passes, it will put the entire country at a position where our own horticulture which fetches foreign exchange, will manage to get any market in Europe. This is the second or the first foreign exchange earner. Europe, UK and Germany are not advocating for GMOs. They are for organic foods, but the opposite is happening here because instead of us encouraging our people to have organic foods, we are telling them to go for GMOs. We are not going to survive on GMOs. We must have other methods of farming. The present methods of farming must change so that people can have adequate food. Like now, those who planted on time are going to harvest maize, at my place, but those who had no fertiliser will harvest nothing. That has nothing to do with GMOs. It is about input and preparation of the"
}