Dr Richard Ampadu-Ameyaw, National Coordinator, OFAB and a Senior Scientist of  the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said it was untrue that  GMOs contained chemicals or harmful substances that may be injurious to humans or  that may manifest themselves in human genomes.

He said GMOs were not new to humans because there had been modification of  organisms to suit needs of humans through deliberate alteration of genes of  organisms for ages.   Dr Ampadu-Ameyaw explained that crops were engineered through biotechnology technique to either increase yield, limit pesticides use and insect attack or increase nutritional value among others.

He said biosafety activities were employed to monitor the level of potentially  hazardous metabolites and proteins that may be present in the crop before they were  released unto the market.  Dr Ampadu-Ameyaw said GMOs provided farmers the opportunity to produce more  food for the growing world’s population while reducing the impact of agriculture on  the environment by developing crops that required less or no use of chemicals to  combat diseases.

Mr Daniel Osei Ofosu, Research Scientist, Biotech and Nuclear Agricultural  Research Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), said there were no GMOs on the Ghanaian market currently and that Ghanaian scientists were still working on some crops.

He said they were working on cowpeas to make it maruca resistant as the insect  had made the crop economically unviable. Mr Ofosu said rice engineering was also being considered for efficient use of nitrogen and water. He said engineered crops would not replace old one ones but compliment the stock and give farmers the choice to select what to grow.