If Kenya and Tanzania were convicts on death roll, and both were asked to say a few words in mitigation, the Kenyan would probably prefer execution before the Tanzanian speaks.
Value judgments apart, talking is our hallmark epithet among our sisters and brothers to the north of Kilimanjaro, which we talk about quite a lot as our neighbours make money out of it—and lots of hard foreign cash at that.
One such area to which Tanzania has agreed to pool scarce resources, but has far excelled in more talk than deed, involves a new project aimed at generating maize varieties that can withstand moderate drought periods. The project brings together five countries – Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Ultimately, maize would have given this country its first home-grown GM food by next year – if only we had less wasteful talk. And, for all we know, we’ve eaten or are eating GM food right now -- particularly for those of us who travel to either the United States or South Africa; in the US the law doesn’t compel supermarkets to label GM products, and most of those shopping outlets stock canola – a popular GM cooking fat – and in South Africa you will have probably ordered ‘sadza,’ or ‘ugali’ in our vernacular, made from GM maize! If you love custom-tailored cotton shirts or skirts from either China, India or America, you’re putting on ‘bt cotton’ products. And where else do the well-to-do in our midst shop from, anyway? In our highly globalised village, the list is endless. Continue reading
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