Conclusion and Way Forward

Abstract

The depth and breadth of the papers contained in this book confirms that Africa has made a critical shift from general discussion and focus on the safety of plant biotechnology to a concrete exploration of crops and traits deemed useful for various African countries. Overall, Africa continues to make good progress towards biotech acceptance. There are many scientifically promising projects underway using genetically modified crop technologies to improve African crops, mostly by public research institutions. While these projects often generate state of the art results in the laboratory, they invariable suffer setbacks when the R&D moves from the contained laboratory, greenhouse and contained field trial studies into the highly regulated biosafety and regulatory stage due to limited funds and often expertise, to drive product development and commercialization.