by Hassan Adamu

About the author: Hassan Adamu is Nigeria’s minister of agricultural and rural development.

It is possible to kill someone with kindness, literally. That could be the result of the well-meaning but extremely misguided attempts by European and North American groups that are advising Africans to be wary of agricultural biotechnology. They claim to have the environment and public health at the core of their opposition, but scientific evidence disproves their claims that enhanced crops are anything but safe. If we take their alarmist warnings to heart, millions of Africans will suffer and possibly die.

Agricultural biotechnology, whereby seeds are enhanced to instill herbicide tolerance or provide resistance to insects and disease, holds great promise for Africa and other areas of the world where circumstances such as poverty and poor growing conditions...