Wiledio Naboho, the 2019 Alliance for Science Farmer of the Year, is mounting fresh pressure on the Burkina Faso government to permit the re-introduction of genetically modified (Bt) cotton.
The 2015 decision to halt cultivation of the GM variety due to concerns about fiber length is causing farmers to suffer as incomes continue to decline and pesticide pollution increases, Naboho said.
“We are passing through a lot of difficulties… You have to spend more money buying the pesticides. And also, when you are doing this [pesticide] treatment of your cotton farm, your health is in danger,” Naboho said.
“You have to use more money. You have to also use more people [paid labor for pesticide application] if you want to have a big land. And at the end of the day, when you sit down and make your calculation, you may come and see that you didn’t get more money,” he said.
“As a farmer, what I have seen through the Bt cotton when we were farming is it reduced the use of the pesticides that I was talking about, and it protect also the environment. Farmers don’t know how to use the pesticides, and we have seen the damage,” he added...
Continues at Alliance for Science
See also earlier post Introducing Fenabiotech, Burkina Faso
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