Articles

In 2008, Egypt reached an agreement with the US-based Monsanto Corporation to import, grow and sell the company's genetically-modified maize. The first shipment of 70 tons arrived in Egypt in December 2010 and was planted in ten governorates without restriction on planting. The second and most recent shipment of 40 tons arrived in January 2012, but was seized by the Ministry of Agriculture because it was not properly approved. [...] Dr. Ayman Farid Abou Hadid and Saad Nassar, two advisers from the Ministry of Agriculture, had originally signed the customs papers approving the shipment. [...] ”This is a blatant violation of both the Constitution and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety that Egypt ratified,” stressed [Osama El Tayeb, a microbiology and immunology professor at the Phramacy Faculty of 6th of October University], who has also acted as Egypt's focal point for biosafety issues since being appointed by the Environment Ministry in 2000.