Kenya protests block GM maize shipment in Mombasa

BBC News
April 9, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8609316.stm

Excerpt:
A shipment of genetically modified (GM) maize has been blocked at the Kenyan port of Mombasa after protests by environmentalists. GM imports have been banned in several African countries. The 40,000-tonne shipment contained four varieties of maize, three of which were made by Monsanto.

Mariam Mayet, an activist at the South African-based African Centre for Biosafety, criticised her government’s policy. “The way it is, one is inclined to say that South Africa was a springboard to contaminate the rest of the African continent by allowing multinationals to export from South African soil,” she told South Africa’s Business Report newspaper.

Many African countries are under increasing pressure to grow GM crops to tackle hunger and malnutrition, and drought in recent years has caused food shortages in Kenya.