There was no other than using biotechnology to improve agriculture and counter famine, environmental degradation and poverty. Africa must enthusiastically join the biotechnological revolution.    Africa has no other solution to supply food for all African citizens who face malnutrition. It's the ideal solution that will help not only in supplying food and improving agriculture but it will lead to industrial revolution and will take the hand of Africa to stand and have real place in the world. The African continent, more than any other, urgently needs agricultural biotechnology, including transgenic crops, to improve food production. African countries need to think and operate as stakeholders, rather than accepting the 'victim mentality' created in Europe. Africa has the local germplasm, some of it well-characterized and clean, being held in gene banks in

trust by centre run by the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research. It also has the indigenous knowledge, local field ecosystems for product development, capacities and infrastructure required by foreign multinational companies.

The needs of Africa and Europe are different. Europe has surplus food and has never experienced hunger, mass starvation and death on the regular scale we sadly witness in Africa. The priority of Africa is to feed her people with safe foods and to sustain agricultural production and the environment.

 Africa missed the green revolution, which helped Asia and Latin America achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Africa cannot afford to be excluded or to miss another major global 'technological revolution'. It must join the biotechnology endeavor. Transgenic food production increased from 4 million to 70 million acres worldwide from 1996 to 1998 with measurable economic gains and with sustainable agricultural production. It would be a much higher risk for Africa to ignore agricultural biotechnology. Africa's crop production per unit area of land is the lowest in the world. For

Example the production of sweet potato, a staple crop, is 6 tones per hectare compared to the global average of 14 tones per hectare. China produces on average 18 tones per hectare, three times the African average. There is the potential to double African production if viral diseases are controlled using transgenic technology.

The African continent imports at least 25 per cent of its grain. The use of biotechnology to increase local grain production is far preferable to this dependence on other countries, particularly as the population growth rate exceeds food production. The inability to produce adequate food forces Africa to rely on food aid from industrialized nations when mass starvation occurs. Africa should benefit in many ways from