Ethiopia: Agricultural Biotechnology Annual
In 2018, the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) authorized cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) cotton by granting official approvals for environmental release. The government has identified cotton as a strategically important commodity crop to supply raw material for the rapidly growing textile sector and to generate thousands of jobs along the cotton subsector value chain. Ethiopia is now part of the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project to develop conventional and GE drought resistant maize varieties for smallholder farmers and planted its first GE maize field trial in 2018.
