More Studies Required Prior Utilization of Biologically Modified Cotton

Dear Editors,

It is with excitement that we have read your story headlined “D-Day for

Ethiopia’s Textiles Industry” (Volume 17, Number 846, July 17,2016).

We are impressed by the effort you made to incorporate a wide range of views from actors in the cotton and textile sector.

Your report made a reference about the National Cotton Development Strategy Workshop organised on 12 July 2016 by Enterprise Partners (EP) and quotes by one of our team members. While agreeing with many of your assessments, please allow us to make a couple of positive clarifications.

We are a development programme of UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), not “… a local company”.

On the issue of introducing biologically modified cottons in Ethiopia, Tewodros Yilma, one of our team members, was quoted as saying, “Its usage needs a clear implementation mechanism and we don’t have that now. So, bringing this to the table at this context will have a disastrous impact.”

At this point, we would like to make further clarification to the statement and for it to be understood as “…Bringing this [introducing biologically modified cotton] to the table, without a fully functional system in place first could possibly have an undesirable impact.”

Here it has to be noted that neither the expert nor EP is for or against the introduction of biologically modified cottons in principle.

We look forward to your insightful articles.

Dawit Ketema,

Communication Advisor, Enterprise Partners (EP)

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