Genetically Modified Bananas For Communities Of The Great Lakes Region Of Africa

Abstract Efforts toward developing banana research products and processes have progressed well leading to six elite cooking banana hybrids conventionally bred and primarily resistant to black Sigatoka released between 2010 and 2017. However, they have low levels of provitamin A and they do not have resistance to the devastating banana bacterial wilt disease due to lack of preferred traits in the banana gene pool. Provitamin A and banana bacterial wilt disease could be effectively addressed using complementary biotechnology tools such as genetic engineering to produce genetically modified (GM) improved varieties. There are perceptions about GM crops affecting their acceptability by end users. This paper presents the facts about the GM banana development process, safety, regulatory, and quality control that will hopefully improve the end users' understanding.