A recent story from the Catholic News Service discusses how the Vatican has endorsed the idea of African farmers using biotechnology as a means of bringing themselves out of poverty.

Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, former secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that new technologies “that can stimulate and sustain African farmers” must be prioritised as research imperatives.

Father Gonzalo Miranda, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University said:

[I]f the data shows that biotechnology can offer great advantages in the development of Africa, it is a moral obligation to permit these countries to do their own experimentation.

In African media, there is also talk of the the potential advantages of using biotechnology in crops. In the Nigerian newspaper Champion, a story was published that endorsed its use:

It is also practically impossible to achieve food security if we insist on remaining on the old conventional pathway of planting and waiting endlessly for harvest yields. Key observers believe that the best way out is in the effective deployment and utilization of gene technology also known as biotechnology.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the number of malnourished people in Africa could treble to 600 million as the world’s population grows by more than one third over the coming decades.