Exploring innovation capabilities build up in the deployment of crop biotechnology innovation in Kenya

ABSTRACT

Agro-biotechnology deployment has been very slow in Africa, yet it has potential for enhancing sustainable development and industrialization. This paper attempts to understand the underlying factors that characterize the new technologies’ deployment process. It takes buildup of innovation capabilities as the point of interrogation considering that very few products have received regulatory approval for large-scale commercialization in Africa. It uses Kenya’s agro-biotech innovation system as a case study. The study finds that creating and accumulating innovation capabilities is much broader than research and development (R & D) capability and entails institutional capabilities that are needed to enhance biotech innovation that may lead to a sustainable industrialization.

KEYWORDS:

• Capabilities
• biotechnology innovation system
• industrialization
• Kenya

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to acknowledge two anonymous reviewers of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Genetic engineering (GE), Genetically Modified (GM) and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are used interchangeably in this paper. This refers to manipulation of living organisms to produce goods and services useful to human. It can also be defined as the application of in-vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles (Cartagena Protocol 2000).

2 As of July 2020, 22 public universities in Kenya were offering biotechnology courses from undergraduate to post graduate level.