By Odimegwu Onwumere
There is a putrefying disagreement among farmers and other stakeholders on Biosafety before and after it became a law in Nigeria in 2015; Odimegwu Onwumere uncovers that whereas the rivalry lasts, in some quarters such as OFAB, there is insistence that Biotechnology contributes significantly to surplus food output and has no health hazard
The dark and scintillating woman with an adorable height mounts the rostrum at a media gathering of the Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), Wednesday 30th August 2017, at Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Ladi Kwali Way, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja, by 7pm to teach Nigerians on the need to embrace biotechnology as a fresh means of farming.
The gathering was characterized by OFAB Media Awards to honour journalists, who had written and broadcasted agriculture and biotechnology stories in Nigeria. The dazzling woman is Dr. Rose Maxwell Gidado, the country coordinator, OFAB.
Gidado harangues that biotechnology is fad in 7 African countries. She, however, inertly feels apologetic that this novel technology that has been aiding countries of the world to boost Agriculture is severely being looked down on, in Nigeria.
“Apart from our numerous efforts through enlightening OFAB workshops to educate farmers on this striking, lucrative and sustainable means of farming known as biotechnology,” Gidado says, adding, “it behooves on all of us to question how long we would endure food crises given that Nigerian farmers are dealing with insufficient farming; but Biotechnology contributes significantly to surplus food output.”
While those at the OFAB might mean well since the medium started operating in Nigeria just about a decade ago and being instrumental to seeing that Nigeria embraced Biosafety as countries like Kenya, Togo, Tanzania, Mali, Republic of South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt already had Biosafety laws and were growing and consuming GMO crops, many stakeholders are yet not hiding their voice to show their uneasiness against Biosafety before and after Monday, April 21, 2015, the then President Goodluck Jonathan signed the National Biosafety Agency Bill into law, after the National Assembly passed the bill.
Loggerheads On Biotechnology
Recently, some stakeholders under the auspices of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) expressed fear that biotech giants are cunningly taking over food production in Nigeria in guise that they are on the development of bio-fuel in the country. One of the organisations, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, AFSA, and its Chairman, Mariann Bassey Orovwuje said that biotechnology giants are ostensibly economical with the truth.
“Promoting Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) crops for bio-fuel demonstrates the hypocrisy of the biotech giants, who are always quick to summit that GMO crops are necessary to produce more food for the growing world population,” Orovwuje said, adding, “They make the case that relying only on natural crop varieties would create food deficits and lead to forests being cleared for cultivation, to meet rising food demand. Yet, the same companies think nothing of diverting large areas of arable land for cultivation of crops to develop ethanol for fuel, to feed the voracious machines of the North.”
However, institutions such as the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike; Institute for Agricultural Research, Zaria (IAR); the Federal University of Technology, Akure and, the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), were said to benefit immensely from the biotechnology development. Apart from OFAB’s position on food sufficiency in the country with Biotechnology, the then Minister of State for Agriculture, Alhaji Bukar Tijani in one of his public presentations, said that the GMO would ensure Nigeria is self sufficient in the production of rice and would boost the countries revenue in other areas of agriculture.
While in Addis Ababa for the High Level Meeting of AU Heads of State and Government on “unified approach to end hunger in Africa by 2025”, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina who, as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the Nigerian Government had announced plans to swell the use of bio-fortified crops, such as pro-vitamin `A’ cassava and orange-flesh sweet potato to address the hunger situation being faced by some 13 million people.
According to Adesina, “Much progress is being made, we are mindful that we still have challenges of malnutrition and micro-nutrient deficiencies to tackle. Nigeria still has 13 million people suffering from hunger, and malnutrition is still high.”
But before now, many persons and groups had opposed the launching of GMOs products into the country’s agricultural segment, saying that this might be a threat to indigenous production, environment and health of the citizens. One such persons and groups is Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF). Bassey has unremittingly made it clear that the introduction of GMOs would be detrimental to local consummation and economic wellbeing of the people. He said, “Entry of GMOs into Nigeria will lower the possibilities of our food products being accepted in many parts of the world, especially in Europe where outright ban of such products are in place in several countries. This would spell economic disaster for our farmers.”
In a statement mutually signposted by Bassey’s HOMEF; Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, Food Sovereignty Manager/coordinator, ERA/FoEN and Friends of the Earth International (FoEI); and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, convener of Nigerians Against GMOs, the groups fingered the National Bio-safety Management Agency (NBMA) of playing double standard in its official duty of regulation and allowed the introduction of GMOs by Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited.
According to them, “We restate our stand that the so-called permit issued to Monsanto to introduce GMOs into Nigeria should be overturned and the bio-safety law itself should be repealed. We also call on the National Assembly to urgently investigate the process leading to the granting of the permit on Sunday, May 1, 2016, to assure Nigerians that we are not pawns in a commercial game to open Africa to toxic technologies.”
Buttressing his point, Bassey was of the view that GMO is better in monoculture unlike in Nigeria where more than 80 percent of farmers are small possessors, who are best at varied cropping. According to Bassey, “Most of these farmers are women and expansion of monoculture in Nigeria would mean displacement of farmers from their farmlands, entrenchment of poverty and deepening of hunger and nutrition problems.”
Against this influence, there is apprehension that the call to reject GMO in the country is that NBMA once asked Monsanto to legitimately sell its GMO products in Nigeria. Correspondingly, Dr. James Marsh, Global President for James Marsh & Associates, said that the trepidation is because of Monsanto’s contentious background. According to Marsh, “Due to Monsanto’s controversial background and tainted reputation in the United States where it operates from, it should not be allowed to take over the Nigeria’s agricultural sector as their migration into Nigeria will stifle the small scale farmers.”
Again, “It would also mean dependence on Monsanto and other seed companies for regular supply of seeds and chemicals. It means surrendering our food sovereignty to a commercial entity. It would spell disaster on many fronts.” Consequently, those who know better have said that examinations looking to “GMOs crop yields have often failed to isolate the effects of GMOs technology from other factors or to compare like-for-like farms. Conversely, reduced yields have been attributed to the GMOs insertion process.”
More Groups Show Nervousness On GMOs
Against GMOs, was the call by the CSOs on Wednesday, June 7 2017, while on a nonviolent protest at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja, advising NASS to revoke the Biosafety Act. Gbadebo told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), “It is a technology that harms the body; it is a technology that harms the economy, and it is a technology that is not in the interest of Nigerians and the citizens on the long term.” The source added that they were on protest to urge the National Assembly to re-examine the National Biosafety Act.
According to Gbadebo, “This is because GMOs do not assure the safety of Nigerians.” He further enthused that the authorities and regulatory agencies that were supposed to man how the technology was being used in the country have ‘conflict of interest’ on their boards, which is not for the interest of Nigerians. The source added, “We restate here that Monsanto’s applications were approved without due diligence and that the law setting up NBMA is extremely flawed in that it gives individuals in the agency the latitude to toy with the health of Nigerians, our environment and food systems.”
Investigation revealed that contrary to Monsanto’s claims of GMOs being harmless, “The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that there was strong evidence of genotoxicity and oxidative stress for glyphosate entirely from publicly available research, including findings of DNA damage in the peripheral blood of exposed humans.” Checks further revealed NBMA saying it was “Convinced that there are no known adverse impacts to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity taking into account risk to human health.”
Double Stance On GMOs
Nonetheless, while at a workshop organised by NBMA and Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS) on May 8, 2017, in Abuja, to kindle the teamwork of regulatory agencies, the Minister of State for Environment Ibrahim Jibril broke a gremlin, saying that Nigeria has become a dumping ground for inferior food items. Hear Jibril, “Nigeria has been marginalised and ostracised by many rich nations in the European Union which suspended some of our agricultural products, citing high volume of dichlorvos pesticide as its reason. This is a reflection of our inability to adhere to global standards, which have come to hunt us at the international level.”
Equally, on January 26 2017, a coalition of CSOs with its coordinator as Edel-Quinn Agbaegu, brought the Federal Government (FG) to the cleaners when the group cautioned the government on what it said, was the double standard of Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbe “on his ‘anti-GMOs”’. According to the source, “We have great respect for the Honourable Minister and Elder statesman and a stakeholder in agriculture and had expected that he would refute the report as it is a contradiction of many statements he had earlier made in support of modern biotechnology and GMOs as a scientific and globally accepted method of improvement on agriculture, food production and fight against hunger, malnutrition towards sustainable development in the country.”
The group therefore regretted that both the ministries of Science and Technology and Environment, according to the group, that had the direct influence to instruct the government on GMOs, have allowed the powers that be to wallow in misinformation. This is even as the group added that, had Ogbe been properly advised by the two ministries, perhaps, he would not had gaffed at a forum in December 2016, where he made his rivalry to GMOs clear, and stated that “the country would stick to use of hybrid products.”
The group hence advised, “The Minister needs to familiarise himself more with the position of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on GMOs. He should be proactive to save Nigeria from imminent hunger that is threatening the African continent, going by the current drought that is ravaging Somalia, Kenya and the Horn of Africa.”
According to an account by some members of Ife Biotechnology Group, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, “The Food and Agriculture Organisation reported that about 852 million people were estimated to be undernourished in 2010 — 2012 and face the risk of food insecurity. More than 70 per cent of this estimate reside in sub-Saharan Africa in which Nigeria is the most populous country among others. For Nigeria to adequately feed her ever increasing teeming population, innovations in agriculture must be given a priority in quick successions.“
Government Denies
As if that was not enough, on August 27 2017, the CSOs numbering 87 that were on-behalf-of over 5 million Nigerians who were members heralded that there was a clandestine move by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA, to establish GMOs Cassava in Nigeria. They supposed that the NBMA should not give a nod to such cassava but rather ask IITA to revert to Switzerland where the GMOs cassava was developed to carry out the test.
In the words of Bassey, “The IITA has been a respected institution in Nigeria and Africa on whom farmers depend for good quality and safe crops. Now they have decided to drive on the GMOs road, Nigerian and African agriculture face a mortal danger. If NBMA approves this application, we can as well say good bye to food safety in Nigeria. Even if the IITA presents the Frankenstein cassava as a crop for the production of bio-fuel and not food, there is no way to stop our farmers from planting the GMOs cassava for food. We call on the NBMA to do the needful and reject this application outright. We don’t need GMOs cassava. We don’t need GMOs.”
Although, while there were speculations that there were dangerous GMOs in the country, the NBMA on July 13 2016, said that there were no dangerous GMOs in circulation in the country. A Director of the agency, Mr. Rufus Ebegba disclosed this in Abuja. According to Ebegba, “We are presently carrying out survey of possible GMOs suspects that have come into the country unofficially. We want to know whether they are safe or not. The importers of those products, we are going to invite them to check whether they have any permit with the agency. The GMOs currently in the markets do not have adverse effects on humans and the environment. The media should ensure they give the right information to the public. Do not help the rumour mongers to promote wrong information.”
This is even as the source from Ile Ife added, “Many countries in the world have been applying this technology to become food sufficient and also generate huge wealth from the export of their agricultural produce. A few among these are the United States, Canada, Brazil, India, Australia, China, South Africa and Burkina Faso. The best recourse to achieve this status is by earnestly adopting and sustaining the recent government efforts in promoting and adequately regulating agricultural biotechnology practice in the country.“
On the supportive, Gidado has insisted, saying, “Nigeria must promote and support this technology that is efficient, inclusive, climate-smart, sustainable, nutrition-and health-driven, and business-friendly in order to ensure that no Nigerian goes to sleep hungry by 2025.”
It is however hoped that the authorities concerned would dig further to clear the storm of uncertainty surrounding the use of Biotechnology in the country.
Odimegwu Onwumere is an award-winning journalist based in Rivers State, Nigeria. He contributed this piece via: apoet_25@yahoo.com
