Nigeria not at crossroads over food security, says agency chief
Rose Gidado
Coordinator of the Open Forum for Biotechnology (OFAB) in Nigeria and an Assistant Director at the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Rose Gidado, has faulted the claims by The Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) in collaboration of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), that Nigeria was at a cross road in the struggle for sustainable agriculture, safe food, biosafety and bio-security.
The group’s position recently at a meeting was based on the fact that the country was introducing genetic modification into the food chain process and therefore contaminating the country’s natural agriculture process.
But reacting to the issue, Gidado stated that it was important to note that to achieve developmental strides in economic diversification, food security, improved health systems, cleaner energy, job creation, wealth generation and poverty reduction, Nigeria must be determined to deploy every safe technology and invest purposefully in the training of manpower for the deployment of such technologies.
While commending the efforts of the organizers, Gidado noted that the onus lies on them to ensure that the citizenry get correct information.
“The integrity of a conference at which official and sponsored speakers made comments seeking to disparage the national programme on immunization which has been scientifically proven to reduce the incidence of polio in Nigeria as a disguise to give Nigerian children oral wild virus to kill them and reduce the population of Nigeria is worrisome”, she said.
She also added that comments made that genetic engineering consists of indiscriminate and blind shooting of genes into plants and that it involves taking genes from a fish and inserting same indiscriminately into tomatoes, is quite unfortunate.
Equally alarming was the surreptitious attempt of the meeting to mix applied science with religion; the attempt to intimidate and sow fear in people by hiding under the veil of religion as demonstrated at the meeting in question, and the refusal to provide balanced information to a carefully chosen, mostly scientifically under-informed population.
She noted that because modern biotechnology was still considered, as a new technology and the advancement in these areas have been so rapid, it has been the object of some doubts, fears, concerns as well as intense and divisive debate. These all bother on the potential risks to human health, the environment and society, and so are understandable.
Gidado argued that even as the debates rage, mostly in technologically developing nations, agricultural products of modern biotechnology have been consumed without deleterious effects for twenty five years, adding that there was need to understand that perceptions of the impacts of any technology were more complex than simple perception of benefits or risk.
In discussing modern biotechnology, “as for any new or emerging technology, we must develop the capacity to balance benefits and risk of alternative technologies, while respecting human autonomy, justice and the environment.
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4 Comments
GMOs Threaten our Food Security and Food Sovereignty
Some of the comments made by Rose Gidado as reported above must have been based on questions that were not accurately posed to her. It could also be that her comments were based on faulty notes she took at the conference which she attended although she and her GMO team were not invited by the main hosts, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and African Faith and Justice Network (AFJN).
As an Assistant Director at National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) and as the coordinator of Open Forum for Biotechnology (OFAB) in Nigeria, she has links to two institutions that have as their mandate the promotion of GMOs and placement of their products in the Nigerian market and on the dining tables of citizens of this country. Some of us have queried the place and role of NABDA on the Governing Board of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) – an agency set up to regulate the activities of GMO promoters in the country. The place of GMO promoters on the board of a regulatory agency raises questions of conflict of interest as already evidenced by their teaming up with Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Ltd to apply for a permit for confined field trials of Monsanto’s GMO maize, to which assent was given in record time of less than two months from the date the application was advertised for comments from the public.
The comment at the conference under reference that modern biotechnology can be compared to a cowboy technology was made by me. This was an allusion to the use of “gene guns” in the process of insertion of the genetic materials that the technologists may have prepared. As with any shooting activity, it does happen that at times the genetic engineers shoot off target. At other times when they hit their desired target they can not really be so sure of what the outcome would be. One top GMO promoter said recently that GMO cotton failed in Burkina Faso because of insertion of the genetic material in a wrong germplasm. This was said on television and confirms that genetic engineering is not as precise as the biotech industry would want us to believe. It is a technology searching for problems and feeding fat on false promises and hype.
It should also be noted that the insertion of genetic materials from fish into GMO tomato is not a fictional tale. A biotech company, DNA Plant Technology of Oakland, California, actually put the fish gene in a tomato. The GMO tomato was discontinued because of the public uproar that followed its creation. See the story at The Monsanto GMO Story: Adding a Fish Gene Into Tomatoes.
The notion that GMOs are part of a safe technology “needed to achieve developmental strides in economic diversification, food security, improved health systems, cleaner energy, job creation, wealth generation and poverty reduction, Nigeria” is contestable. Agricultural modern biotechnology poses peculiar problems to any environment. No wonder the industry survives largely through their political clout and by the open door policy they have with regulators that are at the same time promoters.
The fact that tampering with nature has impacts on religious, social and cultural sensibilities cannot be denied. Neither should it be described as unfortunate. It is the reality. Applied science must be alive to these sensibilities because science must be in the interest of society. And, in any case, we cannot be bullied into silence by the claim that science is neutral.
Science may be right when it says that every living thing can ultimately be broken down to carbon, for instance. Perhaps the basic building blocks of our bodies are similar across species. But some persons may not feel happy to have genes from a pig inserted in rice, for instance.
The fact that science is often not neutral is very much illustrated by goings on in research on genetic engineering, including new areas such as synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives. Critical scientists continue to be hounded out of jobs or into silence. Those who dance to the tunes of the biotech industry and their political backers flourish on the other hand.
The GMO cotton and maize varieties for which permits have been issued with the active support of NABDA and OFAB pose special risks to our environment. One reason we worry is that the crops are all engineered by Monsanto to withstand their weed killer Roundup of which a key constituent chemical is known as glyphosate. Just like debates raged on whether other toxic chemicals were safe, the debate is on concerning glyphosate. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that glyphosate is probably a carcinogen, based on research carried out by its (WHO’s) research arm and later became more ambivalent. However, the researchers affirm that they stand by their findings.
GMOs do not necessarily yield higher than natural crops. They promote monocultures and will promote land grabbing and thus displace and impoverish small scale farmers. GMOs depend on toxic agrochemicals that are not friendly to soils and ecosystems. They are a clear threat to food security.
No matter what NABDA, OFAB and NBMA say, Nigerians have solid reasons to worry about the opening of the doors of our agriculture and food systems to risky technologies.
GMOs are a Panacea to Food Security
Thank you for yours Bassey. Can you mention one technology in this world of today without risk? Is there anything as risky as the electricity we use today that can kill in seconds? The phones we use, aircrafts we board, cars, drugs we take? I can go on and on. Life is about risk. If you take it, you succeed. If you don’t, you fail. What matters about risk is regulation. regulation is the key and a safety valve to all risks. GMOs are as safe as their conventional counter parts. They are the most highly/extensively tested and studied foods/crops/products one earth and have been proven by every major science and food safety declared to be safe. No crop undergoes such scrutiny. They have had 20 years history of safe use in the US, Canada, Brazil, China etc.
GM technology gives higher yields with fewer farm inputs in terms of fertilizer/ pesticide/water use leading to environmental sustainability, health benefits and cost effectiveness to the farmer (because of reduction in pesticide use where the farmer has to spray his farm 8-10 times exposing himself to chemical spray). In Nigeria, we are loosing 350,000 m2 of landmass to desert condition yearly and this this is advancing southwardly at an estimated rate of 0.6km. This drought condition is already in African countries like Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. Farmers are crying. They have lost their crops to drought. GM technology provides crops with water use efficiency. Crops that are resilient to weather conditions.
There is nothing like mono cropping in GM technology. This technology is complementary to conventional breeding. Its meant to address only those challenges that can’t be addressed by conventional methods of breeding. Its a combination of all. It builds on the system that is already in place. Its a tool that the Breeders found very useful in addressing the menace of insect/pest attacks, climate change challenges(weather conditions, drought, salinity, flood etc). We are not putting any enterprise out of business. Let people be allowed to make choices
Agricultural Biotechnology is the pervasive agricultural practice that will contribute to food abundance and availability for the teeming population in Africa.
Dear Bassey, It is dissapointing that your method of presenting facts to the public is by attacking individual opinions. its ideal to query the roles agencies plays in carrying out their mandate but who queries you as an individual. As an Architect, are you credible to query a scientist in her professional field of expertise? I think its high time you stopped misinforming the public and sharing with them the personal fear you have about a technology that has been extensively studied and found safe by over 100 scientific institutions and Nobel Lauretes. No evidence has been found against Genetic modification worldwide except the myths you and your organization spread. Please stop Misinforming our Public. They deserve to be logical and not join your band wagon of misinformed activitst.
Dear Nimmo,
You provided a well articulated piece.
A universal problem with arguments I’ve come across often is the tendency to present “feelings” as opposed to “unbiased facts”. Trained as a scientist, its easy for me to see it here and this is what worries me – how misleading this is for those who can’t and won’t take the time to search out the evidence for themselves abundant in public domain. But you may argue, the rich Biotech Companies have bought and compromise the evidence. Really?!?
You mentioned “the GMO team” were not invited to the Health of Mother Earth Foundation. This is very concerning. I mean, shouldn’t they have been invited? Is there something you don’t want out in the open? I mean, the only way checks and balances can be maintained is by having an opposition present – a sheriff for the bandit one would say. Funny the so-called GMO companies always seem to keep an open door policy which brings me to the question, who are the actual sheriffs?
There has been a comment or two preceding mine with regards to your rather disrespectful words towards a person who has a Phd in a biologically related field which you wrote about so I won’t dwell on this. It just goes to say I won’t say a building you designed even if it stood on a toothpick would fall simple because you’re the architect and my place as a novice is to question, express my doubts (everyone is entitled to this) and wonder.
You also wrote that it was suspicious that a confined field trial was approved after only two months of public announcement. First, you knew about this and you didn’t say anything until after the wait-period? Secondly, this is not the same a commercialization and making it publicly available to the public. Besides that, it is just an approval to test the crop which is also accompanied by an environmental impact assessment which I’m sure you’d diligently see through – everyone gets a second chance even if you were only about 60 days late in doing anything about the first chance you got! But more seriously, it would be nice if in the future you can be specific on the exact challenges GMOs pose to the environment (do they take up more Nitrogen etc) especially since that’s where your expertise is (I think.)
Your swipe about the accuracy of the technology was my favorite comment of yours to be honest. The mistake made in Burkina Faso apparently sounds like a “human error” rather than that of the technology from the way you put it except I am reading that piece wrong. Besides this, old cross breeding techniques relied a lot on luck – blind luck – for the possible outcomes of the combinations of genes and we were okay with it. Now scientist have a more accurate method and we fret. Anyway, as a personal note, gene guns are only one (and one of the earliest – learned about them when I was still an undergraduate over a decade ago) of several techniques used for inserting genetic material, but its okay for an architect well vast in western movies to make this omission.
You’re right that no one would want a pig gene in rice. I won’t mind, but I know a number of people who would and I respect that. Perhaps that’s why every inter-species gene transfer is approved by all stakeholders (around the world) first before implementation according to conventions signed. So, pig-gene-in-rice? Not likely among other ridiculous combinations. It’s unfair to whip up sentiments like that! But what makes ethically right? Its okay to cross a donkey and a horse or a dog and a wolf, but not fish and rice (though we eat the combination a lot)?
Enough of the speculation – the conspiracies of Mosanto selling crop because they want to take over the world like they are the only biotech company there is! Farmers use glyphosate herbicides even when they are not planting GMOs! I could go on and on, but its past my bedtime. Take a course in biology – you may see (and write) differently.
Concerned Biological Scientist.
We will review and take appropriate action.