By John Oba
Abuja
Stakeholders at the ongoing national conference on the Nigeria Biosafety Act with the theme: “Just Governance: The Nigerian Biosafety Act and GMOs – Implications for Nigerians and Africa has debunked the notion that the acceptance of Genetically Modified Crops will help to solve the problem of hunger in Nigeria and Africa at large, saying hunger is caused by poverty and not lack of food.
Speaking at the conference, the Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, said majority of those who go to bed hungry are actually farmers because according to him, they have to sell off their produce in order to meet financial obligations related to family need.
Adding that farmers in rural community with poor infrastructure are simply unable to get their harvest to markets where they could obtain reasonable prices and that this dearth of infrastructure and social support opens farmers to multiple layers of exploitation and deprivation.
Bassey, who spoke on the topic titled: ‘Nigeria’s Biosafety Law: A Keg of Gun Powder’, said the drawbacks of agricultural genetic engineering are numerous and work against the grains of African agricultural systems, saying they are mostly grown as monocultures, depend on agrotoxics or agro-chemicals and on artificial fertilizer.
“Concerns include negative impact on agro-ecosystems, such as development of resistance in target insect pests, harmful effects on non-target insects, development of herbicide tolerance in weeds and genetic erosion or loss of traditional crop diversity as a result of genetic contamination through cross fertilization.
He lamented that the signing of the Nigerian Biosafety management Act (2015) into law, saying it is highly defective piece of legislation contrived to open up Nigerian for literal GMO invasion.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Executive Director, Africa Faith and Justice Network, Dr. Aniedi Okure, warned Nigerians and Africa at large to beware of the multinational companies as this may lead to the mortgaging of the heritage of their citizens future for a bowl of soup.
