The fear of the consequences of Genetically Modified Organism, (GMO seeds) to the Nigeria’s agriculture and health sectors among others has pushed the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) to take a tough stand on the regulation of biotech products by calling for coordinated regulations, reports JOHN OBA.
The Director General, National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC), Dr. Olusegun Philip Ojo, says the Council will engage in intensive regulation of Genetically Modified Seeds to ensure that only approved seeds are allowed into the country.
Ojo said this on Thursday, at a one-day National Agricultural Seeds Council Institutional Biosafety Committee (NASC-IBC) workshop with the theme, “Institutionalizing Biosafety Guidelines and Procedures for Production, Certification and Quality Control of GM Crop Seeds, held at NASC headquarters, Abuja.
Dr. Ojo, implored other chief executives presence on the need to do the right thing concerning GMOs to attract mutual respect for the country in the comity of nations.
He said: “The National Agricultural Seed Act 72 of 1992 gives National Agricultural Seeds Council the sole responsibility of regulating every class of seeds in Nigeria while also providing technical support for Seed Entrepreneurs and promoting elite
varieties of crop seeds. On the other hand, the Seed Law stipulates that any variety that fails to meet farmers’ expectation shall be recommended for withdrawal from circulation; these remain our charter.
“We are using this one-day meeting to kick-start deliberation on the issues at hand, sensitize and rejuvenate the NASC-IBC to stay alive to its role; and leveraging on the available networking platforms, we are sure the set goal will be optimally attained.
“We are all aware that the National Variety Naming, Registration and Release Committee officially released two varieties of BT cotton into the Nigerian seed system and the same is expected to enter into seed trade in 2019.
“This is highly commendable to the credit of both the promoters (private and public institutions) and the Regulatory Agencies. I have no doubt that going by the words/ confession of the promoters, this will trigger a turning around in the National Textile Industry both down and up streams of the value chains that will amount to a great boost of the national economy.
“It is here necessary to remind all that as it required sophisticated skills and infrastructure to develop transgenic seeds; so also it requires same amount of investment in human capital development and infrastructure to properly regulate the outputs. I mean regulation that meets international standards. This is the very critical issue that should prick our patriotic conscience,” he emphasised.
He drew attention to the limited exposure and low support for capacities building even though biotech products are intensively regulated worldwide hence the need to build the capacity of those that will handle the regulations and implementation.
“Against the background of our limited exposure and abysmal low support for capacity development, NASC is aware that biotech products are intensively regulated worldwide. In the United States, they are placed under Coordinated Regulatory System comprising of more than two departments (equivalent of Ministries). In Argentina, it is a consortium institution involving more independent Ministries headed by an equivalent of a Chairman without prejudice to any side.”
He therefore called on the Committee to come up with substantial and sustainable road-map to handle the concerns over trade in GM-seeds for safe handling by all stakeholders without consequences to the country’s invaluable ecosystem.
Ojo assured that NASC will implement the National Biosafety Guidelines and Prices as derived from the Cartegena protocol. According to him, its regulatory exercise will not be limited to merely identifying whether a seed is genetically modified or not but would ensure that minimum field and seed standards are maintained at production for quality assurance and variety of seed in trade is properly identified to minimize adulteration.
“In all these commitments with respect to modern biotechnology, we are still green. Therefore, I am using this platform to invite your support for capacity building of our staff. Nevertheless, we have made some strides at training a number of staff on GM seed detection in collaboration with NABDA while a few others have received training on biosafety from our collaboration with NBMA which we acknowledge and appreciate.
“In our efforts at upgrading seed testing facilities, a molecular diagnostic facility has been commissioned for use in this Central Seed Testing Laboratory which has migrated us from visual to diagnostic certification for quality service delivery to stakeholders in the seed industry.
Also speaking, the Director General, National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), Dr. Rufus Ebegba, said there is need for synergy between various agencies in the sector.
“Synergy is very critical in the MDAs, there is a point of convergence, like the Nigeria customs service, they are the major border agency and we need them to assist the agency to enforce the situation whereby we don’t allow GM seeds particularly grains and other like consignments to genetically modified products into the country without approval.
“Biosafety permit its require before they are brought into the country for instance the issue of quarantine service too also grant permit for organisms to be brought into the country and in charge of phytosanitary of any organisms,” he said.
Explaining further on his agency collaboration with NASC, Rufus said when the genetically Organism has been brought in, “they will need to alert the agency so that we will take over our responsibilities in that regards to make sure the issue of Biosafety is also assured and when they are new variety of seeds that are coming to this country, Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service will ask Nigeria Agricultural Seed Council and will also need to alert the agencies that will have this new variety of seeds and they will also request from NBMA and with this, the agency will take track of genetically modified products to make sure that they are safe and known those ones that will be allowed into the market,” he said.
He said soon, some GMO seed will be coming into Nigeria market and NASC need to be properly equipped to handle it.
“We are now looking in the situation whereby some GMO seeds will be coming into the market, so they need to be properly equipped to see how they can handle this seeds to ensure the best quality of such seeds are worth to be sold to Nigerian farmers. After NBMA has confirmed the seeds safe, the NASC will also ensure the quality of the seeds meet necessary national standards.
“The agency is also coming up with a zonal offices and apart from that, we are working with border agencies like Nigeria Custom Services because they have what it takes to police the border even though the border is very large but there is improvements in their services and we will continue to work with them also Quarantine service they are at the border too and we will continue to work closely to assist the agency in the area of notifying the agency when GM seeds are brought into the country,” he revealed.
