Groups commend the Senate as it Pledges to enforce strict GMOs Regulation in Nigeria: Slams GM Crops as unsustainable and unsafe

Reacting to Food Farm News made available to the public on Tuesday the 5th, of April, 2022 that the ‘Senate insists on GMOs thorough regulation’ groups including GMO-Free Nigeria, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and others have applauded the Senate for considering a bill to review the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act in the overall interest of protecting food safety and public interests in Nigeria.

In his reaction, Nnimmo Bassey, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) stated that “this is a huge milestone towards defending the rights of Nigerian citizens to safe food and environment. It is a step in the right direction for consumers and especially for small holder farmers who are directly impacted by GMOs and associated chemicals, and yet have little or no knowledge or choice about the entry of these unnatural varieties into our food system or of their potential risks. We reject being fed with foods of dubious quality! We have always called on the Government to interrogate the questionable authorization of crops that would have irreversible impacts on our biodiversity, health, environment, and food safety. We applaud this intervention by the Senate in seeking to enforce law and order with proper regulation of Biosafety in Nigeria.”

Nnimmo Bassey added that promoting food safety and security/sovereignty is a mandate that rests not just on the Biosafety Management Agency but also on the entire public and thus public opinion must be duly considered in decision making processes concerning genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He added that it should never be forgotten that Nigeria shares extensive land borders with other nations and GMOs allowed into Nigeria are invariably being introduced to these neighbouring nations without their knowledge or consent.

Food Farms News had reported that the Presenter of the bill, the Senate Leader, Dr Yahaya Abdullahi stressed why the Bill for the Amendment of the National Biosafety Management Act (NBMA) must be supported for more diligent legislation that would make our country zero tolerant to any hazardous product as related to GMOs saying our soils and the good health of Nigerians must be well protected with eco-friendly environment. According to him ‘‘there have not been any conclusive finding regarding overall safety of GMOs on normal lives and environment. So Mr. President, my distinguished colleagues, caution must be our watch words in the handling of the GMOs because even as we speak about sixty countries around the world population have partially or totally ban the use of GMOs’’

The Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akinbode Oluwafemi, whilst congratulating the Senate for this bold step said, “We strongly believe that scientific integrity and social responsibility and accountability are not negotiable, and no technology should be exempted from these values.” He went on to say that those saddled with the duty of protecting our food must look away from the industrial yield-output paradigm and adopt a more integrated, systems approach to food and agriculture that takes into consideration many factors, including local food security and sovereignty.

He further said “there is need for very effective independent, credible, regulatory authority to ensure rigorous oversight of GE crops, without the least hint of any conflict of interest. Priority should be given to rural communities, livelihoods, and the interests of resource-poor and marginal small-scale farmers rather than serving corporate interests and their profits. GMOs will bring about seed colonization, distorting of our food culture and foster dependency on local and international corporations. Instead of ensuring the well-being of the people, it only stands to benefit the corporations and their Nigerian cohorts.”

The Group lauded the decision by the Senate, presided over by Senate President Ahmad Lawan, supported by majority of the Senators in passing of the Second Reading of the Bill for an Amendment of the NBMA 2015 and other Related Matters of 2022, for a more diligent and integrity test of GMOs. According to reports, speakers on the Senate floor were of the opinion that our environment must be of priority and better soil ecosystem management through diligent regulation of GMO seed varieties and other products must be upheld. They added that caution must be central in what we allow into our country through foreign partnerships in the interest of our environment and Nigerians health.

Barrister Chima Williams, The Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) said this a welcome development and the position of the Senate resonates with what they have being telling Nigerians and the Government for over a decade. “GMOs are regulated because their safety is not guaranteed. There are good reasons why in Europe robust regulatory mechanisms are in place for GM food and GM crops. GMOS are not the same as natural varieties and they are also not substantially equivalent. If they were indeed one and the same thing, as the GMOs proponents claim, why are they modifying them and why have patents on them? The claim of substantial equivalence as touted by the promoters of the technology, is an industry get-out tactic to avoid the rigour of proper assessment and regulation.”

According to Williams, GM technology has undeniably become associated with profit seeking corporations and rolled out as a tool to further consolidate their dominant market positions and colonisation of our food systems and processes.

“We must consider too that many things that scientists are trying to achieve with GMOs have already been provided by nature and by our local farmers through conventional breeding. We should not accept the proposition that only GM Crops and GM food can solve problems in agriculture. Certainly, there is sufficient evidence to show that Non-GMO options and innovations have out-performed the much touted GM options.”

Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, the Coordinator for Food Sovereignty Program for Friends of the Earth Nigeria and Africa and the Chair of the Agroecology and Land Working Group of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) said ‘There is enough reasons to hold back on commercialising GM Crops in Nigeria.’  She urged that the Senate should subject all the GMO crops and food approved into our environment to an independent, transparent, environmental, social and health impact evaluations. She said as a matter of urgency they should be subjected to stringent regulatory scrutiny, and they would know that the Groups concerns about them were justified.

The Groups strongly reject the non-circumspect modus-operandi of the National Biotechnology development Agency, National Biosafety Management agency and partners to foist GMO crops/foods upon undiscerning Nigerians via their introduction and marketing into our agricultural system and food supply chain.

The Groups said they have valid concerns about GMOs, and they have compelling and cogent reasons to support their views even though they are constantly being vilified by the promoters of the GM technology.  According to the Group, instead of engaging in open and honest debate, they have seen some scientists and promoters of the failed GM technology hardening their positions, lashing out at critics, and forwarding personal opinions or parroting corporate opinions and agenda. The group retorted ‘We refused to be swayed by industry-inspired lobbying and spin and mere rhetoric designed to shut off debates.

The groups equally urged the Senate to convoke a Public Hearing on the Bill to allow other Nigerians add their voices in support of the path the Senate has chosen by presenting their concerns, views and evidence before the Senate on why there should be stronger and more stringent conditions for admittance of any product that is unknown to the Nigerian households.

We need truly innovative and culture relevant systems such as agroecology that protect and enhance ecosystems, support small holder farmers while cooling the planet, increasing productivity, and promoting food sovereignty. Nigerians should support the Senate in the move towards protecting our food varieties and ensuring that GMOs are not forced on our people without their knowledge of what they are planting or eating.

We shall not fold our arms and watch our food and agricultural systems colonised and destroyed by profit seeking businesses working with public agencies serving unabashedly as middlemen.

1. Food security means “safe” Food. It is only those who haven’t done their research that can claim GMO’s are completely safe on the environment, non-target organisms ( Biodiversity), human and animal health. A lot of evidence points to the contrary.
2. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology (IAASTD) report, a roadmap for agriculture for the next 50 years, which sets out the choices which require to be made by nations for food security affirms that GMOs are not one of them (UN/FAO/IAASTD92).
3. The best yielding and most-affordable crops to feed the world (including Nigerians) are Non-GMO crops in small-holder agro-ecological farming systems (IAASTD 2009: International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development; UN Report: FAO: fao.org/nr/water/docs/Enduring_Farms.pdf; UNEP 2011 Green Economy Report;UNCTAD:http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/osgdp2011_en.pdf;)
4. There are ample examples of the colossal failure of GM crops and products all over the globe and in Africa. Genetically modification (GM) Insect resistant BT Cotton was the first GM crop to be introduced in Burkina Faso for field trials. These experiments were confined to Institute of Environment and Agricultural Research (INERA) research stations from 2003 to 2005 (ISAAA, 2013). A series of back-crossing of the BT trait into three most widely grown cotton cultivars across Burkina Faso was done and in 2008 (Dowde-Uribe & Schnurr, 2016). Unfortunately, the widely-touted success on the growing of BT cotton in Burkina Faso became a total failure where the quality of the cotton fiber length was compromised due to technical challenges as a result of short-cuts undertaken in the backcrossing.
5. In 2015, Burkina Faso’s cotton industry announced the withdrawal and phasing out of BT cotton completely by 2017, and return to conventional cotton. The Association interprofessionnelle du coton du Burkina Faso (AICB), which represents and manages the cotton sector, sought to claim compensation from Monsanto; around US$84 million in damages on the loss incurred over the years. (ACB, 2017)
6. In 2017, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, declined to sign a bill into law which allows Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) into their country. In a letter to the Speaker, Museveni said the use of the GMO crops will contaminate the indigenous ones which Ugandan farmers have developed for years. “This law apparently talks of giving monopoly of patent rights to its adder and forgets about the communities that developed original material. “This is wrong,” Museveni said. “To be on the safe side, GMO seeds should never be randomly mixed with our indigenous seeds just in case they turn out to have a problem,” he said.
7. In a totally unexpected move, the newly appointed Tanzania Agricultural Minister, Prof Adolf Mkenda, in mid-January 2021 announced the cancellation of research trials involving genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country and the decision to put in place extra biosafety scrutiny of imported genetically modified (GM) seed. The decision was taken by the Minister in order to conserve the country’s genetic resources and local seed. This is the second time the Tanzanian government has cancelled GM trials.
8. Other countries with high biodiversity of important crops, such as Peru has had a moratorium in place with regard to the introduction of GM crops into their territories, to prevent genetic contamination of local crops, which are vital for global food security and are essential genetic resources for the world’s breeders.
9. When it comes to countries that are centres of origin, Mexico has a  moratorium against GM maize cultivation, to protect local agricultural biodiversity, and farmer livelihoods and cultures, provided a great example in blocking the cultivation of indigenous GM crops in their countries.
10. Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously denied four appeals filed against the judicial decision to ban the sowing of genetically-modified corn and a controversial herbicide in the country, according to Mexican press reports.The court denied the challenges presented by a raft of agriculture seed heavyweights, including Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, PHI and Dow.The four companies had called for a suspension of a precautionary measure that prevents the use of GMO corn in the country, and had mounted dozens of legal challenges over several years appealing the decision. A presdential decree, which was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on December 31, 2020, bans the use of glyphosate, the official name of a Bayer-produced herbicide, along with imports of GMO corn from January 2024.
11. It is illustrative to note that the release of this GM variety will utterly contaminate natural varieties through cross pollination, posing a threat to their preservation. The loss of varieties means that rather than promote food security, Nigeria and indeed Africa is stepping into an era of uncertainty, of gross unpredictability and food supply instability. We must also consider the fact that the insecticidal beans can also kill non-target organisms and lead to the development of super bugs. A recent review of the risk assessment document on which the approval was based reveals deficiencies in the safety assessment of the BT toxins produced in the plants, which pertain to the expression of the additionally inserted genes, the impact on non-target organisms, and the impact on bio-geochemicalrocesses and food safety.
12. We reiterate again, the clamour by the Nigerian government officials for genetically modified food crops goes against the precautionary principle (a major principle of the Cartagena Protocol to which Nigeria is signatory) which advises governments to take precaution in the face of uncertainty of safety of GMOs in terms of human and environmental health. GMOs are accompanied with large range of socioeconomic problems. Smallholder farmers – the bedrock of agriculture on the continent – they should not be made to compete with large industrial producers in a globalised market, leading to further land grabs, rural unemployment, depopulation, malnutrition and a sharp increase in violent conflicts between small farmers and large agro-industrial producers. The recent farmer crisis in India has proven once more that GMOs lead to accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small elite group unwilling to share its profits with the rest of society.
13. We pray that the rights of Nigerians be respected and not be compromised; Farmers should choose their own crops for production and the consumers’ choose what to consume.
14. May we request that all decision TO / NOT to continue the introduction of GMO’s to the nation’s agricultural system and food supply chain be premised on the tripod concerns of COST-BENEFIT-SAFETY.
15. Most sincerely, the increased anxiety and heated debate presently in Nigeria about GMO crops/food requires in the very words of Dwight D Eisenhower(US President, 1961)  that “in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite”.
16. Certainly, there is need for a MORATORIUM. We earnestly plead that you kindly be guided on this subject matter by the words of Rachael Carson in Silent Spring (1962),” what science believed and technology made possible must first be judged for its safety and benefit to the whole stream of life”.