Stakeholders Advocate Banning Of ππ π’s In Nigeria To Avoid Danger In Future
BY AMOS DUNIA
The House of Representatives Joint Committee on Agriculture and Environment took the bull by the horn penultimate week when it held a Public Hearing on the impact of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) on human health and the environment. And to show the seriousness of the issue at hand, 97 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement (ZASM), were in attendance to critically and contextually dissect and examine the issues and controversies surrounding the impact of GMOs on the economy, human health, and environment in Nigeria.
The public hearing classically ended in exposing a troubling revelation about Nigeriaβs biotechnology space that is seriously marred by blatant conflict of interest that clearly uncovered the roles of regulators and or administrators that were expected to advance Nigeriaβs interests but, unfortunately converted themselves into pro-GMO lobbyists.
For instance, Mrs Rose Gidado, an Assistant Director with the Nigerian NABDAβs Agricultural Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), is at the same time the Nigerian Country Coordinator for the Bill Gates-sponsored OFAB, which is actively promoting GMOs in Africa.Β The glaring conflict of interest vis-a-viz her public service role in which she is expected to ensure food safety and efficacy through her OFAB role which seeks to advance the interests of foreign biotech companies can be better appreciated as serving an interest that is most likely not going to serve the general good of the people. There is therefore no gainsaying how GMOs easily found their ways into Nigeria without the needed government or parliamentary oversight, particularly under the influence of Gates-affiliated organizations like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
On the other hand, CEFSAR has been instrumental in lobbying members of the House of Representatives as well as working assiduously to expose the consequences GMOs and agrochemicals pose to national security. Their insight shed light on the silent crisis pushing Nigeria toward seed dependency, food insecurity, and environmental degradation, a development that led the House of Representatives to conduct the needed public hearing which helped to give a better and clearer understanding of the issues involved.
Simply put, the hearing went a long way in giving the lawmakers a premium appreciation of the existential threat Nigeria and Africa face and making them to realise that if no action is urgently taken, the infiltration of GMOs and chemicals will not only destroy Nigeriaβs agricultural independence but completely jeopardize Africaβs future in terms of food security.
Interestingly, shortly after the public hearing by the House of Representatives, intense lobbying commenced on both sides.
It can be safe to state at the risk of sounding immodest that the public hearing by the House of Representatives was one of the most deliberate attempts directed at probing the impact of GMOs on health and the environment by the Nigerian parliament.
What added colour to public hearing was the fact that the anti-GMO position was strengthened by a group of highly qualified scientists and academics, who took time with data to dispel the notion that those opposed to GMOs are pseudo-scientists or conspiracy theorists.
On the other hand, the pro-GMO lobby group appeared docile at the Public Hearing as they remained largely silent for most of the period of the hearing making it look as if they were afraid of being challenged or not too sure of what they were trying to market. This was in contrast to the well-prepared team of anti-GMOs made up of professors and experts that demonstrated deep knowledge about the negative impact of GMOs.
To make matters worse, the pro-GMO team were clearly not prepared to proffer answers to critical questions concerning the safety of GMOs that were posed by the members of the panel thus, as a soft landing, the Mrs Gidado-led pro-GMOs team were later asked to submit their responses in writing since they were unable to give clarity to any of the doubts raised.
In his presentation, one of the anti-GMOs team members, Professor Qrissterberg, pointedly said that a GMO may have the dominant terminator gene, also known as Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT), that prevents a plant from reproducing, adding that the terminator gene can also exist as a recessive trait and in a few seasons, this recessive trait can become active, ultimately causing the crop to lose its ability to reproduce, leaving farmers in the same position of being unable to produce food without buying new GMO seeds which in the long run will lead to a quadruple price regime in food chain supply and demand.
Qrissterberg specifically said that research has demonstrated that GMO wheat has higher levels of starch, thereby contributing to a rise in childhood diabetes and obesity.
The success recorded in the House of Representatives Public Hearing boosted the position of the anti-GMOs organisations that they had to quickly gathered the media to further expatiate on the need to completely ban GMOs in Nigeria to safe the future.
In an articulated memorandum presented by HOMEF and ERA/FoEN which was endorsed by over 90 Civil Society Organizations, nutritionist/scientists, consumers, farmersβ groups, academics, faith based groups, students, independent researchers, individuals and communities under the GMO-Free Nigeria Alliance, while applauding the Public Hearing by the House of Representatives, called for the immediate ban of GMOs in Nigeria owing to their unfitness for purpose and severe implications for human and environmental health and Nigeriaβs overall food system.
They also collectively called for the repeal of the National Biosafety Management Agency Act which came into force in 2015 and was reviewed in 2019 to include emerging and even more contentious aspects of the extremely risky modern biotechnology.
The concerned group noted that while Nigeria holds the potential to emerge as a leading force in African agriculture, the daunting challenges jeopardize the sector’s growth and the nation’s food security, adding that Climate-induced floods and droughts, internal conflicts, inadequate infrastructure, poor extension service and other challenges hinder agricultural development.
They noted that efforts at increasing food productivity in light of the named challenges have erroneously included the entrenchment of genetic engineering in agriculture, stressing that it a false solution which further compounds the problems. In the articulated views of the group; βThe use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) have dire implications for biodiversity, human and environmental health and does not support local economies -rather they increase profit for just a handful of transnational corporations.
βGMOs are products of genetic engineering which is a technology that allows scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes at the cellular level in a way that is not possible via traditional or natural processes. It allows DNA from one type of organism to be introduced into another related or unrelated species. Genetic manipulation is also done within a single organism.
βOur campaign against GMOs is particularly against genetic modification of food crops and animals and any other genetic modification that will alter ecosystem balance, negatively impact our agriculture or destroy our local economy and foods.
HOMEF and ERA/FoEN with over 90 Civil Society Organizations, nutritionist/scientists, consumers, farmersβ groups, academics, faith based groups, students, independent researchers, individuals and communities under the GMO-Free Nigeria Alliance then itemized the multifaceted implications that GMOs present on our health, environment, economy and overall food system as well as issues related to right to choose, farmersβ rights and the current biosafety regulatory architecture to include the following;
Health Implications
It is noteworthy that nearly all studies that claim GMOs are safe are funded by the very biotechnology corporations that produce and/or profit from GMOs sales. Several studies have linked the consumption of GMOs to a myriad of diseases including antibiotics resistance – the commercially approved Bt Cowpea expresses an enzyme which confers resistance to antibiotics – neomycin phosphotransferase II (NPTII). Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines [protein molecules involved in immune responses] associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. β AAEM, 2009. Studies have also shown that DNA molecule ingested in food can affect animals that eat them. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), of plants were found to be biologically active, affecting gene expression and the functioning of important processes in the body in the blood of humans and animals that had eaten them. Zhang, et al., 2012.
Multiple toxins from GMOs have been detected in 93% maternal and 80% fetal blood including non-pregnant womenβs blood. (Aris and Leblanc, 2011; WoΕΊniak et al., 2018). These toxins designed to kill crop pests are reaching humans and babies in the womb and could lead to allergies, miscarriage, and cancer (Poulter, 2011).
Genetically Modified Corn has been linked to rat tumors (SΓ©ralini et al., 2012). Also, GMO animal feeding has been associated with severe stomach inflammation and enlarged uteri in pigs; humans have a similar gastrointestinal tract to pigs (Carman et al., 2013).
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in most of the herbicides accompanying the herbicide tolerant GMOs have been found to cause irreversible DNA damage in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and in mice in vivo (MaΓ±as, 2009a; MaΓ±as, 2009b; WoΕΊniak et al.,2018) Such damage to DNA may increase the risk of cancer and birth defects.
Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the corporation, Bayer/Monsanto in the United States due to cancer cases that are linked with the use of the corporationβs GMOs-associated glyphosate chemical and for failure of the corporation to warn the citizens of the associated risks. A popular example of such cases is that of Dewayne Johnson who was awarded $78million in damages to be paid by the corporation as ordered by the jury in 2018. This same glyphosate that is characterised as a carcinogen by the Cancer Research Arm of the World Health Organisation is replete in our markets in Nigeria and even endorsed with NAFDAC numbers.
Environmental Impacts
GMOs have direct implications on biodiversity. Over 80% of GMOs are designed to be herbicide tolerant. This has significantly increased the use of herbicides in the US for example; needful to say that these herbicides are produced by the same companies producing the genetically modified (GM) seeds. These herbicides do not only destroy the target weeds but also non-target organisms that are essential for soil health and overall ecosystem function.
These chemicals can also run off to contaminate drinking ground water and surface water including drinking water sources.
There is also the severe threat of irreversible genetic contamination due to cross-pollination which could also lead to production of uncontrollable plant varieties and mutated plant varieties. A case in point is that of Percy Schmeiser in the USA, who had his field contaminated with genes from GM crops planted in a nearby farm. Schmeiser suffered a needless legal battle against the seed corporation, Monsanto/Bayer although he had no idea how those patented genes found their way into his farm. This would be the case of several of our small holder farmers even if they chose not to grow GM crops. This is backed by the Nigerian Plant Variety Protection Law of 2021.
The use of herbicide tolerant GMOs can also lead to the emergence of super weeds (weediness) and superbugs i.e weeds that are extremely resistant to herbicides created by transfer of gene from GMOs to wild plants. Superbugs are transformed bacteria which are transformed to enhance their usefulness. GM crops may also increase environmental toxins & bioaccumulate toxins in the food chain.
GMOs thrive in monocultures (due to the specific alterations made) which has direct implications on nutritional diversity and indirect implications on climate resilience.
Economic Implications
Farmers who have been given GM seed to plant as well as extension workers have complained that although GMOs may perform well in the first planting season in terms of productivity, their productivity drastically declines in the second planting season, meaning farmers cannot replant these seeds but have to continuously purchase the seeds every new season. This signifies an attempt at seed colonialism and loss of our heritage – forcing our farmers and by extension, consumers to depend on mostly foreign corporations for seed.
GMOs do not improve yields. On the 23rd of September, 2024 the National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN) reported that they βdid not record any significant increase in their yields compared to the local seed varieties but instead, since the introduction of GM cotton seeds during the 2020/2021 farming season, yield per hectare has remained almost the same.
The worrying aspect is where the cotton farmers reported that no other plant has been able to germinate on the farmlands where the GM seeds were planted, even after four years.Β βThe farm where we planted the GM seeds can no longer germinate our local seeds anymore. The land has been destroyed,β they noted.
The group noted that already, 19 EU countries, 4 Asian countries, 2 African countries, 5 countries in the Americas have banned GMOs, adding that up to 64 countries require manufacturers to label foods with GMOs while an increasing number of people around the world are choosing to eat organic and non-GMO products which has direct implication on Nigeriaβs export market.
The Right to Choose
Nigerian communities and farmers in the last decade are steadily being ensnared into growing GM Crops as a research conducted by Health of Mother Earth Foundation through Premium Times in 2019 indicate that Nigerian farmers know too little about GMOs to make informed decision as farmers given GM seeds to plant are at best told that the crops would not require too much spraying and will increase productivity.
The group said that to solve Nigeriaβs food security problem is to address the root cause of poverty, inflation, insecurity, conflicts, and gender discrimination; to invest in agroecology – an agriculture system which is able to transform our food system β repairing ecological damage, addressing pest invasions, ensuring stable and optimum productivity, building up biodiversity as well as nutritional diversity, increasing support for small holder farmers who currently produce over 70% of our food and climate change adaptation.
They pointedly said that Nigeria cannot claim to be immune to the dangers that GMOs and attendant chemicals such as glyphosate pose to human and environmental health, stressing that 19 European countries have completely banned genetically modified crops thus, will not allow genetically modified crops to be grown in their country.
Accordingly, the anti-GMOs team demanded a ban saying that it is clear that GMOs will in addition to the health and environmental impacts, upturn Nigeriaβs food system and negatively impact on food security in the long run and also called for the nullification of all the permits issued for the importation and release of genetically modified maize, beans, cotton and other sundry products into the country, stressing that the permits were issued without regard for the complaints by millions of Nigerians and without the consent of many.
Given the various positions by experts and key researchers that were articulated at the Public Hearing organized by the House of Representatives, it is clear just as it is convincing that GMOs are not good for Nigerians that are still struggling with various challenges. It is therefore time to band GMOs before they cause unmitigated disaster on the populace.
