The Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) has urged the Federal Government to domesticate genetic engineering with a view to helping it develop the capacity to improve indigenous crops.
The Country Coordinator of OFAB, Dr Rose Gidado, gave the advice while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
Gidado said that building the genetic engineering capacity of indigenous agricultural biotech agencies would help improve crop yield.
She praised the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) for supporting efforts at adopting the technology.
The coordinator said that the adoption of genetic engineering would go a long way towards ensuring food security in the country and improving the livelihood of the farmers.
“(It is a big boost) to hear that the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) is in support of this technology, because it represents the Nigerian farmers and the Nigerian farmers have their own population; they are many.
“(I am happy that they have) come out and made (a) statement (to) encourage the country to adopt the technology.
“They (farmers) travel to other countries where this technology is being commercialised and they see the money that is accruable to this, the money these countries make.
“China has gone far and if care is not taken, it is China that will bring GMOs to Nigeria while we are here folding our arms (and watching).
“They know that our population is large and there is market for everything.
“So what we are trying to do is (to see that) Nigeria keys in to domesticate it.
“What I mean by domestication is not to bring in (just) anything; it is not like that.
“It is for us to build our own capacity within the country; to own the technology; to do our own gene construct; to develop our own indigenous crops.’’
Gidado observed that in the past Brazil, Argentina, and India belonged in the same economic bloc as Nigeria.
She, however, said that the while the other three excelled when they adopted and domesticated genetic engineering, Nigeria could not because it did not domesticate the technology.
The country coordinator, therefore, appealed to the Federal Government to equip the National Biosafety Management Agency to enable it to regulate modern biotechnology activities and the release into the environment as well as the handling and use of genetically modified organisms.
OFAB is a platform that brings together stakeholders in biotechnology and creates a forum for interaction between scientists, journalists, the civil society, industrialists, lawmakers, and policy makers. (NAN)
