Penultimate week, scientists in Nigeria heave a sigh of relieve from the attacks of the anti GM crusaders who since 2015 have employed all manner of campaign to frustrate government efforts to enhance agricultural production.
The wave of modern biotechnology adoption is weeping across the continent with scientists across all regions of Africa making frantic efforts to address the challenges of farmers which conventional plant breeding methods alone cannot address.
The introduction of modern biotechnology techniques in agriculture is mainly to deal with specific issues such as diseases, pest, post-harvest protection and to ensure farmers get value for their investments.
But the Anti GM crusaders fail to recognize that the weakness of the seed sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is a major constraint to agricultural development. Informed people know that lack of seeds at the beginning of each cropping season is a serious challenge faced by millions of small holder farmers.
Government usually intervene to purchase and distribute seeds to these farmers who otherwise, will not be able to plant crops because of seeds. However, these frequent government actions would never be successful if they are not supported by the still young private Seed Industry. The development of a strong and viable seed sector (public and private) is of strategic importance. This simple fact is not understood by our anti- GM activists.
Most of the farmers have lost their seed independence since the 1970’s because of the recurring harsh weather conditions like drought, floods, salinity and the poverty level in the rural areas. These farmers just cannot save seeds when they don’t have enough to feed their families. Only some idealists young Europeans working for NGOs and who don’t know the reality, are propagating this myth of farmers’ seed independence; by doing so they are hampering the initiatives for the development of the seed sector. These people and other anti-GM activists are against the development of commercial agriculture as well as the development of private seed businesses.
These activists also seems to ignore the fact that the private seed sector tends to out-perform the public seed sector, although the Government has the responsibility to regulate the seed sector by taking appropriate laws to safeguard farmers interests. They also forget that even the public sector will not give the seeds free of charge to farmers. At least the cost of producing the seeds must be recovered; and if the public seed sector has to grow and be sustainable it must make profits.
However, the leading research institutions and scientific organizations in the world, WHO and FAO, Nobel Prize winners, recognize and declare repeatedly that GM crops are as safe as any conventional food crop; even EU countries that are politically opposed to GM crops spent millions of dollars to import GMO food and GM derived feed to maintain the productivity and competitiveness of their animal industry.
We have seen that for more than 20 years millions of people daily consume GM food without a single substantiated case of any kind of adverse effects. Despite the long history GM crops safety, some self-made biologists are not ashamed to disseminate lies about GM food crops.
Dr Goebbels the Minister of propaganda for Adolph Hitler said “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” This is exactly what the network of Anti GM activists has been doing. They have become champions in manufacturing, collecting and disseminating lies in the hope they will be believed.
The truth is that the Bt.-crops (maize, soybean, cowpea and others) are safe, and even safer than their conventional counterparts because experience has proven they have less insecticide residues since the amount of insecticide applied is drastically reduced, and they are less contaminated by mycotoxins than conventional crops (Koch et al., 2015). These mycotoxins -fumonisins and aflatoxin- retard children’s growth, cause multiple cancers and depress the immune system creating a disease similar to AIDS.
The PBR-Cowpea project has shown that given the opportunities and the means our national agricultural research scientists are capable of using the most advanced knowledge and technology to solve difficult constraints faced by smallholder farmers, and boost agricultural productivity and production. With a growing population, and the expansion of urban centers into agricultural lands, the practice of only traditional system of farming with its inherent low productivity, would be disastrous for African countries because the food deficits will be aggravated. We need a combination of all technologies, traditional and modern to be able to meet up with the challenge of feeding the ever growing population.
Kolo is the Regional Head, AATF, Abuja and Gidado is Assistant Director at NABDA, Abuja
