As part of efforts to raise awareness about the negative impacts of GMOs on food, environmental activists have called for a complete overhaul of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), which is the agency responsible for regulating biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
The activists made the call at a media workshop on the “My food is African campaign” held by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, January 25.
While speaking on the implications of consuming GMO foods, the Executive Director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey, lamented that many Nigerians including farmers are ignorant of what they consume, adding that these foods with GMOs are most times brought from laboratories and are exported to different countries.
In his words, ‘’ Farmers are not told they are planting GMOs, they tell them that there are improved seeds. They are deceiving Nigerians to eat unhealthy foods. The biosafety agency should be overhauled.’’
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Speaking on how to identify GMO products, he said, ‘’You can identify GMO products by reading the ingredients. They are labelled with the GMO inscription on the products but crops harvested from the farm are always difficult to identify because they are not usually labelled.
‘’This is why it is very dangerous. In other countries, they label the ones that have GMOs but in Nigerian markets, they are not labelled,”he said. “For example, we are now having GMO beans and beans sold in the markets are not labelled,”.
Speaking further, he said ‘’Nigeria’s safety laws require that GMOs should be labelled but it’s not working in reality. We hope that the new government will wake up to fight these things. Africa is really at risk because if there are health issues, we don’t have a health system that can withstand those challenges and Nigeria doesn’t need GMOs to feed its population.’’
Also speaking, the Country Director for Biointegrity and Natural Foods Awareness Initiative, Dr Jackie Ikeotuonye, said one of the challenges humans face in the food system is the ones created by man.
Ikeotuonye noted that GMOs are unhealthy and cancerous to the human body, highlighting that they are found in processed foods, staple foods and fruits, emphasizing that using GMO crops has no real benefits and that biotechnology companies merely use GMOs to increase their revenues.
She further cautioned that it is false and deceptive for regulatory agencies to claim that GMOs are used to combat herbicides, noting that there are natural foods available to feed Nigeria’s growing population.
She urged the government to provide farmers in Nigeria with the facilities they need to advance the country’s food system and agriculture.
Story was adapted from NatureNews.
