Recently,there were reports that the world’s population would soon hit 10 billion. Then the point was made that the only way to feed that population would be none other than by genetically-modified(GM) crops. Presenting GM crops as the solution to future food shortages is raw propaganda. That style of messaging has been used to make people accept productions that may actually be against their own interest.
Why is the claim that GM foods will be the main global source of food mere propaganda and an assumption that consumers believed hook, line and sinker?First, researchers have shown that at present,food enough to feed 13 billion persons is already being produced. This means that feeding 10 billion is already possible and the numbers in themselves should be the reason for agitation.
Records also show that up to 30 percent of food produced globally is wasted.In Nigeria, it is believed that up to 50 percent of food produced gets damaged before reaching the cooking pots or dining tables. There are many reasons why harvests go bad in Nigeria and genetic engineering cannot solve that problem.
Clearly, food waste is a major factor in the prevalenceof hunger in the world today. Another reason is the use of food products in industrial production rather than to feed people. There are other reasons why people go to bed hungry at an increasing rate today. We must, however, admit that people are not hungry for lack of food but due to other factors.
The peddling of falsehood is the cruxof propaganda. And because GMOs are relatively new, stories about them easily make news. Otherwise, why would anyone raise an alarm about feeding 10 billion when there is already enough food to feed more than that number?There is a simple answer to that question;if the current 7.7 billion cannot be fed at a time when almost double the amount of needed food is being produced, what will happen when the population rises by an additional 2.3 billion?
This question is why we insist that our food future must be approached from multiple routes, with a key point being protecting our biodiversity,lands, and farmers and preserving our harvests. What is urgently needed includes investment in resilient social infrastructure,buildingprocessing and storage facilities, and preserving our indigenous seeds. Resilience is built in the preservation and propagation of crops that have been selected and developed by our farmers through the millennia.
Producing enough food to meet increasing needs is achievable through food sovereignty. There is more to feeding than just the ingestion of food items. We are what we eat. Food is life and culture. It is absolutely important that we consider the politics andeconomics of food, including ownership of seeds and access to land. Food sovereignty defines the right of peoples at all times to access safe, nutritious, healthy and culturally-appropriate food, produced using methods that are ecologically sound and sustainable. It ensures the rights of farmers to preserve and share seeds and to keep them from contamination by genetically engineered varieties. The industrial system of farming today, which is characterised largely by genetic engineering of seeds, monocultures, high chemical inputs and dependence on fossil fuel resources, threatens those rights.
Our food narratives must question the logic behind the propaganda that GMOs are safe and good for us. We have the right to question an attempt to overturn our food systems, promote mono-cropping and project accompanying toxic chemicals as safe. We have a duty to emphasise that just as food choices and preferences have strong cultural foundations, so do the distribution and marketing systems. Part of the GMOs’ propaganda is that they would be labelled and so Nigerians would have the liberty to choose if they want to buy them or not. That claim is fatuous when we consider that our largely informal food distribution system does not offer room for labelling. All you need to do to grasp this truth is to look at the way foods are sold around us. Who will label GMO roasted corn or ogi? How about akara or moimoi made from GM beans? Who will label GM garri?
We must dialogue and critically examinethe implications of genetic engineering of foods to our health, environment, food and farming systems in Nigeria. We must consistently defend our food sovereignty as the best way forward for agricultural productivity and food supply.
How much do we know of the genetically-modified beans that has been approved for commercial release? Or of the GM cotton which failed and was abandoned in Burkina Faso but has been approved for commercial release in Nigeria? What do we know of GM cassava experimentations and applications that are ongoing?
The time for lazy acceptance of technofixes as the silver bullets to every problem is over. Our agricultural researchers and scientists should be supported to improve local systems working with indigenous knowledge and practices. It is very dangerous when science is not in the interest of the people. Just think about the propaganda with which cigarettes were sold to the unsuspecting public. The deadly effects linger and the factories are still churning out the poisons. It is time to do the needful concerning the foods we eat. No flippant assurances of safety should be accepted.
We all have a responsibility to get the right information with which to defend our farmers as well as our food systems and to speak up against the forces that threaten our right to safe food, environment and livelihoods.
NnimmoBassey
NnimmoBassey is Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)
