Health of Mother Earth (HOMEF) a non-governmental organisation has called for stiffer laws to regulate the products and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country.
Nnimmo Bassey, director of HOMEF who stated this recently at a workshop organised for farmers with the theme ‘Promoting Nigeria’s Biosafety, Dialogue with farmers on Food and farmers system’ explained that it was imperative to dialogue with farmers on issues affecting food and farming systems in the country with a focus on GMOs and their implications.
“GMO is an organism created in a laboratory by taking genes from one species and forcing them into an entirely unrelated species to achieve a new trait or characteristics which is not possible in nature,” said Bassey who was represented by Joyce Ebebeinwe.
“The foreign genes may come from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals or even humans,” he said.
“Some of the issues raised here and so far what we heard from the farmer was that they prefer that their indigenous verities are preserved, that more is done to ensure that food can be processed properly and our roads are good enough to link farms to market,” he added.
The introduction and acceptance of GMOs in Nigeria, he pointed out would bring a lot of negative effects on the rural farmers unknown to them and also to the consumers of such products.
“We have seen GMOs how they would affect the people how they would make farming a thing for just cooperation and big companies and that would affect the livelihood of farmers a lot.”
According to the director, smallholder farmers can grow enough food to feed the country’s large population but most of it is wasted because of inadequate storage and processing facilities in the country.
“GMOs are not the solution to the problems, they are more like treating the symptoms of a problem instead of the causes of the problem,” he said.
He, therefore, called on the government of Nigeria to pay attention to the concerns and challenges that these products would pose to Nigeria as a country and Nigerians as a people.
“We call for a review of National Biosafety Management Agency act to ensure that it can protect the interest of the people and not the interest of the cooperation’s because of the health implications of these GMO products.
“A lot of researchers have linked GMOs with immune disorders, liver and kidney diseases among others. Most GMOs are produced with chemicals and one of the chemicals is linked to cancer,” he added.
Also during the workshop, the Enugu state government says it will commence the creation of a database for farmers in the seventeen local government areas of the state to enable them get assistance directly through the state ministry of agriculture.
Mathew Idu, the state commissioner for agriculture, announced that the state government has paid N244 million counterpart funds to Agro-Processing, Productivity, Enhancement and Lively hood Support (APPEALS).
He said the government intended to assist farmers in the state who have identified their farm and not portfolio farmers to get some grants from APPEALS.
Regis Anukwuoji Enugu
