GMO: Experts Demand Ban on Cowpea In Nigeria

A union of non-governmental organisations, farmer groups and research experts have called upon the Nigerian government to immediately ban the distribution of Genetically Modified Cowpea, a popularly known bean among Nigerian farmers. This group, who are known as the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), have also called regarding the urgent need for the Nigerian government to strengthen the nation’s Biosafety legislation in line with the Precautionary Principle which advises caution in cases where there is no certainty of environmental and health safety. It further demanded for adequate support for smallholder farmers, who have over the years resisted pest and disease invasions and improved food productivity, through indigenous knowledge and innovation.

The group made their call during a press conference titled “Nigerian Farmers and GMO Crops” and explained that GMO Cowpea possesses severe long-term negative implications on the environment and farmers’ seed and populations as well as production practices. They said that Nigerian farmers would most likely become trapped in unsustainable, unsuitable, and expensive farming practices, deepening the threat to food and nutritional security and ultimately farmers’ rights. The group advised that other African governments refrain from the use of this variety along with other GM crops on the continent.

At the event, Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, said that, “We can’t separate our culture from our food and when this is contaminated or eroded everything changes and why we are having this conversation is because this issues are very central to our being and it does appear that sometimes we don’t lay sufficient emphasis on those issues and especially you know there is a ministry for agriculture they don’t have as much resources as others and they ought to have in primary education and health and that’s where most of our resources should go to, it should be going to those agencies that are ready to think of our well being and our future. A well fed population is also a healthy one. When you eat food that is not good for you, that is not safe, you can’t be healthy and if you are not healthy in a way that the health system will not support you, you are simply on your own and at this time most Nigerians are on their own,”

“From recent studies, it was revealed that because of the pollinator characteristics of the natural West African wild cowpea populations, BT-gene will move from the genetically modified lines to non-modified lines of both cultivated and wild relatives, resulting to other plants gaining the resistance trait that will cause an alteration in ecological balance and present adverse effects.”

Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, an environmental, human and food rights advocate as well as the coordinator of the food sovereignty programme at Friends of the Earth, Nigeria/Africa said, ” It is worth noting that this cowpea containing the transgene Cry1Ab, has not been approved anywhere else in the world. Use of this BT gene was discontinued in South Africa where the cultivation of maize modified with the gene led to enormous pest resistance and infestation. Current research has revealed that protein produced by this transgene has toxic effects on human liver cells and induces alterations in immune systems of laboratory animals.

In her own words, several countries in the world have banned such crops which makes Nigeria and Africa a dumping ground for them, saying, “The introduction of GM engineered cowpea is a great cause for concern for farmers, consumers and civil society organisations across the continent. While the technology is said to be provided royalty-free, the long-term implications of transforming the environment, farmers’ varieties, and production practices, will trap farmers into unsustainable, unsuitable, unaffordable farming practices, and deepen the threat to food and nutritional security. This is particularly worrying since Nigeria is one Africa’s centre of diversity of cowpea, and therefore extensive wild relatives and local varieties exist, with significant cultural value and traditional knowledge associated with cowpea production and consumption.”

Mr. Ifeanyi Casmir, a medical and molecular microbiologist at the University of Abuja, gave his remarks and called for the destressing of the National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control (NAFDAC) to be able to effectively carry out its overburdened responsibilities. He said ” NAFDAC is an overloaded lorry. We advocate that it is disbanded so that it will have agencies to take up some of its responsibilities.