The mere mention of the acronym GMO elicits some shivers in the nerves of most Africans. Although the body of knowledge on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is swelling, the naysayers are still holding a fair share of the people’s mind..
The reason is simple. Just like every bad news, to hear that GMOs are the causes of cancers and even other health conditions whose causes have been known for ages seems to have gained more popularity among the people than the problems they are solving.
It remains an absurd irony that the introduction of genetic engineering as a technological tool for solving some of the continent’s age-long problems like the persistent food crisis is being resisted by a group of people.
The anti-GMOs crusaders have used anecdotes to preach against the introduction of genetically engineered crops, saying they would result in adverse consequences on people and the environment. Incidentally, the preachers have failed to explain their deductions with scientific evidence.
Unknown to the people, the anti-GMOs may have been recruited by major producers of chemical inputs like fertilizers, herbicide and pesticides to enable them hold on to the market, despite evidence that persistent use of such has rendered most of Africa’s soils unproductive.
Countries in West Africa are losing millions in hard currencies to purchase chemicals that are mostly substandard and can cause deaths and ageing among farmers struggling to keep insects and pests away from their crops.
The situation is worsened by low farm productivity due to increasing cases of insect and pest infestationand climate change.
The good news is that some countries like South Africa and Nigeria are turning these challenges into opportunities using biotechnology as the tool.
Scientists at Nigeria’s Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Kaduna State, have successfully incorporated the Bacillus thuringensis (Bt) genes into the Nigerian varieties of beans.
Sampea 20-T, the resultant product of painstaking scientific research, released in 2021 for commercialization after nine years of high-profile vetting and trials has proven to resist the damaging insect larva-Maruca vitratacommonly called butterfly.
Prof. Abdullahi Mustapha, director general of the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), the body that oversees and promotes biotechnology research and appropriate utilization in Nigeria, described the burden that the introduction of the Pod Borer Resistant (PBR) Cowpea has taken off the Nigerian farmer thus: “A farmer can loose everything he has cultivated to this damaging insect larvae- Maruca. This new variety, Sampea 20-T requires two to three sprays for a planting season to control the pest instead of spraying up to eight times as in the case of the local variety. This is the working of Biotechnology.”
Hitherto, the Bt Cotton was similarly released.
Prof Mustapha said both varieties of Genetically Modified Crops were developed and released by the scientific community to meet specific needs of the people and address some of the challenges that hitherto could not be mitigated using the conventional breeding methods.
Sub-Saharan Africa has, in recent times, recorded the most rapid rate of agricultural production growth since 2000 more than any other region of the world.
However, a 2021 Africa Agriculture Status Report 2021 by the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), says three-quarters of this growth is driven by the expansion of crop land rather than yield increases.
The report cites threats such as persistent droughts, famine, locusts, fall armyworm (FAW), civil conflicts and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic as impediments to the continent’s progress in this regard.
As it stands, farmers in Africa cannot attain the yield potentials of popular legumes like cowpea when compared to other parts of the world. While farmers in the Americas, the West and Asia are getting over 10 tons per hectare of maize, farmers in Africa and particularly West Africa are still struggling to attain four tons per hectare.
According to a forecast by Statista, Africa’s total population would reach nearly 2.5 billion by 2050. This has prompted calls by stakeholders for Africa to take urgent steps to increase crop production without compromising the continent’s natural resources.
At the regional level, the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union Commission and the Africa Union Development Agency for several months last year spearheaded several meetings across the continent aimed at ensuring that developing African countries spoke in one voice at the UN’s extraordinary global Food Systems Summit.
Sequel to this meeting, Rwanda hosted the pan-Africa summit on Biotechnology this year.
At the sub-regional level, Nigeria has taken the lead in West Africa by adopting biotechnology, resulting in the release of Bt Cotton and the Pod Borer Resistant (PBR) Cowpea.
This was made possible by the efforts of NABDA through the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) in Africa, Nigeria Chapter with support from AATF.
Nigeria made history as the first country in Africa and the world at large to develop and release a cowpea variety that is resistant to the notorious Pod Borer, which has the capacity of destroying a whole beans farm.
Chronicling the milestone that led to the release of the PBR cowpea, the NABDA DG said, “Going down the history lane of Bt. Cowpea Project in Nigeria, NABDA in carrying out her mandate of biotechnology facilitation, and as a requisite for compliance to Biosafety Regulation, in 2010/2011, in partnership with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, designed and constructed a level -2 containment facility, which was used for Biosafety containment studies at IAR, Zaria, where this project was developed.”
NABDA, with the support of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation also facilitated, funded and spearheaded the Biosafety Bill passage, a process that took nearly six years at the national Assembly before its eventual passage and subsequent assent by the President. This led to the creation of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) with pockets of technical supports from development partners including the AATF, USAID, USDA, PBS, AU-NEPAD/ABNE, Africa Harvest, Biotechnology International (AHBFI), Bayer International and Crop Life International.
This action provided an enabling and friendly regulatory environment as required by the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which Nigeria signed and ratified in 2001/2002. Without this, Nigeria couldn’t have commercialized any genetically modified crop.
The Nigerian PBR cowpea success story has become a learning reference for other countries. The country is at the forefront of Biotechnology deployment and domestication in Agriculture, Health, Environment and Industry as a way of responding positively to the national aspirations on food security, job and wealth creation, affordable healthcare delivery, industrialization and sustainable environment.
NABDA, through the National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB), the main Secretariat of the National Varietal Release Committee (NVRC), has released several improved varieties of crops including Bt Cowpea and Bt Cotton, livestock and fisheries.
According to Prof. Mustapha, Nigeria is expecting the release of the third GM crop, Tela Maize, developed for drought tolerance and insect resistance (Stem borer and Fall army worm) in the coming years.
Meanwhile, local scientists in Ghana and Burkina Faso have gone far with the development of PBR cowpea. Unfortunately, they await independent country-specific regulatory approvals for release.
In Ghana, though the crop and others being developed by scientists have gone through various stages of evaluation and field trials, none has been commercialized.
Currently, an application submitted by the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) on the PBR cowpea awaits approval from National Biosafety Authority (NBA), Ghana’s GMO regulatory body that was set up after Ghana passed the Biosafety Act (831) in 2011.
The argument by experts is that West African borders are so merged that it would be difficult to prevent trans-border flow of the Nigerian PBR cowpea, hence the need to ride on the Nigerian process to institute a sub-regional template that could fast-track approvals across countries. Gladly, most countries within the sub-region share similarities in geography, eating culture and food preference.
Lead, Product Stewardship at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), Onyekachi Francis, stated how this could be achieved in his presentation during the Nigeria-Ghana Biotechnology and Biosafety stakeholders forum held in Abuja.
He listed some of the prerequisites to include the creation of Shrink Wrap Contract which contains the geography of release on seed packet and labelling obligation, proper documentation on Biosafety Clearinghouse (BCH), License obligation to seed companies as well as health and safety of farm workers.
Other considerations he said could make a sub-regional framework reliable include trainings to explain risk and mitigation measures, implementation of product stewardship to ensure product integrity, quality and long-term benefit, while suggesting that there is need to build strong stakeholder and political support in West African to promote the adoption of PBR Cowpea.
Source: Collins Nnabuife(Tribune News)
