Nigerians say no to Monsanto

GMO-advocates promote the biotechnology as not only safe for human consumption and the environment, it’s also a solution to malnutrition and global food security, as these crops have been genetically tinkered with to provide certain nutritional benefits and/or spliced-and-diced to resist certain pathogens and other roadblocks. For instance, Monsanto’s Water Efficient Maize for Africa, a five-year development project led by the Kenyan-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation, aims to develop a variety of drought-tolerant maize seeds.

But many Nigerians are urging the Nigerian government to reject Monsanto’s attempts to introduce genetically modified (GMO) cotton and maize into the country’s food and farming systems. One hundred organizations representing more than 5 million Nigerians, including farmers, faith-based organisations, civil society groups, students and local community groups, have submitted a joint objection to the country’s National Biosafety Management Agency (NABMA) expressing serious concerns about human health and environmental risks of genetically altered crops.

“We are totally shocked that it should come so soon after peer-reviewed studies have showed that the technology has failed dismally in Burkina Faso,” Nnimmo Bassey, the director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, one of the leading opposition groups, said in a statement. The Bt cotton is being phased out in Burkina Faso. “It has brought nothing but economic misery to the cotton sector there and is being phased out in that country where compensation is being sought from Monsanto.” He explains in a video “Genetically engineered crops are not engineered to help anybody. They are engineered to help the industry that produces the crops.” 

Monsanto’s crops are genetically enhanced to tolerate the use of the herbicide glyphosate which was declared as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) last March. “Should commercialization of Monsanto’s GM maize be allowed pursuant to field trials, this will result in increased use of glyphosate in Nigeria, a chemical that is linked to causing cancer in humans,” Mariann Orovwuje, Friends of the Earth International’s food sovereignty co-coordinator, said in a statement. Nigeria doesn’t have a platform to test for glyphosate or other pesticide residues in food and food products, nor do they have an agency that can monitor the herbicide’s impact on the environment, including water resources.

Ghanaian Government Sued over “Illegal” GM Crops Policy

Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) has filed a writ of summons against the Ghanaian National Biosafety Committee (NBC) and the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture MoFA, with an application for an interim injunction to stop any release or commercialization of genetically modified cowpeas and rice, until the provisions of Ghana’s Biosafety Act are expressly and fully obeyed.
FSG are not only calling for an injunction on the commercialization of GM rice and Bt cowpeas, but on all GM crops until the National Biosafety Authority is in place.

FSG have taken this action as a result of the fact that “Ghanaians are being constantly bombarded with news items containing false claims that the attempts to impose GM rice and beans are being done in accordance with the law.” FSG maintains that this is certainly and evidently not the case.
FSG’s case is very simple. According to Section 13 of the Biosafety Act, 2011, Act 831, on the “The application to import or place on the market”, only the National Biosafety Authority has such a power to authorize the commercial release of GM foods in Ghana. The law says:

 ”13. ( 1) A person shall not, without the prior written approval of the Authority, import or place on the market a genetically modified organism. (2) An application under subsection (1) shall include (a) The information set out in the Third Schedule (b) a risk assessment as set out in the Third Schedule, and (c) any other information that the applicant may consider necessary for an assessment of the potential risks and benefits of the requested activity.” See: Ghana Biosafety Act

According to the FSG, Ghana’s National Biosafety Authority “does not even exist, because it is yet to be inaugurated. No appointments have been made and approved even for it, so under what authority are those undertaking these dangerous experiments doing so, and who is supervising them? Apparently, even the National Biosafety Committee has no power of its own apart from the authority of the Minister for Industries, Science and Technology, MIST.”

Ghana is a signatory to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Article 23 of the Protocol requires Parties, on their own and in cooperation with other States and international bodies, to promote and facilitate public awareness and education, including access to information, regarding the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms (LMOs). It also requires Parties to consult the public in the decision-making process, to make public the final decision taken and to inform public about the means of access to the Biosafety Clearing-House.

Meanwhile, Section 11 (1) of the Biosafety Act states very clearly that: “A person shall not conduct a contained or confined use activity involving genetically modified organisms or their development without the written approval of the Authority”. The law further stipulates in Section 42 (2) that “The Authority shall publish notices of final decisions concerning applications made under this Act in the Gazette and electronic and print media, in order to ensure public awareness and participation”. This law has not been followed by the Ghanaian authorities, who have created a veil of secrecy surrounding the experiments currently going on in Ghana, according to FSG.

FSG calls on all Ghanaians who care about the safety and the quality of food they are putting into their bodies, to show keen interest in this matter and provide them with the moral and material support we need to prosecute this case which is set to be a David versus Goliath struggle.

from here