GMO in circulation very soon, says NABDA DG

Director General (DG) of NABDA Prof. Lucy Ogbadu

Controversy on the circulation of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) crops in circulation has been doused by the Director General (DG) of NABDA Prof. Lucy Ogbadu who confirmed that while one cannot outright say no to GMO product in circulation was because some are already on farm trials with the hope of being released soon as they are certified meeting biotechnology standard.Excerpts…

Good afternoon ma, could you introduce yourself to us?

My name is Lucy Ogbadu, Director General (DG) National Biotechnology Development Agency.

What is the mandate of your agency all about and its relationship with food security?

The mandate of the agency is for the promotion of biotechnology, deployment of research results from all institutional landscape for the benefit of citizenry, setting research agenda in biotechnology and ensuring the impact of all these on the lives of all citizenry of the nation.

How has this mandate research agenda setting being impacting on food security of the nation?

At the onset when this Agency came on board in 2001, soon after that in 2002, a national workshop involving all relevant stakeholders in Nigeria was convened, and this was with the view to setting Research and Development (R&D) agenda in all aspects of biotechnology for scientists to follow which we are able to achieve through the workshop. But shortly after the setting of this agenda the working condition of our tertiary research institutes started gradually going down the hill as activities in most of these establishments are not working to what we have envisaged. Presently we are promoting sectorial networks of specialized researchers’ groups in the country by way of encouraging them to work as team towards pursuing a national holistic agenda in various sectors of the biotechnology. So in this aspect we are on course as you know biotechnology is a vast field to an extent that you must decide on an aspect of the most priority of the nation as regards food security.

As the vagaries of climate changes are taking a serious toll on our food security, in what way can the new technology be of use to us?

A lot… This is in the sense that Nigeria that Nigeria is situated within a geo graphical region where Northern fringes of this country borders with the desert which results into encroachment of the desert into Nigeria. You see that the Northern part of this country is prone to climate adverse condition that will not encourage crops to grow very well ordinarily without improved technology enhancement. In addition, this technology offers advantages in all areas of climate exposure to crops. For instance, in the North where is no too much of rain, crops are developed to withstand drought condition as they are made to do with little amount of rainfall. Even in the other parts of the country where there are abundant rainfall, crops are developed in such a way it will be able to adapt where there is too much of rainwater.

 So in all climate areas, this technology offers advantages in the sense that crops can be developed to overcome all the excesses of the climatic challenges that we have witnessed. If you look at the new rice you had earlier mentioned, you will discover it is nitrogen efficient with salt tolerant variety. What this means is that this new rice variety have been developed to be able to stand little application of fertilizer, withstand inadequate rainfall and to withstand salt accumulation in the soil especially in an irrigated areas where there are accumulation of salt. So the rice seed has been packaged in such a way that it can withstand all kinds of stress. The same is with many other crops that are in pipe line. So it is this respect that we can comfortably say that the technology offers solution to challenges that we are witnessing as result of climate change.

With what we read on social media and pages of paper, one may tend to believe genetically modified crops (GMO) is already in circulation, so are they already in circulation in Nigeria?

In a way yes, in the sense that  while we are waiting for the passage of bio safety bill into law,  application are presented to trying those ones that have been developed from outside the country under confined field trials. So permission was granted for these confined trials. What is confined trials? It is about introgression the trials in the already developed crops from outside into our own local varieties such that our farmers will not reject them by saying they are not familiar with them. So the traits from these developed crops are introgression into our local varieties to have an improvement. So in this respect, yes, work is on full course.

What about its commercialization through registration through a normal process?

The answer is outright no; there is no GMO that has been officially registered to be on the Nigeria market. There is none that we are aware of. There is no GMO on the Nigeria market. And if you are referring to the false circulation just recently on GMO rice, I can tell you categorically that is the hand work of mischief makers who probably took palm oil to colour normal rice and place it side by side with other rice to perfect their mischief, as GMO. Even Golden rice is not on the market yet, but in the pipeline, but they are at the last stage of release into global market.

Then what is the economic importance of acceptability of this technology in Nigeria?

The economic importance is very huge on food security, wealth and job creation. May God spare our lives by God’s grace, we shall all be witness to the importance of what will come definitely as we will all now ask why the noise, in the first instance, by the virtue of acceptability the technology will garner to take Nigeria to the promised land. Already those nations that were quick in embracing this technology are already reaping huge dividend from it. So it is my prayers that the Lord will spare our lives to witness all this in Nigeria.

How soon should we expect this product in commercial circulation?

Hopefully, we have three products in the pipe line that would soon come out. The Bt cowpea, that is cowpea that has been developed to show resistant to maruca pest, Africa bio-fortified sorghum  that is genuine corn that has been developed with enhanced nutritional quality as micro nutrients have been added to it to give it a higher nutritional quality than normal sorghum. And in this case, the sorghum when consumed delivers more nutrients to the body of infants whose sole diets are from sorghum nutrient like pap (Akamu). And then, this new rice that we have been talking about: The rice has been developed to withstand adverse environmental condition that will not normally grow rice. What it means is that farmers who live in such area can go ahead to cultivate rice with this improved traits. The implication of all this is pumper harvest because they have got improvement in their yield output.