In secondary school, if you took agricultural science in junior secondary, you would have seen this phrase “new varieties” of crops. New varieties are crops which are engineered to be resilient to harsh environments, pests, diseases, etc. The black pod disease of cocoa caused by a phytophthora species of fungus was a common example of diseases which must be handled. How did they solve that problem? They engineered new varieties. GMO foods
In cassava, the cassava mosaic disease from a begomovirus triggered near-famine in most parts of Eastern Nigeria in late 1980s just as SAP was coming along, as cassava stems turned white and tubers became like “loaf of bread”. How did they solve it? They engineered new varieties. What they did that time was the government at its best on agriculture policy.
The town crier went around the village, and dropped a very important message: the Ovim people would be receiving new varieties of cassava stem from the Ulonna Farm Settlement, near Umuahia. They also read the news in churches across the community.
On the d-day, people stationed in Oriendu Market, to receive the stems. The trucks arrived – and the future began to load. Yes, the new varieties of cassava stem are here and time for evolved farming. Within 18 months, all the old species were replaced, and hope returned. Magically, the cassava mosaic disease was history. It was a great moment and people saw the power of governments as those new varieties came from the government.
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So, what is the noise about GMO foods in Nigeria? It is just a nomenclature. Nigerians have been doing these things. It is just that their names have been Kanu, Kehinde, Effiong, Amadu, etc and no one has cared. But because this is coming from outside the nation, it is an issue. The real shame is that Nigeria has to pay for these new things when we used to engineer these things in Nigeria. IITA Ibadan has more technical capacity than any Institute in the US and Europe on tropical crops; they just need funding.
In 1970 during a cholera outbreak, the vaccine used to handle that was developed and approved by WHO by Prof Njoku Obi. So, from vaccines to new varieties of cassava which seem like NEW wonders now, men and women did these things decades ago in Nigeria. GMO is one way of creating new varieties of crops; others are molecular markers, phenotyping, and flowering innovations, as per agric science in WAEC. Check, in all, you modify.
I picked this from IITA Ibadan which is the leader in the world on cassava: “In 2020, IITA and Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) released five new cassava varieties using genomics-assisted breeding, including genomic selection and genotyping. This technique accelerated the breeding cycle and resulted in improved varieties.” Yes, they do GMO and IITA has been shipping new varieties, and we have been consuming these crops for ages.
Can someone explain what has changed? I personally think that Nigerians should focus on making sure that science is safe instead of this “ban” here and there, because everything has since been modified! Lechi, my grandmother, believed in the purity of her “Nka”, “Obiaturugo”, “Mbala”, “Idima”, etc (these are names of different varieties of yams in Igbo), but I convinced her to use inorganic fertilizer (NPK 15-15-15) as my agric science teacher had taught in school , and when she experienced the impact, she became a believer. So, we must be careful NOT to take science down on this ban crusade.
Ekekwe is the Chairman of Tekedia Capital
