By Femi Akinola
The stories of Genetic Modified Organisms (GMO) topic in Africa is often met with mixed feelings particularly in Nigeria. The introduction of the crop seedlings in Nigeria has mostly involved mistrust and concerns for personal health.
Like Nigeria, maize forms a considerable component of South Africans daily food and animal feed. But, in South Africa, in the last three decades, South Africans have been consuming GM maize and soy beans.
Experts have argued that negative perception of GMOs in Nigeria is misguided. The National Human Genome Institute defines a GMO as a plant, animal or microbe with one or more changes to its genome, typically using advanced genetic engineering techniques to the orgnisms chatateristics
A majority of Nigerians still believe that foods made from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are mostly unsafe for human consumption. There are others who believe genetically modified foods are safe and have several benefits to nutrition and global food security.
Such people believe wholeheartedly that GMOs is not only safe but it is the solution to food security in the country. GMO crops becomes more necessary in the face of climate change which is affecting crop productivity.
Experts say the way to improve food security is to increase crop yields, and thus, new technology are needed to achieve this. Biotechnology is the use of technology in biological systems, living organisms, or parts of them to develop or create different products. It is used primarily in medicine, food, industries, agriculture, the environment and marine biology.
Over the past decades, several technologies have been developed to increase food production, with some African countries adopting them. Recently, Nigeria adopted a specific variety of GMO maize and Cowpea after a successful confined field trials.
However, mixed reactions trailed adoption of TELA maize. Many among Nigerians are saying the TELA maize is not good for human consumption while few insited the crop is safe for human and animal consumption.
Meanwhile, South Africa was one of the last countries to gain independence, but the country have a valuable insights into food security. It was the first country in Africa to pass legislation regulating the cultivation of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in 1997 with the Genetically Modified Organisms Act 15.
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The Healthy Nation team was recently in South Africa for the second Biosafety Regulators and Policy Makers Retreat organised by the African Agriculture Technology Foundation. More than 60 delegates from 16 African countries including Nigeria, met to examine the state of biotechnology adoption on the continent, including the successes and challenges.
The team set off to the South African farms to see GMO crops. Their first stop, according to their reports, was at Randfontein in rural Johannesburg, which was formerly a gold mining town. Here, large swathes of land have been dedicated tofarming, with mechanised overhead irrigation dotting the landscape. They met with Simon Tefu, a black farmer who grows genetically modified maize and soya beans in his 325 -hectare farm in Randfontein, Guateng pronvince.
This black farmer in South Africa traded his civil engineering career a decade ago. Mr. Tefu’s farm in Guanteng was altogether smaller than the other nine pronvinces in South Africa. Tefu was the forth largest maize producer in the rainbow country.
” My farm is 325 hectares in total and my arable land is 120 hectares. I grow maize and soybeans. I always do crop rotation because it is good for the soil. No one is planting non-GMO crops here.
” Maize is a versatile food, we eat it and animl feed on it too. We usully sell our crop according to the set standards. The price is the same across the board regardless of the buyer, and we always have ready market, says Mr. Tefu.
This happened at a time where other south African countries such as Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabawe are experiencing drought due to the El Nino weather phenomenon and they have since declared the drought a national disaster. Though South Africa is in the grip of this drought, still, despite the unfavourable conditions, South African farmers are harvesting the GMOs maize.
According to the South Africa Research Council (ARC), 85% of the maize grown in the country is genetically modified. The country produces 15 million metric tonnes of maize while it consumes 10 million metric tonnes. The surplus is usually exported.
Continuous research and development have seen South Africa develop genetically modified varieties that are not only resistant to the stalk borer, herbicides and the fall armyworm; but are also adapted to drought. An example of such a variety is the Water Efficient Maize for Africa, now referred to as TELA Maize in Nigeria.
Only 13% of South frica’s surface area is arable. Thus, the adoption of farming technologies such as GMOs was out of necessity 27 years ago in its quest to have sufficient food reserves for its population of nearly 60 milliom people.
”South Africa has become food secure because our farmers adopted technologies much earlier than the rest of Africa. We have poor soils, poor rainfall and we are the 39th driest country in the world, but because we use agricultural technologies, we are able to produce enough for the country and surplus as well,” says Dr. Kingstone Mashingaidze, the principal researcher at the South Africa Agricultural Research Council.
