By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has endorsed the national guidelines on Genetically Modified (GM) food and feed to repose the confidence of the people on the products.
Dr Rufus Ebegba, NBMA’s Director-General, at a stakeholders review and validation meeting on GM food and feed in Abuja on Friday, said that the agency wanted to meet best international practices.
Ebegba said the guidelines would be subjected to in-depth review by stakeholders, adding that it had undergone various review sessions.
“We will give it a final look and validate it so that stakeholders can accept, own and make it a national document.
“The issues of food are very critical. The health of any nation is sometimes determined by its food and environment.
“Genetically Modified foods are products that have been given special attention so that they are healthy foods that do not contain toxin and allergy,’’ he said as quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria.
The director-general further assured the public on foods safety, saying GM products are highly scrutinised, gone through a lot of evaluation and assessment to ensure that the outcome was safe.
Dr Rose Gidado, Assistant Director, National Biotechnology Development Agency, also said the guidelines would help improve indigenous crops as the country have too many underutilise crops.
According to Gidado, we will look at the crops, see the type of challenges farmers face with some of them and use the technology to mitigate the challenges and need of the farmers.
She said that technology could be used to address challenges such as drought, flood and insects.