| | 05/December/24
| | A dangerous gamble: The threat of GMOs to Nigeria’s future Nigeria stands on a dangerous precipice, writes Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje – a lawyer and Deputy Executive Director at Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria. She writes: "The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), tasked with safeguarding our nation’s health and environment, has instead become a promoter of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This reckless disregard for science and public safety is a threat to our food security, biodiversity, and overall well-being. The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act came into force in 2015, and it mandated the setting up of the National Biosafety Management Agency to regulate GMOs in Nigeria. This agency, however, has acted more like a promoter of GMOs than as a regulator, approving virtually every application brought to it without consideration of science-based objections sent by groups of concerned Nigerians." Business Day Nigeria: GMO seeds fail to revive dying cotton industry Cotton farmers in Nigeria were excited in 2018 when GM cotton seeds were introduced, raising hopes of bumper harvest and pest-free cotton crops. Six years later, however, the introduction of the GM seeds failed to increase the cotton yield per hectare and revive the dying industry. Anibe Achimugu, president of the National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN), said: "Unfortunately, the problem with the genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds that were approved is that they did not significantly improve yields, and it is difficult for farmers to be able to cope due to how expensive it is.” Abdulsalam Musa, a cotton farmer in Katsina and a member of NACOTAN, said: “When we purchased the [GM] seeds in our association, we planted them in different locations in the country. But when we did a comparison, no farm could get up to four tons per hectare while local seeds produced up to four to five tons per hectare.” Musa said no other plant has been able to germinate on the farmlands where the GM seeds were planted, even after four years. "The land has been destroyed,” he said. Business Day Conference set to discuss lab leak vs Hunan wet market theories of COVID origin Dr Jonathan Latham is in Osaka, Japan, for a conference that will bring together Chinese and US scientists and that seems set to focus on the origin of the COVID virus. He writes that China has said several times that the Huanan market is not the origin site. In contrast, Western scientists opposing a lab leak have gone all-in on the Huanan wet market theory. Meanwhile Chinese researchers have made progress towards showing an evolutionary origin by identifying and characterising the spike protein residues as genetic and functional hallmarks that prove evolution (and so, they think, disprove genetic manipulation). However, the Chinese approach is limited and the Western overreach is liable to collapse, explains Dr Latham. And this propensity for collapse is greatly magnified by the US political situation, with the triumph of Trump. Jonathan Latham on LinkedIn We hope you’ve found this newsletter interesting. Please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. Thank you! __________________________________________________________ Website: http://www.gmwatch.org
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