Cotton farmers in Nigeria may have been given a lifeline following the official registration of two Bt Cotton varieties known as MRC 7377 BG 11 and MRC7361 BG11 by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Materials.

The Director/CEO National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Prof. Alex Akpa, disclosed in Abuja on Thursday, July 26, 2018 that the approval and registration were granted at the 26th meeting of the committee which held recently in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Prof. Akpa said the official registration marked the entry into the nation’s agricultural system, the first home grown genetically modified crop.

“Bt Cotton varieties that have just been registered are highly viable when compared to the local conventional alternative, the yield is 4.1 to 4.4 tonne per hectare while the local variety is 600 to 900kg per hectare,” he said.

According to him, there are other crops undergoing confined field trials at various stages in different research institutes across the country.

“With this development, Nigeria has demonstrated that it has the institutional capacity and human resources to safely deploy genetic engineering in the agricultural sector.

“This feat achieved by this registration goes to show also that the federal government investment in our research institute is not in vain.

“With encouragement and support from the government, Nigeria has registered its home-grown GM Cotton saving our farmers the trouble of contending with the local conventional variety which is no longer accepted at the international market,” he added.

The DG noted that the development has a wider implication for the socio-economic development of Nigeria as comatose textile industries that have been under lock and key over the years now have hope of resuming production as farmers will have access to high yielding cotton variety.

“This new variety that has just be officially registered has the potential of being adopted in all the Cotton growing zones of Nigeria with maturity of 150 -160 days.

“It is resistant to Bollworm complex, high seed cotton yield, early maturity tolerant to suckling insect pest with fibre length of 30.0 to 30.5mm and a fibre strength of 26.5 to 27.0 g/tex (tenacity) and micronaire (strength) 3.9 to 4.1,” Prof. Akpa said.

Both varieties were developed by Mahyco Nigeria Pvt. Limited in collaboration with the Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Tunisia and the African Development Bank (AFDB) have signed an agreement for the launch of a pilot project to use drones for data collection to enhance management of agricultural projects in the country.

The project, to be implemented over the next 10 months, would receive technical management and assistance from South Korea, Minister Zied Laadhari announced during the signing ceremony on Thursday, July 26, 2018.

Laadhari, Tunisia’s Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation, was joined by Park Jae-Min, Vice-Mayor of Busan City and Mohamed El Azizi, Director General of the Bank’s North Africa office.  The ceremony was also attended by Agriculture Minister Samir Taïeb, and Korea’s ambassador to Tunisia, Cho Koo-Rae.

The pilot project will focus on agricultural operations in Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia, under the management of Busan Techno Park, a Korean government agency based in Busan, South Korea. Laadhari said the agency would provide equipment – drones and associated computer systems – training, as well as technology transfer.

The agency has already tested the drones for efficacy in managing similar urban projects. Korea is a leading country in the development and use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for real-time data collection and processing. Drones have been used in agriculture to provide fast and accurate data, helping to improve decision-making at all stages of a project, from preparation to implementation and evaluation.

Laadhari said the pilot was expected to benefit piloting and monitoring of irrigated areas, management of water resources, water tables as well as the effects of climate change in the pilot area.

A founding member of the Bank Group, Tunisia was one of its first beneficiaries in 1967. Currently, the Bank’s portfolio in Tunisia is worth over $2.3 billion covering more than 40 projects and programmes.

A water irrigation and supply system funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) has transformed the lives of rural farming communities in Cape Verde’s Santiago Island, sparing farmers grueling treks of up to 20 kilometres to fetch water for farming and daily use.

Santiago Island, Cape Verde’s largest and most important agricultural centre, depends on water for its survival, but for years had been beset by endemic water shortages. Traditionally women, who make up a significant percentage of farmers, were hardest hit by the shortfall in supply.

The Lopes family are typical farmers hailing from the rugged terrain on Santiago Island. For generations, families like theirs struggled to eke out a living on land that was both hard to work and had low yields. In the dry season, many people headed for the towns in search of work.

That is now mostly a thing of the past, thanks to the Picos and Engenhos Watershed Management project, funded with a $7.55 million loan from the AfDB.  A steady flow of water has led to increased agricultural output for 17 new farming associations that have brought together almost 1,000 women smallholder farmers.

Fifty-year-old Amalia Lopes is a member of one of the women’s cooperatives which are showcasing the dramatic change to Cape Verde’s agricultural landscape. Now Lopes looks forward to higher sales of beans and bananas from her newly irrigated fields. She can even afford to send her son to university in Praia, the capital of Cape Verde.

“The right conditions are now in place,” she says, as she calls on youths to make the most of the improved conditions.

As livelihoods improve, women are beneficiaries

Under the Picos and Engenhos Watershed Management project, irrigation systems, wells and reservoirs were constructed over a seven-year period. The bank also helped organise and support vocational training. Courses in long-term agricultural produce, constructional and agricultural engineering, and livestock management or pasture improvement were organised. Most of the beneficiaries have been women.

“Things are better today,” says Lopes.

Statistics back her optimism. Official figures show average salaries have risen to about $1,900 a year. Lopes has even become a spokesperson for her women’s cooperative. She has appeared on TV and radio news and current affairs shows and achieved minor celebrity status in her district when she became one of the first local women to visit Brazil, a country which shares a common linguistic background with Cape Verde.

Herminia Minha is another example of the success of the project.  She is one of many women who can sell their produce in local markets in Picos at competitive prices. Now Minha makes enough profit to afford higher education for her children – something that was unthinkable just a few years ago.

“Better irrigation means a greater variety of fruit and vegetables and water for homes,” Joana Lopes says, “I now grow potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, beetroots, and Chinese cabbage. I sell a lot of lemons at the markets.”

Currently Cape Verde imports 70-75% of its food needs, but authorities are optimistic that the evolution in agricultural techniques and irrigation will rapidly narrow that figure.

The AfDB’s active portfolio in Cape Verde stands at $101,000,000, covering energy, transport, water and sanitation, social, agriculture, and governance.

A study by the India, New Delhi-based research and advocacy body, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), has exposed what looks like a large-scale illegal presence and sale of genetically modified (GM) processed foods in the country.

Without the approval of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), production, sale and import of these foods is banned in India.

CSE’s Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML), which conducted the study, tested 65 food products available in Indian markets – 32 per cent of these were found to be GM-positive. These food products were purchased randomly from retail outlets in Delhi-NCR, Punjab and Gujarat. Both imported (35) and domestically produced (30) samples were tested – imported samples fared worse: 80 per cent of the products which were found to be GM-positive, were imported.

The products which were found to be GM-positive include infant food, edible oil and packaged food snacks. Most of these are said to be imported from the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, and the UAE. These products were produced from or contain soya, cotton seed, corn or rapeseed (canola), which are known GM crops of the world.

Releasing the results of the study here today, CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “Our government says it has not allowed the import of GM food products. Then how is this happening? We have found that laws are not the problem – the regulatory agencies are.”

Adding to this, Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE, said: “We had been hearing about the presence of illegal GM food in India, and decided to do a reality check by testing processed foods. We were shocked to know the scale in which GM foods have penetrated the Indian market. The regulatory authorities are to blame here – the FSSAI has not allowed any GM food on paper but has failed to curb its illegal sales.”

What is GM? Why should we worry?

“GM – genetically modified – products, especially food, raise a crucial question of safety: a question of how safe they are. The jury is still out on this,” says Narain. This is because GM food involves taking genes (DNA) from different organisms and inserting them in food crops. There is a concern that this ‘foreign’ DNA can lead to risks such as toxicity, allergic reactions, and nutritional and unintended impacts.

Most countries in the world, including India, have decided to take a ‘precautionary’ approach to GM food. They have set stringent regulations for approval and labelling. The EU, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and South Korea have made it mandatory to label GM food so that consumers have a choice about what they are eating.

What did the CSE study find?

GM food contains foreign promoter and terminator genes. More than 90 per cent of GM crops in the market contain promoter genes like 35S promoter of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) and FMV promoter of figwort mosaic virus, and NOS terminator of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Using quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), CSE’s lab screened the food products to ascertain if they had a combination 35S promoter, NOS terminator and FMV promoter.

The key findings of the study are:

• 32 per cent (21 out of 65) of the food product samples tested were GM-positive. About 80 per cent (16 out of 21) of those which tested positive were imported. These were made of or used soy, corn and rapeseed and were imported from Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, the UAE, and the US.
• 56 per cent (9/16) of oil samples, 25 per cent (10/39) of packaged food samples and 25 per cent (2/8) of infant food samples were GM-positive.
• The CSE lab also tested five samples of cottonseed oil from India – all tested positive. This is because BT-cotton is the single GM crop that has been allowed for cultivation in the country. Says Bhushan: “But this should worry us. Firstly, no permission has been given for the use of GM cottonseed oil for human consumption. Secondly, cottonseed oil is also mixed in other edible oils, particularly vanaspati, which means we are consuming it without knowing.”
• GM contamination was found in infant food, sold for children with medical ailments, including allergies. Two products by Abbott Laboratories, the American healthcare company, were found to be GM-positive — one was for lactose-intolerant infants and the other was a hypoallergenic (for minimising the possibility of an allergic reaction). Neither product has any label warning parents that this food has GM ingredients.
• Other than edible oil, no processed food sample manufactured in India was found
  GM-positive.
• 65 per cent (13/20) GM-positive samples did not mention anything about GM on their labels. These include the following:
• Canola oil brands (‘Farrell’ imported from UAE by Jindal Retails (India) Pvt Ltd; ‘Hudson’ from UAE, marketed by Dalmia Continental Pvt Ltd; ‘Jivo’ imported from Canada by Jivo Wellness Pvt Ltd); and cottonseed oil brands from India (‘Ankur’, ‘Ginni’, ‘Tirupati’ and ‘Vimal’).
• Packaged foods like ‘Pancake syrup original’ and ‘Popcorn Hot N’ Spicy’ — both products of American Garden – imported in India by Bajoria Foods Pvt Ltd; ‘Froot Loops’ — a sweetened multigrain cereal from Kellogg’s imported by Newage Gourmet Foods; and ‘Crispy corn snacks’ from Bugles – distributed by General Mills Inc, USA and imported by Newage Gourmet Foods.
• Three products made false claims suggesting that no GM ingredient is used. These were ‘Candrop’ Canola oil from Canada imported by Century Edible Cooking Oils Pvt Ltd; ‘Mori-nu silken tofu’ from the US, imported by Olive Tree Trading Pvt Ltd; and ‘PromPlus sweet whole kernel corn’ from Thailand imported by Guru Kirpa Impex.
• Four products that carried labels of genetic engineering technology were ‘Butter and Garlic Croutons’ from Mrs Cubbison’s; ‘Corn puffs’ by Trix – distributed by General Mills Sales Inc, USA; ‘Original syrup’ from Aunt Jemima – distributed by Quaker Oats in the US; and ‘Dark corn syrup’ from Karo, US. All four products were imported by Newage Gourmet Foods.

What do the laws say?

• The Environment Protection Act (EPA) strictly prohibits import, export, transport, manufacture, process, use or sale of any genetically engineered organisms except with the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
• The 2006 Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA) prohibits import, manufacture, use or sale of GM food without FSSAI’s approval.
• The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules 2011 mandate that GM must be declared on the food package.
• The Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992 says that GM food cannot be imported without the permission of GEAC.
• Anyone who imports, manufactures, uses or sells GM food, is liable to be prosecuted under the above Acts.

The FSSAI has now issued a draft notification on labelling, which includes GM food. Says Amit Khurana, programme director, food safety and toxins, CSE: “The FSSAI notification says that any food that has 5 per cent or more GM ingredients, shall be labelled, provided this GM ingredient constitutes the top three ingredients in terms of percentage in the product. The exemption limit of 5 per cent is very relaxed compared to other countries such as the EU, Australia and Brazil, which have limits at or below 1 per cent.”

“But there is a catch,” he adds. “It is very difficult for government to quantify the GM content in all foods: the tests are prohibitively expensive and technically cumbersome. This means that the regulatory agency is asking companies to ‘self-declare’ and say that they are within the 5 per cent limit and therefore, need not carry the label of GM.”

Says Bhushan: “The draft GM labelling regulations shows the double standard of FSSAI. On one hand, FSSAI has set stringent conditions for labelling organic food, which is a safe and healthy. At the same time, it is proposing to give a huge exemption for labelling GM food, safety of which has been a matter of concern.”

What does CSE recommend?

• The FSSAI must identify all GM products being sold in the market and prosecute companies and traders responsible.
• It must set up a safety assessment system for approval of both domestic and imported GM foods.
• The limit for GM labelling exemption should be set at 1 per cent GM DNA and not on the basis of weight of ingredients. Only unintentional contamination should be exempted.
• The FSSAI should adopt qualitative screening (such as through quantitative polymerase chain reaction – qPCR) as an enforcement tool and the onus of proving unintentional presence should be on the food manufacturer. It must set up laboratories to screen GM foods for effective monitoring.
• A symbol-based label such as “GM” should be displayed on the front of packs which carry GM food — just like the green “tick” along with the words “Jaivik Bharat” proposed for organic food.

Says Narain: “In 2008 (updated in 2012), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had issued guidelines for determining safety of such food – it cautioned that ‘there is a possibility of introducing unintended changes, along with intended changes, which may in turn have an impact on the nutritional status or health of the consumer.’ Keeping this in mind, India should adopt a health-based precautionary principle approach to GM food regulation and labelling.”