Author: Chike Ozohili

As Nigeria joins the rest of the World to mark the 2023 World Food Day, the Executive Director Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nnimmo Bassey, has called on the Federal Government to remove all Genetically Modified Foods from the country’s shelves.

World Food Day is an essential international observance held every year to raise awareness about food security and hunger while promoting action to ensure everyone has access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food.

Bassey in a statement on Sunday, said one big challenge the country is faced with protecting its food, including water, from the new wave of colonialism that is systematically taking hold of food systems across the globe.

According to him, the transnational corporations leverage the current food crises to advance an atrocious agenda to gain control over the world’s food systems.

“GMOs are being pushed into our food system without stringent government regulations. People do not know the implications of growing or eating GM foods because the population is not given information on the risks related to the technology.

“In Nigeria, approvals for importing GMOs are granted without adequate public notice and proper and independent health and environmental impact assessments. It is improper for our farmers to be given seeds to grow without telling them what they are planting or what eventually will end up on the consumer’s plate.”

HOMEF states that marking World Food Day should encourage people, organizations, and governments to unravel the root of hunger and malnutrition, address food injustice, and abuse of farmers’ rights. The day is a reminder of the avoidable fate of millions worldwide who suffer from hunger despite abundant natural and human resources.

Bassey, noted that modern agricultural biotechnology directly undermines our pursuit of food sovereignty, posing a threat to our dignity and our fundamental right to refuse foods laden with uncertain health consequences and an agriculture system that stresses our ecosystems. 

He further charged Nigerians to be intentional about what is on their plates. “We must not fail as individuals to ensure that what goes into our stomachs is safe. We must demand accountability from regulatory agencies to ensure that food products approved for import are wholesome, meet the dietary requirements of the people, and support the local economy.”

HOMEF’s Director of Programme, Joyce Brown, echoed that agroecology can feed the world, cool the planet, and help local farmers adapt to climate change impacts.

“Governments worldwide who want to address food insecurity and take meaningful climate action must invest in agroecology – the foundation for a positive transformation of food systems. Agroecology ensures optimum water and other resources use, revives soils and the ability to hold in carbon, uses renewable energy, and promotes shorter food supply chains while making healthy and nutritionally diverse food available to all”.

Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, the Deputy Director of Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria, noted, “Food is a central and integral part of any society, and it creates a connection between our beliefs, ethnicity, and cultural heritage. Food is not just a part of culture; it defines culture.  What we eat and how we eat provides much information about specific cultures. Food, water, and soil are all interconnected and are not commodities. They are a sacred, life-affirming, and central composite of every existing society”.

Orovwuje stressed that food and producers must be treated with respect and dignity.

She called for policies that celebrate the smallholder farmers who produce over 70% of the food consumed globally. “We need deep-rooted changes in how agriculture is practiced and how the food system is organised and regulated. We need to wean our food system from corporate control and concentration and keep seeds in the hands of small-scale farmers.”