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NABDA pushes for crop biosafety bill

By on December 2, 2013

Following the failure of President Goodluck Jonathan to give assent to the National Biosafety Bill passed by the sixth National Assembly, the National Biotechnology Development Agency is now pushing for a new bill to regulate activities on genetically modified crops in the country.

Director General of NABDA, Prof. Bamidele Solomon, said this at an Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa held in Abuja.

Solomon said the president could not sign the former bill because it provided for a new regulatory agency at a time the government was actively seeking for ways to cut down the cost of governance through the merger of agencies and departments.

He said, “We are working to ensure that the Biosafety Bill that had not been signed into law by Mr. President gets the nod of the National Assembly. Out of about 40 such bills that were passed by the last National Assembly, the biosafety bill is one of the only four that have been returned to the National Assembly.

“We have reintroduced it. The contentious clause that was there is the issue of another regulatory agency. It was a period when the government did not want to incur additional costs. So what we are to shoot for is a new bill that creates a department in the Ministry of Environment for the purpose of regulation. It has gone through the first reading and it will soon go for a second reading.”

Solomon said some senators that know the value of biotechnology to the nation’s economy were very serious in championing the course of the biosafety bill.

He said towards deploying biotechnology to improve the nation’s agricultural fortune, the agency has sent experts to understudy the application of the technology in cotton production and soya beans.

The NABDA boss said biotechnology would be necessary to revive the country’s ailing textile industry.

He said, “We are now in a depressed economy depending only on one commodity, the price of which fluctuates. The legislature and the executive are always arguing about the benchmark price. We need to bring in some other commodities that will not be so subjective to the vicissitudes of the international market.

“My first recommendation is that we should focus on cotton with which we can nurse back our moribund textile industry and even make the cotton our farmers produce to be competitive in the international market.

“The second product we should focus on is soya beans which is one of the richest sources of protein. It is low in cholesterol. It is very useful in the production of nutrients for children and even soya milk for adults and feeds for animals.

“This summer we have sent some scientists who have learnt the technology for the transformation of soya beans. We also have some staff that are right now in India working on BT cotton.”

Speaking at the forum, a former anti-GM activist, Mr. Mark Lynas, said biotechnology was a potent and safe technology that every nation should use to ensure food security around the world.

 

 

[Punch]