Anti-GMO Activist, Segun Adebayo Calls For Aggressive Push Back Against Promoters

Concerns over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the questionable aim of their promoters have resurfaced after a leaked document exposed that a British nonprofit with ties to intelligence agencies has accused pan-African voices, including anti-GMO activists, of spreading “anti-Western rhetoric” in their coverage of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The document, Adaptive Country Plan (ACP), curated by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), details CIR’s monitoring of political discussions in Nigeria. It labels critics of Western policies as “pro-Russia” or “pro-China.”

It named anti-GMO activists, Shell and Bill Gates opponents and pan-African journalists, including West Africa Weekly’s Founder, David Hundeyin, as threats.

In Nigeria, GMOs came into effect through the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act of 2015, heavily influenced by lobbying from Monsanto—a global biotechnology corporation known for aggressively promoting genetically modified crops.

GMOs are promoted heavily by the National Biotechnology Research and Development Agency (NBRDA), which sits on the board of the NBMA regulators.

In NBRDA, the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology is headed by Dr Rose Gidado, who doubles as the Country Director of Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), a heavily funded foreign organisation to promote GMOs in Africa.

The controversy surrounding GMOs reached new heights in June 2024, following the launch of the Bill Gates-funded TELA GMO Maize in Nigeria. This triggered widespread concerns over food sovereignty, economic independence, and safety.

In terms of health, many Nigerians had valid fears that GMOs could cause long-term health complications such as cancer, infertility, allergies, gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes and heart disease, amongst others.

In a highly contentious public debate, Dr Gidado defended the GMO initiative, controversially referring to genetically modified seeds as “edible vaccines.”

Following this claim, West Africa Weekly sent a request under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act seeking risk assessment reports and safety analyses conducted before the approval and commercialisation of GMO crops. However, the NBRDA ignored the request, violating Nigeria’s FOI Act.

Meanwhile, during an interview with Arise TV, Director General Of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, admitted that the agency (NAFDAC) has no evidence to prove that GMO foods are safe for human consumption.

Beyond health concerns, Nigerians have expressed concerns that GMO seeds could lead to losing traditional seed varieties, thereby threatening the rich heritage of local farming practices where farmers save and replant seeds from their harvest. This potential shift is perceived as fostering dependency on foreign seed companies, compromising Nigeria’s self-sufficiency in food production. 

The economic implications are equally worrisome, with many Nigerians viewing the introduction of GMOs as a means for international corporations to gain control over the nation’s food supply chain. This control would disadvantage smallholder farmers, the backbone of Nigerian agriculture, by increasing the costs associated with patented seeds and herbicides, thus leading to economic subjugation.

Our food sovereignty comes from smallholder farmers, who can plant seeds and save some from their harvest and replant in the next season. GMO eradicates this because farmers will be dependent on purchasing seeds, Lagos State 2023 governorship candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, said.

In a post on X, @pshegs, Dr Segun Adebayo, Director of the Centre for Food Safety and Agricultural Research and a prominent anti-GMO voice, whose name was also mentioned in the ACP document, said:

GMO is a science that first-world countries place heavy and stringent regulations on, mostly cultivating and testing in regulated spaces in confined field trials. In courts all over the world, independent health, environmentalists, food, and even security experts are raising alarms over it, due to its damning impact. Russia considers it an act of terrorism, Ecuador burnt all farms used for trials, Malawi and Angola, and the entire European Union has banned Glyphosate and the cultivation of GM Crops … We need to ensure we boot them out.”

Global Precedents: The GMO Backlash in Other Countries

Speaking further with West Africa Weekly and providing reliable sources, Dr Adebayo noted that Nigeria is not alone in its concerns over the long-term effects of GMOs. Across the world, countries that once embraced genetically modified crops have faced significant setbacks, prompting policy reversals and outright bans.

The Indian BT Cotton Story: A Case of Broken Promises

In India, Monsanto introduced BT cotton with the promise that it would resist pink bollworm infestations. However, by 2006—just four years after its release—the pink bollworm had developed resistance to the first-generation GM cotton in Western India. Monsanto responded by releasing a more expensive second-generation BT cotton, but the pests adapted to that strain within a few years.

The failure of BT cotton devastated farmers. In Andhra Pradesh, 80 per cent of BT cotton crops failed across 150,000 acres of farmland in 2014, causing over $4 million in losses. Reports link BT cotton farming to 7,992 farmer suicides between 2006 and 2011. Farmers faced rising costs due to Monsanto’s expensive patented seeds and the increased need for pesticides to combat secondary pests.

Burkina Faso: The Return to Traditional Cotton

Burkina Faso initially adopted BT cotton because of its resistance to pests and promise of higher yields. However, while production volume increased, the cotton quality declined significantly. In 2016, Burkina Faso’s cotton farmers abandoned GM crops and returned to their native cotton varieties, as the genetically modified versions proved uneconomical in the long run.

Mexico’s Bold Ban on GMO Corn

In February 2023, Mexico’s President issued a decree to phase out GMO corn imports due to food sovereignty and biodiversity loss concerns. The U.S. filed a trade complaint under the USMCA agreement, arguing that Mexico’s decision violated trade commitments. However, Mexican authorities maintained that:

The planting of transgenic maize in Mexico is a historic crime against the peoples of maize, against biodiversity and food sovereignty, against ten thousand years of indigenous and peasant agriculture that bequeathed this seed for the wellbeing of all the peoples of the world.” – From the Manifesto in Defense of Maize, October 2009

“The main purpose of these measures is to protect the rights to health and a healthy environment, native corn, the milpa, biocultural wealth, peasant communities and gastronomic heritage, as well as to ensure a nutritious, sufficient and quality diet.” — Decree establishing various actions regarding glyphosate and genetically modified corn, President of the United Mexican States, February 13, 2023.

On October 1, 2024, Mexico’s newly elected President reaffirmed the ban on GM corn, emphasising the importance of protecting heirloom seed varieties for future generations.

Even South Africa’s Supreme Court recently reversed the approval of a GMO maise variety, citing a lack of rigorous risk assessment.

Meanwhile, as Dr Adebayo posted on his X handle, it will be recalled and noted that two years ago, the U.S. accused China of illicitly acquiring U.S. agricultural intellectual property, including genetically modified (GM) seeds, raising fears about the potential weaponisation of this technology. The US-China Economic Review Commission released a report explicitly stating that China could “hack” the DNA of US GM seeds to create a blight capable of destroying U.S. crops.

As Western countries continue to view anti-GMO activists in Nigeria as threats, the question remains: Will the nation prioritise food Safety, food sovereignty and smallholder farmers, or will it fall into the cycle of corporate dependency, which further gives room to economic subjugation, foreign influence and political interference or even the weaponisation of the seeds?

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