The “Tuta Absoluta” scourge, otherwise known as “tomato Ebola”, which has severely attacked tomato production in Nigeria in recent months has shown, yet again, how vulnerable the country’s food security readiness is.
Nigeria with an estimated population of over 180 million is confronted with challenges of food insecurity, poverty and inadequate health care. A projection by the United Nations in a recently released report, “World population prospects: The 2015 revision”, notes that Nigeria’s population, currently the seventh largest in the world, is growing most rapidly and will surpass that of the United States by 2050 at which point it would become the third largest in the world, standing just behind India and China.It is evident that as the population grows, the available land for agricultural purpose will continue to decrease. The need to feed ourselves will even become more acute, requiring producing more from receding parcels of land and heightening the need to be constantly prepared against our production potential especially from pests and weeds.
This fact is not lost on the Federal Government and successive administrations since our return to democracy in 1999 have launched various projects in the bid to ensure our food security as a nation.
One of such projects was the establishment of the National Biotechnology Development Agency in 2001 with the mandate to promote, coordinate and deploy cutting-edge biotechnology research and development processes and products for the socio-economic well-being of the nation, with a view to using the tools of modern biotechnology to promote food security and enhance the Nigerian economy.
In furtherance of this bid to guarantee our long term food security, former President Goodluck Jonathan, in April 2015, under the leadership of signed the National Biosafety Management Agency Bill into law. This act automatically allowed for the domestication of modern biotechnology in Nigeria.
Modern biotechnology is a technique used for genetic improvements that can is more efficient and precise compared to conventional breeding. However, and contrary to what many antagonists claim, this is not in many ways significantly different from the conventional breeding techniques that aim to produce better seeds in terms of nutritional value and resistance to pests or disease. All this does is to leverage technology to make the process more precise, cutting down time spent in cross breeding to find the desired seed quality and eliminating the risks of transferring unwanted genes from seeds to each other all in the bid to confer just on trait. This technology also allows traits found in other organisms to be transferred to crop and livestock species where such proffer solutions not possible within the genetic make-up of the seed or its relatives
With the challenges of climate change, persisting pest infestations, declining soil nutritional quality, gradual reduction in arable land due to the pressures of urbanisation and our growing population, modern biotechnology has been identified as an important tool that can help countries such as Nigeria achieve food sufficiency/food security, industrial growth, health improvement and environmental sustainability, and in the face of our growing population, this technology holds a lot of promise for the development of our agricultural sector, food security and industrial growth.
It will also help to reduce labour input in farming through modernisation; attract young Nigerians to participate actively in agriculture, whether in crop production, fishing, livestock, forestry and horticulture. This will invariably help the nation to solve a very important problem which had remained unsolved for a long time as many young people are reluctant to go into farming because of the outdated technologies that being deployed.
Apart from enhancing agricultural production, ensuring food security and making agriculture a business against a mere subsistent means of livelihood, biotechnology will give the nation the benefit of mitigating climate change by reducing the use of pesticides which adversely affects the environment, improve environmental protection and conservation through production of stress tolerant planting materials for re-vegetation, re-afforestation, soil binding for erosion control as well as genetically enhanced organisms for bioremediation of oil polluted sites and improvement in plants and animals yields as well as nutritional values.
Other benefits include the production of new breeds/varieties of animals and plants and reduction in farming land area with higher yields which facilitates job and wealth creation and leads to better health facilities; promotion of bioorganic fertilizer development and industrial growth through feedstock development; promotion and development of biopharmaceuticals production, stem cell technology, biometrics, etc in Nigeria and biodiversity conservation.
The safe adoption of modern biotechnology will also enable the nation to commercialise crops that are currently undergoing field trails in various locations across the country thereby promoting food security in the nation.
This means that Nigeria can without delay commercialise Bt-cotton, Bt-maize, Herbicide Tolerant-soya beans, which are already in South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt. This can lead to increased yield productivity to ensure food security and industrial growth especially in the ailing textile industries. It will also promote the quantity and quality of cotton that Nigeria can export to other countries.
Despite the many gains of modern biotechnology, there is, however, the need for the Federal Government to show resolve for the safe adoption of this technology by encouraging more research and development.
Nigeria has the capacity to be able to reach self-sufficiency in food if the government makes funds available for research in the sector, if not, the technology will continue to be useless as long as it remains within the domain of the research until it goes out to the farmers.
Nigeria, as a nation, can stop massive food importation when local productivity has increased to substitute the importation, and this cannot be achieved by improving our crude technology by wholly embracing modern biotechnology.
It is time for Nigeria to join the league of other countries like the Republic of South Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Togo, Tanzania and Mali, who are already enjoying the proceeds of modern agricultural biotechnology, in harnessing the immense potential and benefits of this technology to enhance food security, create jobs and better the lot of Nigerian farmers.
Facts by Kabir is a food technologist based in Abuja
