By Queen Kunde
The Director Centre for Energy Studies, Federal University of Lafia, Nasarawa State, Professor Emmanuel Kwon-Ndung, has said that the commercialization of Genetically Modified (GM) crops has presented Nigerian farmers with the choice to plant the seeds and have a good yield while at the same time making more money.
Professor Kwon-Ndung, who is the immediate past President of the Genetic Society of Nigeria (GSN), said the term genetic modification should not cause any fear because it is what happens in the natural process that scientists carry out in genetic modification.
Speaking with Ziti News on the sidelines of the ongoing International Conference on Biotechnology, ICoB24, the University Don said the scientific procedure that is carried out by scientists and the adoption rate by farmers are very clear to the farmers because the seed is significantly different in yield as compared to non-GM products.
“As we have consistently said, the choice is for the farmer to grow GM crops and make more money and produce more crop yields, or he/She continues to plant more GMOs and get poor yields. And the choice is also for the consumer; there is no compulsion for any consumer to eat GM food, and that is why every GM food is labelled; it is a matter of choice.
“The evidence in science is that it is not harmful, but if anybody feels that he is not comfortable with consuming it, it is his or her discretion,” he said.
While explaining genetic modification, Professor Kwon-Ndung said, “In a normal system of plant improvement, the plants are usually improved by incorporating traits into the plant by selection, and the selection is usually by the natural processes of the transfer of pollen from either the same plant or across different plants.
“But in genetic modification, the transfer system is using a gene either from the same organism or from different organisms and altering it.
“In that process, all that happens is still a form of the natural process, because even in the natural process, we still refer to it as modification because what happens is a genetic modification.
“So, the term genetic modification using alteration of DNA is not something we will find strange. In scientific terms, the term genetic modification should not cause any fear because it is what happens in the natural process that we carry out in genetic modification.
Commenting on the impact of the ongoing International Conference on Biotechnology, he said, “In terms of the output from this conference, we can already see that the many stakeholders are giving many honest and scientific views about the role of this modern technology in our crop development.
“From all the papers that have been presented and for what is known to us in science, there is no cause for alarm because it is a process that many countries that have adopted have not experienced any negative effect, as many people will want us to believe.”