{"id":13490,"date":"2017-02-25T19:51:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T19:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=13490"},"modified":"2017-02-25T19:51:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T19:51:12","slug":"nigerian-biosafety-act-2015-didnt-take-into-account-concerns-of-local-farmers-critical-stakeholders-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=13490","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian Biosafety  Act 2015 didn&#8217;t take into account concerns of local farmers, critical stakeholders &#8211; Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<h1><strong>BENIN CITY DECLARATION ON PROMOTING BIOSAFETY IN NIGERIA<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>At the conclusion of the One day Stakeholders meeting on Promoting Biosafety held at BAR HOUSE, Benin City, Edo State, by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association Edo State, on the 22nd February, 2017, \u00a0<\/strong>the Stakeholders brought to the fore, critical issues and concerns of GMOs and the Nigerian Biosafety Management Act 2015. They also brainstormed on the increased aggressive push of the biotechnology companies in partnership with their local actors in Nigeria \u00a0to ensure\u00a0 favourable legislations as a step towards unleashing their products and commodities on Nigerians.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=12484&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Participants\u00a0 <strong>Resolved as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The Nigerian government, in passing the Nigerian Biosafety\u00a0 Act 2015 into law, did not take into account the concerns of local farmers and critical stakeholders, contrary to the provisions of the African Union\u2019s Model Law on Biosafety and the Cartagena Protocol. The\u00a0 Act in its current\u00a0 form\u00a0 lacks the legal safeguards to protect Nigerians\u2019s\u00a0 food culture, environment, ecosystems and human health.<\/li>\n<li>There are several fault-lines in the permissive NBMA Act requiring that <a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Bassey.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13491\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Bassey-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"Bassey\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Bassey-300x167.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Bassey.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>the entire Act be urgently reviewed and the GMO permits issued withdrawn.<\/li>\n<li>The constitution of the Board of NBMA makes the agency open to conflict of interests as already seen in the case of a board member (National Bioetechnology Development Agency) teaming up with commercial interests to apply for and receive permits to introduce GMOs into Nigeria.<\/li>\n<li>That Institutions that are created to protect our environment and biosafety\u00a0 are actually hand-in-gloves with corporations that are trying to flood our country with exotic and risky\u00a0 products and merchandise.<\/li>\n<li>The National Biosafety \u00a0Agency (NBMA) did not take into account the objections and critical concerns submitted to its agency by key NGOs supported by over 100 groups, bothering on health, environmental, socio-economic, technical and administrative concerns before issuing permits to Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited on behalf of Monsanto Company, based in St-Louis, Missouri, USA, for commercial release and placing on market of genetically modified cotton and for the confined field trial of two maize events .<\/li>\n<li>There is inadequate information and awareness on food sovereignty issues in the media thus shutting out critical stakeholders, deepening public ignorance and inhibiting contributions to solutions<\/li>\n<li>Our governments have been largely complacent about the covert activities of the biotechnology industry to undermine food sovereignty in Nigeria<\/li>\n<li>There is need for a local and \u00a0national paradigm-shift towards food sovereignty based on local contextual considerations, promotion of small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fisher-folk which have defined indigenous agriculture based on human rights and sustainable natural resource use.<\/li>\n<li>The mythical benefits of GMOs have ben debunked by many experts. For instance a report issued by over 400 scientists and development practitioners from developed and developing countries, under the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), concluded that small scale farmers should be supported as modern biotechnology would have very limited contribution to the feeding of the world in the foreseeable future.<\/li>\n<li>Production of GMOs is a threat to our biosafety; poses great threat to human and environment health and severely impedes the attainment of \u00a0sustainable agriculture, food sovereignty\/security,<\/li>\n<li>Promoters of GMO and their allies have deliberately ignored the importance and the peculiarities of\u00a0 Nigerian\u00a0 culture, environment and agriculture in their aggressive attempts to impose their products and\u00a0 merchandise on Nigeria . Rather than\u00a0 promoting agroecology, which works in harmony with nature, they have become tied to the apron-strings of speculators and neo-colonial powers whose objective is to exploit, subjugate and destroy food production systems in Nigeria while promoting monoculture and use of toxic agro-chemicals.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Signed<\/p>\n<p>Barr Ede Asenoguan \u2013 Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Benin Branch<\/p>\n<p>Nnimmo Bassey \u2013 Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation<\/p>\n<p>Barr Chima Williams \u2013 President, Green Alliance of Nigeria<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><code><a href=\"http:\/\/market.jumia.com.ng\/men-shoes\/?utm_source=pap&amp;utm_medium=aff&amp;utm_campaign=0bed9dec&amp;a_aid=Omafume&amp;a_bid=0bed9dec\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"\" src=\"\/\/kaymu.postaffiliatepro.com\/accounts\/default1\/a72f75b38\/0bed9dec.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/kaymu.postaffiliatepro.com\/scripts\/a72f75i38?a_aid=Omafume&amp;a_bid=0bed9dec\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BENIN CITY DECLARATION ON PROMOTING BIOSAFETY IN NIGERIA &nbsp; At the conclusion of the One day Stakeholders meeting on Promoting Biosafety held at BAR HOUSE, Benin City, Edo State, by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association Edo State, on the 22nd February, 2017, \u00a0the Stakeholders brought to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[647,13,2868,3556],"class_list":["post-13490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-gmos","tag-homef","tag-nba","tag-nigerian-biosafety-management-act-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Bassey.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-3vA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13492,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions\/13492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}