Africa needs GM crops, not lectures, Nigerian says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- African nations need access to genetically modified crops to boost food production, not lectures from "misguided" groups in more developed countries about the possible perils of the new generation of seeds, a Nigerian official said on Monday.

"Millions of Africans -- far too many of them children -- are suffering from malnutrition and hunger," Nigerian Agriculture Minister Hassan Adamu said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. "Agricultural biotechnology offers a way to stop the suffering."

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Genetically modified crops contain genes borrowed from other organisms to increase disease or pest resistance or boost herbicide tolerance. Later generations could boost the nutritional content of food and help fight human diseases.

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups in Europe and North America have opposed the new seed varieties on the grounds they could have unintended human health and environmental affects.

Just last month, Greek police arrested 12 Greenpeace activists who had chained themselves to gates of a soybean processing plant to protest genetically modified crops.

The World Health Organization, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have determined that genetically modified crops are "safe and nutritious," Adamu said.

Furthermore, developing nations are capable of making their own decisions on the issue, he said.

"To deny desperate, hungry people the means to control their futures by presuming to know what is best for them is not only paternalistic, but morally wrong," Adamu said.

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