The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has broken its silence on the controversial Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), assuring Nigerians that GMO foods are safe but need proper labelling.
The Director-General of the agency, Mojisola Adeyeye, who spoke on Channels Television’s breakfast show, noted that proper labelling of GMO foods by marketers is essential for the consuming public.
According to her, GMOs are genetically modified foods, and they are not bad for consumption, depending on what type of foods they are and whether the safety considerations have been taken.
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“The National Biosafety Management Agency—NBMA—is the agency charged with ensuring the safety of foods that have GMOs. We work in collaboration with them.
“I look at the label. I want to be sure that NAFDAC’s label is on it, or if I’m outside the country—well, I don’t do a lot of shopping now, but before my time in NAFDAC, when I had all the time — I would look at the label. And it’s supposed to have ‘genetically modified food’ written on it.
“We work in collaboration with the Biosafety Management Agency. We have an MoU with them. They are mandated to ensure that the foods that have GMOs are of quality, they are safe, and they are efficacious.
“So, when you look at the food on the table in the market—especially grocery stores— you will see foods labelled organic. You put labels [on foods] that are not organic, and people have the choice to buy which one they want.
“But for NAFDAC, we are mandated to ensure that the food that we approve for the market is safe, is of quality, of course, and it is efficacious.
“So that is the reason why the collaboration between us and the NBMA is very solid.
“Without them certifying that they have done their due diligence in their laboratory for desk review or whatever, we cannot approve,” the professor said.
