What Nigerians Are Missing in the Conversation About Bill Gates’ GM Seeds

Weeks ago an otherwise mundane video of Bill Gates precipitated one of the fiercest debates Nigeria has witnessed this year. In the clip, the camera slowly pans upwards to reveal Bill Gates on a bike. He wears a blue suit and his face is shielded by a black helmet. Broda Shaggi is his bike rider. As they zip through the streets of CMS, yellow buses, street vendors, monuments, and everyday ephemera recede in the distance. Layi momentarily interrupts their trip: he plays the traffic warden supplying the already humorous video with extra comic relief. The big revelation? Broda Shaggi deposits Gates at a location, which turns out to be a studio. In the next scene, Gates hobnobs with M.I. Abaga; and the pair pulls apart the minutiae of a song M.I. is working on for The Gates Foundation. It’s a transparent attempt at bolstering Bill Gates’ and The Gates Foundation’s brand image in the country.

Reactions were initially humorous. Comments like “Wetin Bill Gates dey do for Nigeria?” and “Bill Gates don dey act skit?” swirled around social media, each iteration garnering hundreds of likes and comments. If these quips quietly couched questions regarding Bill Gates’ business in Nigeria, a flurry of answers would start emanating from the right-wing figures on the internet. Bill Gates, they argued, was in Nigeria to forcefully impose GMO seeds capable of undermining Nigeria’s sovereignty and weakening its seed regulation system. (Bill Gates was in fact not in Nigeria, the video was probably filmed a months ago.) Leading this argument was David Hundeyin, an often controversial journalist who has over the years gained immense purchase among Nigeria’s conservative right. 

Days later, Egemba “Aproko Doctor”  Chinonso, a doctor and popular health advocate and content creator, posted a video in which he offers an overview of GMOs and spells out the possible benefits and risks. He was instantly branded a covert agent of Bill Gates and accused of selling his people out. Not long after, internet sleuths surfaced a picture of Gates and Egemba. They sit across from each other and lock hands, their faces plastered with smiles. Those who had labeled Egemba a sell out immediately seized on this photo, heralding it as evidence that he had recently met Gates to devise a plan for introducing genetically modified crops into Nigeria. The photo is however from the 2023 edition of the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeeper’s conference, a conference in which panelists from across the world discuss some of the most pressing global issues. The 2023 edition focused on, among other things, reducing pregnancy related deaths.

The story of GMOs and food begins in 1988 when genetically modified enzymes were first approved for use in food manufacturing. Since then the technology has improved at blistering pace, revolutionizing how we think about food and reshaping entire food industries. “Gene sequencing (a crucial step in gene editing) has become a million times faster to execute than just 10 years ago,” Bill Nye, a popular science educator observes in an interview with Chuck Nice. The National Human Genome Research Institute defines GMOs as plants, animals or microbes in which one or more changes have been made to the genome, typically using high-tech genetic engineering, in an attempt to alter the characteristics of the organism. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as scientists like Neil Degrasse Tyson and U.C Davies plant geneticist Pamela Ronald have, however, bristled at this characterization, calling it scientifically meaningless. “The term isn’t really so useful for advancing discussions about sustainable agriculture and that’s because the term seems to mean something different to everyone,” Ronald says. Thoss in this camp argue that everything we eat has been genetically altered in some manner. Either by selective breeding and random genetic mutations—on account of factors like natural solar radiation for example—or genetic engineering. 

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have modified plants and animals to improve favorable traits or efface disfavorable ones through selective breeding. This involves a painstaking process that involves choosing organisms with certain traits and breeding them over generations to obtain desired phenotypic traits. Through this process, humans modified wolves into dogs, transformed teosinte’s sparse fruitcases into the large maize kernels we have today. Other examples abound: Most modern farm animals—most notably chickens, cows and pigs— dramatically differ from their ancestors; the same goes for tomatoes, oranges and apples. Plants like broccoli are of human design. In the case of broccoli, farmers in Italy had a clear vision—they wanted bigger buds and thicker stems—and so they selectively bred cabbage until they arrived at this new plant. 

Selective breeding and genetic engineering both involve changing the genetic material of an organism—modern maize plants are genetically different from their wild-growing ancestors. But while one process is rote, time-consuming and greatly beholden to luck, the other is clinically precise and more far-reaching. Genetic engineering transcends subtle changes to the genome of an organism, genetic material from an entirely different species can be introduced to the genetic pool of an organism. This is the case with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation’s (AATF) TELA maize seeds, which is what the The Gates Foundation is backing.

The seeds have been modified for increased drought tolerance and insect resistance. The genes of these seeds have been augmented with genetic material from Bacillus Thuringiensis, a naturally occurring soil bacteria that aids with pest control. What then happens is that the resulting maize crops are poisonous to certain insects but pose no harm to humans. The result is that these seeds require less pesticide use, which is good for the soil and poses less environmental risks. The seeds are also engineered to require less irrigation and yield higher than their heirloom counterparts. 

One of the strongest criticisms of GM crops is that they harm the soil. It’s an argument that has been deployed strongly in the debate that has raged on in the past week. The truth, however, is that there is no scientific study that supports that argument. What often happens is that GM seeds inadvertently incentivize farmers to practice monocropping—which refers to planting a single crop on a piece of land.

Farmers typically plant multiple crops on a piece of land to spread out the attendant risks of farming because farming can be incredibly risky as a business. A disease outbreak, drought, or pest infestation can easily wipe out a season’s worth of crops. And so, by splitting a piece of land into sections and planting different crops in each one—a practice known as poly culture—farmers can reduce the risk of a total wipe out in the event of a disease or pest outbreak. Polyculture however has the benefit of reducing nutrient depletion and improving soil biodiversity. Herein lies the paradox: the tremendous pest, disease and drought resistance capabilities of GM crops has made farming less risky. This and the fact that GM seed companies tend to specialize in a few seeds, incentives farmers to adopt monocropping, a farming practice that leads to nutrient depletion, soil structure degradation and reduced microbial diversity. All this is to say that GM crops, in and of themselves, are not any more dangerous to the soil than traditional crops. 

Another popular talking point in this debate is that GM seeds cannot be replanted which makes farmers wholly beholden to the corporations manufacturing these seeds. Many have argued that this can undermine national sovereignty in the long term. This is a concern that should be taken seriously. It’s also one that’s not unique to Nigeria. Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, who has been referred to as “The Gandhi of GMOs,” has for over a decade enacted a fierce crusade against GMO companies like Monsanto. The truth however is that most GMO seeds can be replanted. In the past companies like Monsanto tried to introduce terminator (sterile) seeds but jettisoned those plants when they faced intense backlash. The reason most farmers can’t replant seeds is that saved seeds from a harvest introduce the kind of variability that they seek to eliminate by adopting GM seeds. Some seeds are also patented, which makes replanting them illegal. This is what animates the work of activists like Shiva, who has called this an imposition of  “food totalitarianism.” 

The case with the AATF’s TELA maize seeds is however different. The company—AATF—is Kenyan, which makes it a better option than companies like Bayer, Corteva, and Monsanto, which have been accused of rapacious practices in third world countries. The TELA seeds are also not patented and by effect are replantable—the company confirms this. 

Another talking point of GMO critics is that many European countries prohibit them. If Europe is allowed to ban them, why shouldn’t we? The last EU barometer on biotechnology revealed that 54% of Europeans think GMOs are not safe. Europeans are also averse to the big corporations that produce these seeds. This is why they consistently vote against the adoption of GM crops. Perception is however different from reality. The scientific consensus is that approved GM crops are safe to eat and pose no greater risks than conventional crops. Organizations like the W.H.O, the Royal Society and the European Food Safety Authority (ESPA) have conducted thousands of studies that confirm this. There is a natural explanation for this: humans tend to view the natural as invariably superior to the artificial, and in cases where the two are pitted together, emotions tend to cloud objective perception. 

A 2005 study conducted at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that regardless of objective quality, respondents showed a bias towards natural food. Another 2013 study by Cornell University labeled a selection of foods as either GMO or organic, in reality both were organically produced. The participants were then asked to rate the foods for tastiness and guess the calorie count. The consensus view, among the participants, was that the foods labeled as organic tasted better and felt like they contained less calories. This “reverse-halo” effect is a major driver of the GMO conversation in Nigeria. One of the most popular tweets on the subject, which has been viewed on X some 2.4 million times,  reads: “Aproko doctor opened his mouth to tell us that lab  generated seeds are better than what God gave us and has been in existence for billions of years.” And while the tweet is dishonest, Aproko Doctor never made that assertion, it captures the public sentiment on the matter. 

Why is Bill Gates so interested in Nigeria and why is he pushing for GM seeds in Nigeria? This is another question that skeptics or curious minds have raised in the past week. Bill Gates, primarily through his Gates Foundation, has been involved in Nigeria for over 15 years. Over the years, he has set up health, agricultural and financial inclusion initiatives in the country. The Gates foundation, with the support of the WHO, UNICEF, Rotary, and the Nigerian Government, led the polio eradication efforts in the country. Nigeria has been polio free since 2020. The foundation’s gambits also extend to providing contraceptives in the Northern part of Nigeria, funding for HIV/AIDS treatment, research and funding for causes seeking to reduce pregnancy-related mortality, amongst others. 

Nigeria is currently facing an austere food crisis. Several studies project some 33million Nigerians to experience severe food shortages during the June-August lean season, up from 21 million during the 2020 lean season, the height of the COVID pandemic. Of this number, 4.8 million in the North-East are expected to face extreme hunger.  Nigeria’s food crisis necessitates drastic changes to stave off undue starvation and hardship. The causes of food crises are various, including inflation and other economic headwinds, insurgency and banditry. Climate change is also a major contributor. Erratic climatic conditions, drought and flooding have become more common, not just in Nigeria but in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. In all of this it’s crucial to keep a balanced view, observe the facts and arrive at a conclusion that acknowledges the good and the not-so-good parts of this GMOs. 

Countries like the United States, China, Brazil, South Africa, Ethiopia and Japan have adopted GMO technology, so it’s not without precedent. This is to say that you can observe the boons and challenges these nations have faced and extrapolate these facts in mulling over the case with Nigeria. In the US, GM maize has been so successful that 90% of the country’s maize production is down to GM crops. Brazil has similarly witnessed immense productivity gains. But it has not been without consequences. In the US for example, BT-augmented crops, while not being directly harmful to Monarch butterflies, have impacted their population because these crops are so effective at killing the milkweeds that these butterflies depend on for laying their larvae. 

While the scientific consensus is that they are as safe as traditional crops, there’s so much we don’t know about the technology. But at the other end of the spectrum is a slew of benefits: better yield, in some cases more nutritious produce, better drought tolerance, pest and weed resistance, as well as lower costs of production. Instead of outrightly rejecting them, the question should perhaps be how can we harness their good at the least possible risk? Proper labeling of GMO products, embracing crop rotation, ensuring knowledge transfer—if local companies and agencies have cutting-edge GMO technology, the risk of being beholden to a foreign supplier is eliminated—these are a few ways of harnessing the GMO technology to better society.