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Biotechnology: Breeding hurdles and
hype
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY - Is
there anything that genetic doctoring can't do? Not
much, according to the biotechnology industry, which has
shrugged off a series of regulatory setbacks by
repackaging itself as the answer to every lifestyle
ailment from malnutrition to obesity.
Health and
beauty have become the new plugs for crop-engineering
giants such as Monsanto, Dow Chemical and Syngenta as
consumer skepticism holds back the much-vaunted second
green revolution.
The industry's promotional
showpiece BIO 2004, which has just finished in San
Francisco, maintained the decade-old notion that
genetics would one day wipe out hunger in Asia and
Africa. But it also sought to appeal to the developed
world's obsession with body image.
In a bizarre
mix of themes, media attending the opening session were
treated to a brunch hosted by a celebrity chef, followed
by a panel discussion on "Biotech Solutions for Obesity"
while researchers reeled off the latest Third World
cropping breakthroughs.
For many in the
scientific community, the smorgasbord of marketing
claims merely adds to the credibility problems that are
piling up against genetic engineering, especially as its
base claims of boosting food output have not been
realized.
"When commercial biotech crops were
introduced in 1996, the US Department of Agriculture
told Congress that biotech's boon would come in the form
of increased farm productivity. But biotech crops have
not increased food production," Dr Kathleen McAfee,
executive director of the US-based Institute for Food
and Development Policy, wrote in a recent column.
"Yields of genetically engineered soy average
slightly below those of conventional soy. Nor have
yields been increased by bio-engineered canola, another
main transgenic food crop on the market. Gene-altered Bt
[Bacillus thuringiensis] corn ... kills some corn
pests, but overall the costlier Bt seeds have cost
farmers more then they have earned.
"None of
this should surprise us. These crops were designed to
sell patented seeds and pesticides, not to increase food
production," she said.
The United Nations' Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) came to some of the
same conclusions in a study released last month, though
it remained optimistic that genetics would one day lead
the charge against malnutrition.
Although
biotech research and development is being conducted on
more than 40 crops worldwide, the FAO said that few
programs addressed the plight of small farmers in poor
countries.
In other words, the subsistence crops
that are most important in the war with hunger, such as
cowpea, millet, sorghum and teff, are not being improved
because they hold little appeal for the firms that own
most of the biotech patents.
Furthermore, noted
FAO director general Jacques Diouf, even the big food
crops such as wheat, rice, white maize (corn), potato
and cassava are being neglected, while the yield blights
that affect Third World farmers - drought and salinity
tolerance, disease resistance and enhanced nutrition -
get little attention.
"This raises serious
questions about the type of research that is being
performed and the likelihood that the poor will
benefit," the study stated.
One reason for the
research vacuum is that it has mostly been left to the
private sector, which cannot sustain heavy losses in a
business believed to have lost at least US$40 billion in
the past two decades.
Japan, China, South Korea,
Taiwan, India and Singapore, the only Asian countries
with a recognized biotechnology capability, have limited
public input. China, including Hong Kong, has 136 active
transgenic firms and India 96, but both remain dependent
on imported technologies.
Consequently, most of
the profits have stayed in the developed world, with US
companies raking in 77% of the industry's combined
income of $47 billion last year; Europe took 16% and
Canada 3.7%, and Asia-Pacific countries managed a mere
3.3%.
Ernst & Young has predicted that India
and China will be the main growth countries, with India
alone generating $5 billion in revenues and creating
more than a million biotech jobs over the next five
years.
But with Wvestern firms largely ignoring
the staple crops that are of most interest to Asia, many
researchers are convinced transgenics will be only a bit
player on a wider plain of technological advancement,
given that this region lacks the capability to proceed
on its own.
This has already been borne out in
field trials in the Philippines on Golden Rice, the
miracle crop that was to help close the gap in Asian
grain yields while simultaneously boosting nutritional
values. According to the International Rice Research
Institute, the new strain offers a more effective means
of overcoming vitamin A deficiencies, but otherwise is
likely only to complement existing health interventions
such as fortification and supplementation.
Other
crops engineered in Asia have fallen foul of the
powerful health lobby in Western countries. In March,
Norway's royal commission on genetically modified foods
said it had found serious safety risks with a form of Bt
corn grown in the Philippines, which was found to cause
allergenic reactions in farming families living nearby.
In continuing to oppose the importation of
costly transgenic seeds that might breed a dependency on
Western technology and herbicides, Asian governments
have indirectly undermined the research bases of their
own private researchers, and some may eventually be
forced offshore.
The irony is that the bunker
approach adopted by most governments has not succeeded
in keeping the suspect seeds out.
Studies by US
academics, most notably at the University of California,
have indicated that Asia was used as a dumping ground
through the 1990s for transgenic foods that failed to
meet US or Canadian regulatory standards.
Some,
now believed to be growing wild and possibly
cross-breeding with local varieties, were knowingly
donated through aid programs. Others escaped at the
research level, with the University of California itself
acknowledging that it mistakenly sent re-engineered
tomato seeds through the mail to Asia that went astray.
GE-tainted (genetically engineered) corn that
had to be diverted after it was rejected by authorities
in Japan and South Korea, as well as Europe, is believed
to have mostly ended up being eaten in Malaysia and
China. Despite consumer unease over the supposed health
threat posed by re-engineered foods, none of the parties
involved disclosed its unique characteristics.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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