In
This Issue:
UK ROYAL
SOCIETY CALLS FOR MONITORING OF GM CROPS
The
Royal Society of the United Kingdom has released a policy statement
asking the Government to introduce long-term monitoring of the
ecological impact of GM crops if the go-signal for commercial planting
is given.
The
Society asked a review of mechanisms through which GM crops are
monitored in the environment and to produce plans for long-term
assessments by both UK and European Union regulators. It also recommended
that the GM Science Review Panel should be given the opportunity
to consider formally the results of the GM Farm Scale Evaluations.
Professor
Patrick Bateson, Vice-President and Biological Secretary of the
Royal Society, said that "There are many crucial decisions
to be made concerning the use of GM crops by private corporations,
governments and individuals that will affect the future of humanity
and the planet's natural resources. It is vital that these decisions
are based on the best scientific information."
He added: "Over
the next decade, biotechnology will aim to improve the nutritional
qualities of crops and farming performance by focusing on characteristics
such as yield and stress tolerance. GM technology may therefore
help to meet the demand for food by an expanding world population,
with less impact on the environment. It is clear, however, that
continued development and evaluations of GM technology will be
required to realize these potential benefits."
More
on the policy statement at http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/templates/press/showpresspage.cfm?file=454.txt
MEDIA, SCIENCE
AND POLICY IN BIOTECHNOLOGY
What
is media's role in public policy and are they really confusing
the public? "When Media, Science and Public Policy Collide:
The Case of Food and Biotechnology", proceedings from a workshop
sponsored by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, the
Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, and Public Policy of the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University provides insights
into this relationship. The proceedings were based on a conference
in November 2002 to discuss how media coverage of the contentious
relationships and complex issues surrounding food biotechnology
shapes public opinion and influences public policy. Participants
included reporters, scientists, representatives from food and biotechnology
industries, opponents of the technology, and experts from various
agencies involved in GM foods.
In trying
to probe the processes by which reporters seek to distill the array
of opinions about GM foods, discussions revealed that it involved
a complicated, evolving and sometimes dysfunctional relationship
between reporter, subject and audience. It highlights the challenges
that arise when a controversial commercial technology becomes the
subject of widespread media interest.
Alex
Jones, director of Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center, said that
in critiquing media coverage of biotech issues, one should keep
in mind that "good journalism" requires an attention
to two elements. One is a form of integrity and the other is the
element of judgment. While media coverage was perceived as alternately
confusing and frightening the public, reporters felt that they
have sought only to provide accurate coverage. Any confusion was
felt to have stemmed in part from the fact that GM foods are based
on a new and evolving technology. Reporters averred that they had
only a mere day or week to learn and write about highly complicated
issues that scientists have been exploring for years.
Finally,
does media play a role in shaping public opinion and influencing
public decisions? Some participants saw its impact as overstated
and that not many people were interested in press coverage that
seeks to impart the finer points of the scientific issues. However,
Jones asserted that media can be an important component of the
educational process of people.
The
full report is available online at http://pewagbiotech.org/events/1121/proceedings.pdf
ABC RESPONDS
TO ACTIONAID REPORT
The
Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) recently issued its official
statement in response to the new report "GM Crops - Going
Against the Grain" released by ActionAid. In their statement,
ABC stated that "industry sees GM as part of the solution
for sustainable agriculture in the developing world. The ActionAid
report brings up many long-term ongoing issues for the developing
world that are not specific to GM technology. The biotechnology
industry is committed to working with developing countries on the
safe and ethical introduction of GM technology to help meet developing
world needs."
ABC
clarified that ActionAid's claim that genetically modified (GM)
crops do not offer benefits to the developing world and that crop
yields are no higher and requires more chemical use is misleading
and inaccurate. According to ABC, ActionAid used "unrepresentative
data from large scale USA producers (to support their claims) and
choose to ignore the wealth of data from the developing world that
is seeing huge yield increase and dramatic cost savings for the
4.5 million small scale farmers in nine developing countries that
have chosen to adopt GM technology."
The
new report released by ActionAid analyzes the impact of GM crops
in the developing world based on its campaigns in Asia, Africa
and Latin America. The report examined the claims of biotech companies
that GM crops can address world hunger. The report warns the public
that GM crops will not feed the world and could even pose a threat
to poor farmers as the costs of producing GM crops are much higher
and farmers risk themselves falling into debt. The expansion of
GM technology is also likely to benefit rich corporations more
than the poor people.
The
ABC statement is seen at http://www.abcinformation.org,
while ActionAid's new report can be downloaded at http://www.actionaid.org/.
REACTIONS TO
GM FOOD IN MALAWI BASED ON HEARSAY
"We
received GM maize from (the) United States as food aid, however,
reactions of people were based on hearsay and not supported with
scientific justification and statistical information associated
with the gravity of the problem," states Matha Nasho, Malawi's
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs,
during the Civil Society Symposium on Genetically Modified Organisms
held at Bunda College of Agriculture in Lilongwe.
The
Deputy Minister also said during the official opening that, at
present, "the whole of Southern Africa is affected by hunger
and the main purpose of food aid, including GM maize, offered to
many affected countries was to minimize the negative impacts of
hunger on local communities."
Matha
Nasho stressed that there is a need to always examine the merits
and demerits of biotechnology objectively so that informed choices
and decisions can be made. Africans need to be conversant with
(the) advantages and disadvantages of GMOs.
Visit
the ABSF website at http://www.isaaa-africenter.org/absf.htm.
AFRICA NEEDS
BIOTECH TO SOLVE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
During
the closing rites of the United Nations Environment Program-Global
Environment Facility (UNEP-GEF) National Biosafety Framework Workshop
in Nairobi, Kenya's Minister for Environment, Natural Resources
and Wildlife, Dr. Newton Kulundu, stated that "Africa needs
biotechnology to solve its environmental problems and there is
unlimited demand for agricultural biotechnology products and services" in
the region.
In a
speech read on his behalf, Kulundu said that in Kenya, the demand
for tree seedlings is 14 million per year, however, the country
can only supply 3 million at the most. Thus, this is a clear indication
that tissue culture, cloning techniques and other biotech packages
are needed to curb deforestration via the propagation of indigenous
species.
Kulundu
added that "the enactment of the National Biosafety Bill into
an Act of Parliament will result in (an) appropriate and sustainable
application of biotechnology, which will include public suggestions
based on credible updated information and data from various sources." However,
responsible decisions by stakeholders still require coordinated
and timely release of appropriate information.
The
Minister concludes that while Kenya is now gradually gaining experience
in handling genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the country
still needs more exposure and international collaboration with
other agencies.
The
press release is featured at the ABSF website at http://www.isaaa-africenter.org/absf.htm.
INDIA PLANS
FRAMEWORK FOR GM CROPS
India will establish an institutional framework to promote transgenic crops
research and applications. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Council
of Agricultural Research (ICAR), National Centre for Plant Genome Research
(NCPGR) and Indo-US Science & Technology Forum will jointly set up this
institutional framework.
DBT
Secretary Manju Sharma confirmed the plan at a three-day Indo-US
Agricultural Biotechnology Conference in Delhi. The conference
was jointly organized by the DBT, ICAR, NCPGR, Agricultural Biotechnology
Support Project II (ABSP-II) of the US, Indo-US Science and Technology
Forum and the USAID. Bhavani Pathak, USAID biotechnology adviser,
said that the US interest in biotechnology is part of the wider
objectives of targeting agricultural productivity, food security
and nutrition in the developing countries.
Email btic@dbt.nic.in for more information
about the proposed framework.
MULTI-SECTOR GROUPS SUPPORT BT CORN IN PHILIPPINES
In a
meeting held with Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary
Luis Lorenzo, Jr., members of the academe, science community, and
agricultural industry expressed their support for the Department's
recent science-based approval of Bt corn.
Sec.
Lorenzo encouraged the members of the academe, science community,
and agricultural industry present to help in the public information
campaign led by the government to correct the inaccurate and misleading
information being spread by other sectors who are pushing for a
moratorium on Bt corn.
Lorenzo,
however clarified that the government is not forcing the technology
on its farmers. He says that "most of the products including
Bt corn is indeed something safe. But it is really a choice for
the cultures and countries whether they want to adopt it or not.
Bt corn is not a poison, and it is not something that will affect
the environment."
"Bt
corn is just an option that could improve the income of our farmers
and fisherfolk to help in meeting the challenge of ensuring food
security for the Filipinos," says Lorenzo. He then urged the
academicians and scientists present to continue their research
in order to address the uncertainties and possible implications
of this newly introduced technology.
Members
of various non-government organizations had earlier staged a hunger
strike where they had called for a moratorium on the planting of
Bt corn. They decided to call off the strike when Secretary Lorenzo
turned down their request that would have reversed more than five
years of scientific studies by government and the private sector.
Related
articles can be viewed online at http://www.searca.org/~bic
GM CROPS NOT
A THREAT TO ENVIRONMENT
Researchers
from Indiana University in the US call for a pragmatic approach
to dealing with "transgenes" that escape from crop plants
into the wild. Researchers Loren Rieseberg and John Burke reported
in Science that a wheat transgene synthetically inserted into sunflowers
has little or no effect on crop sunflowers' wild relatives and
is not likely to impact on the environment.
" We found that a certain transgene that gives crop sunflowers resistance
to white mold is unlikely to spread rapidly to the wild because the transgene
doesn't affect the seed-producing abilities of wild sunflowers in nature," said
Rieseberg. "We need to examine each transgene and crop on a case-by-case
basis. Some transgenes will have major ecological impacts and others probably
won't."
They added that even if the wild hybrids are partially sterile or inviable,
genes will still move across the farm property barrier. It is the fitness effects
of a gene that dictate the speed at which it spreads. Hence, genes that are
not advantageous to the wild plants will spread very slowly. "The transgenes
that are truly deleterious to wild species won't move much at all", Rieseberg
explained.
The
full article entitled "Fitness Effects of Transgenic Disease
Resistance in Sunflowers" is available in the May 23 issue
of Science, Vol. 300, No. 5623.
CYCLOTIDES COULD
CONQUER CATERPILLARS
Cyclotides, cyclic cystine knot proteins found in tea used by some African
women in childbirth, could prove effective in controlling pests. David Craik,
from the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, has
discovered a protein that, if inserted into a cotton plant's gene, could protect
it from the highly destructive Helicoverpa family of caterpillars.
"Potentially
the caterpillars can destroy 10 -15% of the crop so the damage
it does is enormous," Craik said. "Such a gene, if inserted
into the cotton, could prove a highly effective and natural insecticide,
removing the need to use the chemical sprays that are of such environmental
concern."
Craik
also sees other potential benefits from the discovery. Because
the protein is very stable and resistant to attack from digestive
enzymes in the human body, it can be used as a framework for developing
drugs that can be taken orally. This means drugs that would otherwise
have to be injected so as to bypass the highly acidic digestive
system, such as insulin.
Contact
David Craik at his email address: d.craik@imb.uq.edu.au or
visit
http://www.cyclotide.com/index.html for
more information.
PLANT GENE MAY
YIELD NEW CROP PROTECTION STRATEGY
Researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI) in Cornell
University have identified a gene encoding an enzyme that is the key to natural
disease resistance in plants. Enhancing the activity of the enzyme might boost
natural disease resistance in crop plants.
The
research, reported in the May issue of the journal Cell, describes
the discovery of the gene that codes for an enzyme activated when
a plant senses it is being attacked by a pathogen. When activated,
the enzyme produces nitric oxide (NO), a hormone that tells the
plant to turn on its defense arsenal.
According
to plant pathologist Daniel F. Klessig, lead author of the Cell
paper, the discovery provides a new understanding of the biochemical
and genetic pathways in plants that enable them to protect themselves
from diseases.
"It's
known that the hormone nitric oxide plays an important role in
immunity in plants as well as in humans and other animals," says
Klessig. "But the enzyme responsible for its production in
plants was unknown until now. With this discovery, we may be able
to modify plants so that they produce nitric oxide more quickly,
or in larger amounts, when they are attacked by a disease-causing
pathogen, enabling them to better protect themselves from invaders."
Contact
Daniel Klessig at his email address: dfk8@cornell.edu
ANNOUNCEMENT
Crop
Biotech Briefs Available
The
Global Knowledge Center on Crop Biotechnology of the International
Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)
has released two Crop Biotech Briefs which are both available in
hard copy and online at http://www.isaaa.org/kc/Biotech_briefs/briefs.htm.
The
first brief is on the highlights of a University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and ISAAA survey on the social and cultural dimensions
of agricultural biotechnology in Southeast Asia. According to the
survey, Southeast Asians show high interest in biotechnology and
express strong appreciation for the role of science in the development
of agriculture. They see the possible benefits from the applications
of biotechnology in medicine, food, and crop production. More specifically,
they believe that biotechnology will benefit agriculture and the
small farmers in their countries.
The
second Brief is on the farm level impact of using Bt maize in Spain.
Authored by Graham Brookes of Brookes West, Canterbury, United
Kingdom, the brief examines the Spain experience on Bt maize and
draws comparisons with reported impact of the same technology in
the USA.
Also
available in the same website is a K (Knowledge) Sheet on the post-market
regulation of biotech foods (http://www.isaaa.org/kc/Services/Ksheets/ksheets.htm).
It summarizes the report of the Pew Institute on Food and Biotechnology
which dealt with the post-market regulatory oversight of GM foods
in the US.
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