FBAE Blog

Fellow biotech blogger James Wachai just posted the following entry on the importance of biosafety legislation in Africa. He encourages African scientists to push this issue as well, since they have more credibility than pro-biotech groups.

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

Researcher wants biosafety laws in Africa
GMO Africa
March 6, 2008

Professor Walter Alhassan, a renowned agricultural biotechnologist from Ghana, recently raised a very salient issue regarding agricultural biotechnology in Africa. Alhassan moaned the unwillingness by African governments to enact laws to regulate safe acquisition of agricultural biotechnology. Alhassan regretted that the absence of biosafety laws in many African countries remains the greatest impediment to serious research on genetically modified crops in the continent.

I can’t but totally concur with Prof. Alhassan, and I would encourage other scientists, especially from Africa to stand by him. Unlike pro-biotech lobby groups and multinational biotechnology companies, they’ve the requisite credibility to force their respective governments to act. They’re the right people to explain, unabashedly, what biosafety laws entail. I say this because there’s this conventional belief in most African countries that the sole mission of biosafety laws should be to keep off genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from their territories. Sample this April 2007 statement from Zambia’s Chairperson of the Education, Science and Technology Committee, who said a biosafety law was needed to ensure “…Zambia remains a GMO free country.”

On this blog, just like Prof. Alhassan has said, I once emphasized that the first step to Africa benefiting from new technologies, including modern agricultural biotechnology, is to enact laws to regulate their acquisition. When computers emerged, African countries tried as much as they could to pass Information Technology (IT) laws to ensure their use for government and private businesses. The vigor with which African countries have enacted IT laws to ensure their safe use must, now, be applied to agricultural biotechnology. You can’t adjudge a technology - the way African governments are trying to do - as bad or good, before experiencing it. Europe, whose opposition to GMOs Africa seems to ape, is already conducting field trials of GM crops. Africa countries, except South Africa, are nowhere closer to here. They’re still dialoguing about whether biosafety laws have relevance to them. Isn’t this the time for Africa to heed Prof. Alhassan’s advice and pass biosafety laws, to allow farmers explore potential benefits agricultural biotechnology.

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Posted by Dr. C Kameswara Rao at 11:41 AM | Permalink

I found the following blog posted today on an announcement last week concerning the development of several biotech crops in Indonesia. I’m happy to see other bloggers posting this positive information. Read the blog post below.

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

Agriculture Ministry Growing Five Food Crops through Genetic Engineering
Food Security & Agricultural Biotechnology
March 4, 2008

A researcher at the Indonesian agriculture ministry's Research and Development Agency (Litbangtan) says that the agency is developing genetically modified (GM) varieties of tomato, potato, papaya, rice, and cassava. The researcher, M. Herman, reports that "The commodities are being researched and they are expected to be ready for commercial use after five years." Herman said it will be a relatively long period before the GM crops are made commercially available because they have to be subjected to meticulous tests to ensure their food and environmental safety. He also commented that the development of GM soybeans, corn, and cotton has so far been dominated by multinational companies.

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Posted by Dr. C Kameswara Rao at 3:46 PM | Permalink

Check Biotech just posted this Irish Times article on the growing problem of rising animal feed costs. Many MPs are calling for restrictions on GM animal feed to be lifted to help livestock farmers make a profit.

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

North Ireland plea over GM food imports
Check Biotech
March 6, 2008

Northern Ireland farmers must be allowed to import genetically modified (GM) animal feed to help them survive in the face of spiralling grain costs, Assembly members have claimed.

In a debate on the impact of the inflated global feed markets on the local intensive farming sector MLAs backed a proposal calling on the EU to loosen restrictions on the import of biotech feedstuffs.

The DUP added this amendment to an original Ulster Unionist motion urging the Agriculture minister Michelle Gildernew to provide financial support to those farmers who are struggling to cope with a 159% hike in grain prices in the last year.

William Irwin (DUP, Newry and Armagh) said the livelihood of many farmers depended on the EU lifting restrictions on GM feed for animals

"These are being grown on an increasing scale in America and would go some way to addressing the grain shortage."

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Posted by Dr. C Kameswara Rao at 11:47 AM | Permalink

The European Union is reporting that more farmers are planting genetically modified maize. Current statistics show that nearly 110,000 hectares were used to grow GM maize in Spain, France, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Germany in 2007. That’s about 48,000 more hectares than was planted in 2006. Read more about this great news below.

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

GM Maize: 110,000 Hectares under Cultivation
Check Biotech
March 4, 2008

The cultivation of genetically modified plants in the EU is increasing. In 2007, genetically modified maize was grown on a total of nearly 110,000 hectares in Spain, France, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Germany. In the previous year, GM plantings comprised 62,000 hectares, totalling approximately 1 percent of maize cultivation areas.

To date, the only type of GMO grown in the EU is Bt maize. Bt maize contains a gene from a bacterium that produces a toxin ( Bt-toxin) to defend it from the European corn borer. An insect pest, the European corn borer primarily is present in southern and middle Europe, and is slowly making its way north.

Regions infested with the European corn borer can experience serious crop losses. Since biological and chemical control methods are expensive and only partially effective, Bt maize can be a money-saving option for many farmers despite its higher seed cost.

In Spain, a substantial amount of the maize production is genetically modified – it is estimated that 25 percent of the current production falls under this category. Bt maize was first grown in Spain in 1998, and by 2004 production had risen to 60,000 hectares. In 2007, GM maize was cultivated on more than 75,000 hectares.

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Posted by Dr. C Kameswara Rao at 11:30 AM | Permalink

Farmers in the Australian state of Victoria are asking for field trials before genetically modified canola is available commercially. According to the following article, many farmers appear to be in favor of the technology, they just want to make sure it will be worth it before planting the crop.

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

Victorian farmers push for GM testing
Check Biotech
March 3, 2008

South-west Victorian farmers are keen to have genetically-modified (GM) canola tested before using it, the leader of a regional crop research body said yesterday.

Victorian Agriculture Minister Joe Helper yesterday announced the four-year moratorium on commercial plantings of two varieties of genetically-modified canola would lapse today.

Southern Farming Systems (SFS ) chief executive officer Mark McDonald said about three quarters of the 700 SFS members - 500 of whom are in south-west Victoria - want research trials before they would use the crops.

Mr McDonald said there would not be much GM seed available in 2008 for commercial plantings and Victorian Premier John Brumby said the uptake of genetically-modified canola crops would be limited to a small number of farmers.

Mr Helper said studies show the grain supply chain has the capacity to keep grain varieties separated "and this will be the case with GM canola".

"I think it (the end of the moratorium) is a great thing but how they segregate it is going to be a bit of a worry," Cavendish, Vic, farmer Don Price said.

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Posted by Dr. C Kameswara Rao at 3:50 PM | Permalink

Ever wonder why African farmers are being denied access to technology like GM seeds? Take a look at Robert Paarlberg’s new book, “Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa.”

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

Starved for Science
Harvard University Press
March 1, 2008

Heading upcountry in Africa to visit small farms is absolutely exhilarating given the dramatic beauty of big skies, red soil, and arid vistas, but eventually the two-lane tarmac narrows to rutted dirt, and the journey must continue on foot. The farmers you eventually meet are mostly women, hardworking but visibly poor. They have no improved seeds, no chemical fertilizers, no irrigation, and with their meager crops they earn less than a dollar a day. Many are malnourished.

Nearly two-thirds of Africans are employed in agriculture, yet on a per-capita basis they produce roughly 20 percent less than they did in 1970. Although modern agricultural science was the key to reducing rural poverty in Asia, modern farm science—including biotechnology—has recently been kept out of Africa.

In Starved for Science Robert Paarlberg explains why poor African farmers are denied access to productive technologies, particularly genetically engineered seeds with improved resistance to insects and drought. He traces this obstacle to the current opposition to farm science in prosperous countries. Having embraced agricultural science to become well-fed themselves, those in wealthy countries are now instructing Africans—on the most dubious grounds—not to do the same.

In a book sure to generate intense debate, Paarlberg details how this cultural turn against agricultural science among affluent societies is now being exported, inappropriately, to Africa. Those who are opposed to the use of agricultural technologies are telling African farmers that, in effect, it would be just as well for them to remain poor.

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Posted by Dr. C Kameswara Rao at 11:18 AM | Permalink