ISB News Report / May 2000
Researchers working on the application of biotechnology to agriculture in
the
developing world often mention a vegetable you'll probably never see in your
average supermarket, say, in Ames, Iowa: cassava. "You don't see Monsanto or
other multinationals researching cassava," say the scientists. "This is so
despite the key role this crop plays in the diets and livelihood of some 500
million people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America," they explain.
This comment -- nearly transformed into aphorism through repetition -- was
heard again at a first-ever workshop on biosafety for members of Colombia's
Biosafety Council, held from April 12-15 at the International Center for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), a CGIAR center near Cali. And the comment is
mentioned here because it serves to underscore a basic fact: biotechnology
in the developing world is slowly and surely acquiring its own identity.
This is evidenced by the laws, decrees, or resolutions that are creating
councils and commissions charged with regulating biotechnology in developing
nations, the training these councils and commissions are seeking, and the
research they sanction or prohibit. The workshop held at CIAT brought this
point home.
Rodrigo Artunduaga, coordinator for the Genetic Resources and Biosafety Unit
at Colombia's national agricultural research institute -- and head of the
eleven-member Biosafety Council -- explained why a workshop was needed in
the first place. "Since we were created by a government resolution 16 months
and nine meetings ago, we've had nine applications for greenhouse or field
trials of transgenic crops, and reaching consensus has been difficult," said
Artunduaga. "What we've found is that several members of the council are
simply lacking in the background necessary for evaluating these
applications, and we want to make sure there are no problems with
authorizations."
Colombia's council was not the first body created to regulate biotechnology
in the Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC)--Argentina holds that
honor, having set up their commission in 1991. Nor will it be the last. Its
eleven members include representatives from the Ministries of Health, the
Environment, and Agriculture, as well as a farming organization, an
agricultural NGO, a seed company, a multinational (DuPont -- required to
withdraw if the company submits an application), a microbiology professor,
and three members of the national agricultural research institute. In this
panorama, it should be no surprise that certain members "have some level of
ignorance about transgenics," as the council head put it.
And so the workshop spanned from "Genes: What are They?" to a talk on "What
are the challenges for biotechnology in the tropics and what role should
biotechnology play?" Zaida Lentini, plant geneticist and workshop organizer,
called the event "overdue, but welcome." She noted that the work of
Colombia's council, and that of other similar bodies in the region, is
somewhat complicated by "a tendency to import health and environment
arguments and debates from Europe, and agricultural research objectives from
the United States."
In LAC, for example, a key environmental issue in years to come will be gene
flow, since the region includes five of the world's twelve centers of origin
and domestication of species. Examples include corn, with ancestors in
Mexico, and cassava, whose center of origin is thought to be Brazil.
Agricultural research objectives unique to the region include the work of
Dr. Lentini herself, whose research includes a transgenic variety of rice
resistant to the hoja blanca virus -- an endemic pest that periodically
wreaks havoc on this staple crop.
In fact, Dr. Lentini's research program is one of three at CIAT that have
submitted applications to the Biosafety Council for greenhouse and field
trials. When asked about the possible conflict of interest involved in
having sought out CIAT to offer the workshop, Dr. Artunduaga said that
consensus had been reached on the applications in the council's most recent
meeting, even though they hadn't been formally approved. Dr. Lentini
underscored that the workshop's content in no way referred to CIAT's pending
applications.
The other two applications CIAT has before the council are for greenhouse
studies of transgenic plants carrying marker genes, with tropical pastures
and -- surprise -- cassava. The latter is being done with an eye towards
insect resistance. And while all three -- as well as the other six
applications -- are oriented towards agronomy performance, Artunduaga and
Lentini both see gene flow experiments as a next frontier of sorts, both in
Colombia and in the tropics in general. "I'd like to be studying this right
now," said Dr. Lentini, "but first things first." Dr. Artunduaga said that
"in the tropics, we must further our knowledge of ecosystems, expression and
stability of incorporated genes, the botany and geographical distribution of
those species of which the region is a center of origin, and the technical
basis for risk assessment and risk management."
Of course, the above will require training, and lots of it. This is why Dr.
Artunduaga also called legislation "only the first step" towards lifting
biotechnology off the ground in Latin America and the developing world in
general. "After that," said the head of Colombia's Bisoafety Council, "you
have to develop a critical mass of experts within each country to study and
monitor the benefits and effects of transgenic crops. It makes no sense to
have laws, decrees, or whatever, which require a pile of data, if no one is
capable of interpreting the data."
Timothy Pratt
Journalist
Cali, Colombia
mailto:[email protected]
(posted without permission)
