Forum Conf 1 (biotech and crop sector)

I would like to discuss some points of the very interesting communications by Dr. Carneiro [13 April]. Here are my remarks on the first communication.

Ť The domination of the gene transfer technology by developed countries and the commercialization of transgenic products by transnational firms, [...] reinforced by the [...] adoption of the intellectual property rights (IPR) in biotechnology by the DC [developing countries], maintains the trend of the world-wide economy where the DC are the exporters of raw materials but consumers of technologies and of products with high aggregated values. ť

I can only agree.
The possibility of patenting natural genes strengthens this imbalanced relation
: Firms can go in developing contries, collect genes of interest and patent them without any counterpart for the origin's country.

Ť The DC are, in general, agriculturally-oriented and, as such, potentially the major site for the production of genetically modified grains.ť

This is true.
Moreover, in these countries, environmental and sanitarian laws are often more interesting for the firms than for the citizens. I think some of them use the very bad strategy of making trials and errors in the third world countries in the purpose to promote secure transgenic crops in developed ones. First, this is a contemptuous attitude toward third world people, second this is a very bad strategy for the image of GMOs in the public opinion. The case of Basta resistant transgenic rice in India is scholar.

Ť The research that was carried out comprised mostly the transfer of technology [...]. With the adoption of IPR in biotechnology by the DC,[...] new products and processes specific for the DC agriculture have to be generated. ť

I know it could sound repetitive, but if patenting of natural genes were not possible, such a transfer of technologies would continue to be possible. Now, DC have no longer the possibility of using known genes of interest, and must discover and develop other genes, which is the most expensive part of transgenic plant making process. Moreover, they have to do this in a context of strong competition with huge transnational firms that do not have interest in such a Ť genetic independance ť of DC. On the other hand, DC have the possibility to accept co-operations with transnational firms, that means a long term dependance of local farmers on these firms.

Ť In this way, it is very important to build up the relationship between the public and private sectors [...] as well as between scientific and productive sectors. This has to be seen not as a danger but as an opportunity ť

First : It is obvious that agricultural research has to interact with crop procucers, to know their needs and let them know about its inovations. Second : there is always a danger in cooperating with a transnational firm when you are poor. I would like to remind you that the only purpose of any kind of industrial company is money (there is no moral jugement in this sentence) and that contracts, instead of laws, only reflect the balance of forces, which are not in the advantage of DC. I'm not sure that local development of integrated production by small farmers is the most Ť cash making ť way of exploiting a newly patented gene.

Ť Stable sources of funds would have to be found through partnerships with non governmental organizations, cooperatives and private companies. ť

I would just like to make a little correction : To be sure that the purpose of public research of any kind of country will not be biased by foreign private interests, the private partner has to be smaller than the public or nonprofit organisation. As an example, if Monsanto makes a partnership contract with the national biotech institute of Zimbabwe, I'm not sure that the purpose of the research will match well Zimbabwean farmer's interests.

Ť ... a "Transgenic Tax for Research and Development" (TTRD), to be paid by the Firms/Exporters from the commercialized transgenic products. ť

This is an interesting idea.

Romain Berruyer
Ph-D student, CIRAD, France
berruyer@cirad.fr

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-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 10:35 AM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: IPR for developing countries

In response to Dr. Carneiro's message [13 April] Ť The recognition of IPR [...] opens several possibilities to protect knowledge [...]. Among them, developing countries (DC) may patent their inventions themselves, file joint patents in the case of joint projects or license their inventions. ť

It would be very comfortable for me to agree with your optimism. By the time that third world countries will be able to efficiently isolate and caracterise genes, the global cake will already be shared between two or three agrotech industrial companies. To be direct, because you do not possess the knowlege, you have no interest in its protection. In the case of natural genes, no one exept agrotech industries has interest in their protection by patents. Ť Protecting ť them is stealing them to mankind.

Romain Berruyer
Ph-D student, CIRAD, France
berruyer@cirad.fr

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 10:39 AM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Priorities for biotechnology in developing countries

Dr. Carneiro [13 April] says

Ť Host plant resistance is another tactic for integrated pest and weed management, that may use resistance genes, transferred to crops from different species or even phyla by [trangenese and somatic hybridation]. ť

I feel it is the most important utilisation of transgenesis for developing countries. But of course, as a plant pathologist, I've perhaps a biased point of view.

Ť In view of the complexity of managing transgenic crops in an economy of small farmers, a more strategic focus may be upon the accumulation of multiple minor genes through marker-assisted breeding. ť

I respectfully disagree : Today's transgenic crops are obtained from high yelding modern cultivars that need protective technical environment. There is no technical difficulties in transforming local traditional varieties with genes of interest. This is a cheap and well-adapted GMO-making way for the third world. If the same trangene has been used in another cultivar of the same crop, it would be easier to make this new transformed variety and to assess its inocuity to human health and environment. It is also easy for the local farmer to use it :
it is the same plant with the same caracteristics as the one he was used to, plus a new resistance or vitamin, or other. The only limit to such a local transgenesis strategy is natural gene patenting... I let you make the conclusion.

Romain Berruyer
Ph-D student, CIRAD, France
berruyer@cirad.fr

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 11:02 AM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Molecular markers - Examples from developing countries?

This is from Dr. Siva Sivaramakrishnan, International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India

I would like to take up the role of marker-assisted selection (MAS) as a tool in breeding. This will hasten the breeding process and help in the introgression of novel genes that can improve the quality of the product. Breeders can hasten their breeding efforts using MAS for complex traits such as disease resistance and drought which are the major yield reducing factors. A lot of research is going on in this direction but we still haven't heard much about the practical application of this technology which can definitely benefit the breeders (both public and private) who can develop high yielding varieties under adverse environmental conditions.

I would like to give two examples from the research that is being carried out at ICRISAT where we are trying to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for two complex traits, downy mildew in pearl millet (an economically important disease) and drought tolerance in sorghum and chickpea (stay green character and root volume). In the case of disease resistance, we have identified a number of QTLs that account for a high percentage of the variation in pathogenicity. In the case of drought, we have broken the trait into smaller components and try to identify QTL. In the case of drought, we are yet to identify the right QTL for drought tolerance. I must say that even the identification of the right QTL which is tightly linked to the trait of interest itself is a time -consuming and hard work. One of the impediments in our case is the non-availability of a good saturated map for the crops that we deal with at ICRISAT.

Before MAS can become routine it need to be rigorously tested under different agro-ecological zones to establish the stability of the marker in the different agro-eco regions just like any other conventional varietal improvement methods. All this means a lot of carefully planned research, which is resource intensive. Unless the trait has a significant economical benefit and the crop has a potential market the research is not going to be done seriously. It is here the resource intensive nature of the biotechnology research that becomes a limiting factor in the developing countries. This may not be the case of crops like rice, maize, wheat etc. where the potential market can offset some of the cost implications.

The question was asked how the resource poor farmer could adopt such resource intensive technologies when he cannot even afford fertilizer or weeding [e.g. Peter Mwangi 7 April...Moderator]. With the improved varieties, even the seeds will become expensive and the farmer may not be able to afford. These are issues in which a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done at different levels for arriving at tangible solutions.

S. Sivaramakrishnan Ph.D.
Scientist
Cellular and Molecular Biology
S.SIVARAMAKRISHNAN@CGIAR.ORG

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 11:07 AM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: GM crops in developing countries

A problem that has been discussed at length in the Conference is GMOs. No one denies the benefit that can be obtained from crops that incorporate alien genes against specific biotic constraints. However, it is wrong to say GMO is the only solution for increasing the productivity of crops in the developing countries. I have seen arguments that state that without accepting GMOs the developing countries are doing a great damage to their agriculture. There are inherent bio-safety issues associated with GMOs which need to be addressed adequately before these can be taken up in any developing country. One needs to have the right kind of monitoring system for GMOs in the country where the ecosystems are different and the expression levels of the transgene can be altered differently. For example, countries like India have a strong Bio-safety system in force but still the monitoring process takes more effort, time, and resource which is not that easily available.

Another important issue is public awareness which needs to be in place if one has to debate the pros and cons of such technologies than over react as in the case of what happened with respect to the terminator gene and the cotton crops in India. The long-term effects of these GMOs or their influence on the ecosystem are still not available. And such studies need more time as we are addressing the issues of gene flow and their effects on biodiversity in the ecosystems which are now a major global environmental concern. There is nothing wrong in being cautious than overreacting to such issues. Here I see it is important to make the public aware of such issues with the use of IT tools that are playing a critical role in the developing countries.

S. Sivaramakrishnan Ph.D.
Scientist
Cellular and Molecular Biology
International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),
Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India
S.SIVARAMAKRISHNAN@CGIAR.ORG

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 4:08 PM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Priorities for biotechnology in developing countries

Dear Romain Berruyer.Thanks for your comments [14 April].

The situation is not so simple as you mentioned, specially with regards to the small farmers. First, one would have to consider two sort of products: commodities and non commodities. Generally, small farmers are mainly involved in non commodities, since they cannot compete with big producers.

In order to make a transgenic one would need:
Market Considerations ( e.g. acceptation)
Genes
Promoters
Transformation System
Deregulation.

In general, developing countries don't have genes, promoters, they may have/or not the skill to transform local varieties, and they are not able to perform the requirements recommended by WTO (ISO 25000) with regards to deregulation.

Who is going to pay for that?
Do you know how much it costs to license one gene? or a promoter? How about the transformation system?
Well, lets say all that is solved. The costs of deregulation of one plant runs around 1 million dollars. Who is going to pay for that?

Transformation is also not so evident. You could ask the French people from ex Rhone Poulenc. They have experience on this. They can tell you how easy it is to transform the local varieties of commodities (at least), how long it takes and how much it costs.

Mauro Carneiro, PhD
SAIN Parque Rural - Final Av. W/5 Norte
70770-900 Brasília DF
P.O. Box 02372
E mail: mauro@cenargen.embrapa.br
Phone: +55 61 4484760
Fax: +55 61 4484758.

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 4:10 PM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: GM crops in developing countries

In response to Dr. Sivaramakrishnan [14 April], who writes: "For example, countries like India have a strong Bio-safety system in force but still the monitoring process takes more effort, time, and resource which is not that easily available."

First off, thank you for your recent postings, which reflect a sober, balanced view of the potential benefits and problems surrounding use of GMOs.

In the case of what was written above, I have no doubt that most countries will adopt monitoring regulations and even very strict codes. The point about "resources" not being easily available, in my mind, will allow for frequent violation of such codes. In terms of technology, up until now the damages resulting from said violations were, by nature of the technology, localized. The potential damage in the case of GMOs, especially during trial and error stages, especially in terms of loose enforcement of said codes, could be widespread and perhaps irreversible.

Jeffrey Reel
jeffreyreel@aol.com
Planetary Food Council, USA

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