[For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see the Forum website.
Note, participants are assumed to be speaking on their own behalf, unless they state otherwise.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 20 March 2007 10:46
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 39: Re: Purifying dirty/unclean water - Kenya

My name is C Kameswara Rao, a retired professor of botary at the Bangalore University, and for the past six years the Executive Secretary, Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, Bangalore, India.

Regarding message 38 by Bosibori Bwari Bett: In the rural Andhra Pradesh, India, where I grew up in my early years of life, the ground paste of the seeds of Strychnos potatorum (Loganiaceae) was being used to flocculate solid suspended matter and clarify muddy water from canals fed by the river Godavari, during the monsoon.

Seed or wood paste of Moringa oleifera and seed paste of Strychonos potatorum are fine to clarify quantities of water needed for small households, but are impractical for large scale use.

C Kameswara Rao
Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education,
Bangalore,
India
krao (at) vsnl.com

[While this e-mail conference is concerned with water for agriculture rather than for households, for those interested in getting more information on water for household use, see e.g. Sobsey, M.D. (2002) "Managing water in the home: accelerated health gains from improved water supply" (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/wsh0207/en/index.html), a report prepared for the World Health Organization, which describes and critically reviews the various methods and systems for household water collection, treatment and storage. It also presents and critically reviews data on the ability of these household water treatment and storage methods to provide water that has improved microbiological quality and lower risk of waterborne diarrheal and other infectious disease. One of the chemical methods of water treatment described is seed extract coagulation-flocculation, including use of seeds from the Moringa and Strychonos potatorum, where the report says:
"Coagulation-flocculation with extracts from natural and renewable vegetation has been widely practiced since recorded time, and appears to be an effective and accepted physical-chemical treatment for household water in some parts of the world. In particular, extracts from the seeds of Moringa species, the trees of which are widely present in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, have the potential to be an effective, simple and low-cost coagulant-flocculent of turbid surface water than can be implemented for household water treatment (Jahn and Dirar, 1979; Jahn, 1981; Jahn, 1988; Olsen, 1987). The effectiveness of another traditional seed or nut extract, from the nirmali plant or Strychnos potatorum (also called the clearing nut) to coagulate-flocculate or precipitate microbes and turbidity in water also has been determined (Tripathi et al., 1976; Able et al, 1984). Microbial reductions of about 50% and 95% have been reported for plate count bacteria and turbidity, respectively. Despite the potential usefulness of Moringa oleifera, Strychnos potatorum and other seed extracts for treatment of turbid water, there has been little effort to characterize the active agents in these seed extracts or evaluate the efficacy as coagulants in reducing microbes from waters having different turbidities. The chemical composition of the coagulant in Strychnos potatorum has been identified as a polysaccharide consisting of a 1:7 mixture of galactomannan and galactan. These findings suggest that such seed extracts may function as a particulate, colloidal and soluble polymeric coagulant as well as a coagulant aid. The presence of other constituents in these seed extracts are uncertain, and there is concern that they may contain toxicants, because the portions of the plant also are used for medicinal purposes. Also, little has been done define, optimize and standardize conditions for their use. Furthermore, there appears to be little current effort to encourage or disseminate such treatment for household water or determine its acceptability, sustainability, costs and effectiveness in reducing waterborne infectious disease"...Moderator].

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 20 March 2007 11:35
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 40: Marker-assisted selection for drought tolerance

I am Dr. Baboucarr Manneh, a postdoctoral fellow at the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), which has its temporary headquarters in Cotonou, Benin. I am working on using marker-assisted selection (MAS) and conventional breeding approaches to develop drought tolerant lines of rice. I have closely followed the discussions and would like to thank the moderator and organizers of this conference for creating this platform for sharing information on this very important topic. Drought stress causes substantial crop losses on an annual basis in Africa and the most accessible option for many African farmers is the use of drought tolerant/resistant crop cultivars. WARDA is involved in developing drought tolerant cultivars of rice that can be used to stabilize rice yields in rainfed rice production systems in Africa.

As has already been highlighted by several contributors to the conference, drought tolerance breeding in rice is indeed a very daunting task because generally rice is highly sensitive to moisture stress. However, significant genetic variation for drought tolerance at different developmental stages of rice has been reported by several researchers. Some traits that have been reported to significantly contribute to drought tolerance of rice include possession of deep and thick roots (common in japonica ssp.), good osmotic adjustment (common in indica ssp.), earliness (for drought escape), stay green ability (not much scientific evidence for this) and good remobilization of assimilates from vegetative to storage organs (little data available on this also). Large quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been reported for some of these traits such as root traits (Zhang et al. 2001; Kamoshita et al. 2002; Li et al. 2005), osmotic adjustment (McCouch and Doerge, 1995; Babu et al. 2003; Robin et al. 2003), earliness (Babu et al. 2003) and grain yield under drought (Atlin et al. 2006). Nonetheless, not much success has been achieved in developing drought tolerant rice cultivars through MAS.

Many MAS research activities usually focus on introgressing a gene(s) for one trait at a time. However, the incidence of drought especially in Africa is highly unpredictable and the effects of drought stress on rice depend on the developmental stage at which the stress occurs. Therefore different gene complexes would be involved in drought tolerance of rice. Drought tolerance breeding in rice may require the need to pyramid appropriate alleles of different genes controlling traits that contribute to drought tolerance occurring at different developmental stages of rice. Thus drought tolerance breeding through MAS may need a different approach from the often-used method described above. To use MAS to pyramid genes for different drought tolerance traits, would require the use of different mapping populations segregating for different drought traits. Near Isogenic Lines (NILs) developed from such populations could then be crossed so as to pyramid the different genes in progeny ensuing from such crosses.

Another possible breeding approach for pyramiding drought tolerance QTLs, involves using complex crosses such as double crosses and three way crosses using parents possessing good levels of different drought tolerance traits to generate large breeding populations. Unfortunately such an approach at the moment is not amenable to MAS since most QTL detection software can only be used in populations developed from two parents.

Baboucarr Manneh, PhD
Biotechnology Unit
Africa Rice Center (WARDA)
01 B.P. 2031 Cotonou
Benin
B.Manneh (at) CGIAR.ORG

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 20 March 2007 16:40
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 41: Designing solutions to mitigate water scarcity

I’m Gian L. Nicolay, working as a development practitioner for Helvetas (Swiss Association for International Cooperation) in Ethiopia. My background is agronomy, with extended education and experience in social sciences including management (mostly in Africa and Switzerland). Water efficiency is one of the major challenges worldwide and the potential of biotechnology, among others, should be assessed systematically.

Both water (scarcity) and GMOs are public issues of first order and I would like here to felicitate FAO and the moderator for this conference. Now the issue here is the USE of water, which per se goes beyond knowledge about specific topics like "the role of biotechnologies copying with water scarcity". Use implies decisions, institutions and people, concrete local context (where the designed solution is to be implemented), policies and regulations and values (mainly conflict management and consensus finding). This complex reality can be described with the tools and concepts of systems dynamics and systems theory, which is already widely applied in business and management.

It seems pertinent to me that the focus should be on the practicability of any solution envisaged and designed. Research and development (R&D) working on solutions which will never be accepted by the relevant society would add hardly any value. Breeders not cooperating with biotechnologists and GMO specialists will lead to missed opportunities. Farmers, consumers and local politicians not being involved in the design of the solution might refuse its application (see more in Conference 12 and 8). The bottom-line should be the delivery of sustainable and widely accepted services, products and approaches, always in their concrete context.

A practical way to design solutions in the sense developed above, could be the involvement of the following institutions and their systemic connection:
1. Moderation of the solution process similar to a process of developing a value chain by an experienced moderator. To assure that all relevant stakeholders participate in the solution design in order to stop/redirect the process if consensus cannot be reached. This should happen at the national or local level. The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) will be indispensable, but seconded by radio, TV and other media.
2. Making best use of global AND local knowledge and focus the process on the throughput, i.e. the desirable solution leading to mitigate water scarcity in the given local context.
This process could assure that ANY technology has a chance to be accepted and implemented which can convince the members of the society. Ideological differences have to be sorted out during the process, as well as missing pieces of information on the technologies and their possible impact. Also, this holistic approach would help to end the gap between R&D and science on the one side and a rather confused society dealing with highly complex but existential issues on the other side.
3. Leadership will be a key requirement, in order to set-up the "solution path system".

I would be curious to hear if somebody has experienced similar processes and what we could learn out of it. Or is there a community of practice (CoP) already operating on this issue?

Gian L. Nicolay
Program Director Helvetas Ethiopia (NGO)
Addis Abeba
Ethiopia
helvetas (at) ethionet.et

[The reference to Conference 12 and 8 earlier in the message is to two previous conferences hosted by this FAO Biotechnology Forum i.e.
Conference 12 (17 January to 14 February 2005):"Public participation in decision-making regarding GMOs in developing countries: How to effectively involve rural people" (see http://www.fao.org/biotech/C12doc.htm for all messages, plus the background and summary document); and
Conference 8 (13 November to 16 December 2002): What should be the role and focus of biotechnology in the agricultural research agendas of developing countries? http://www.fao.org/biotech/Conf8.htm ...Moderator].