08.11.2000

Concerning the message of Trevor Fenning [7 November], I cannot [imagine] any 'emergency' where genetically engineered (GE) seeds would help, as growing even GE plants requires a full growing season.

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Food security (in peace time) is about a community's ability to provide its food requirements. This can be done by producing food within the community, or by being able to buy food from outside the community's area.

The ability to produce food broadly depends on the level of skills and the natural resources. If either or both of these are not adequate, food security may be low, if food cannot be bought by the community. If the natural resources are adequate (in many - not all - developing countries they are), then food security becomes a function of the skills available to the community - and this is where the biggest challenge lies. Increasing the skill level will require transfer of technology (technology is the systematic application of scientific or other organised knowledge to practical tasks) to these communities, taking cognisance of all the obstacles one has to overcome in order to effectively transfer technology. Any technology that will reduce the reliance on skills, may resultantly increase food security. In that sense, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can certainly increase food security, an example could be stalk borer resistant maize.

One should, however, be very careful not to overestimate the impact of new technology on production. Although the developed countries have increased production significantly during the past 30 or so years, there is still much scope for improvement without GMOs (more so in developing countries), and I wonder if it is wise to introduce GMOs into the developing countries as a cure for their food security problems.

Thank you to Professors Gibson and Carvalho [both on 7 November] for their reactions to my message [6 November].

I chose GM rice with a beta-carotene gene because it seems to me a good caricatural example. As Prof. Carvalho asks, how could we believe that it does not really exist a better way to allow the people to get their vitamin A needs than transforming rice ?

Concerning the arguments for GM rice, I propose the analysis of the paper published by Dorothy Morrissey in "Le courrier" (journal of EC), no 178, Dec 1999- Jan. 2000. [An independent French-language Swiss newspaper...Moderator]:

"Vitamin A deficiency is the first cause of xerophtalmia or childhood blindness, an illness that is affecting nearly 400 millions of children in the world". Firstly, xerophthalmia is not of course equivalent to childhood blindness. [xerophthalmia is defined as: a dry thickened lusterless condition of the eyeball resulting especially from a severe systemic deficiency of vitamin A....Moderator] Secondly, childhood blindness is not evidently affecting 400 millions of children in the world. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), "250,000 to 500,000 Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) children become blind every year and half of them die within a year of becoming blind" (WHO, 2000). Perhaps, this serious mistake corresponds just to a bad formulation of the author. Perhaps, the figure she gives corresponds to VAD in general and not to childhood blindness? Further, she says that "2.8 to 3 million of pre-school children are clinically affected and the survival of 251 millions of other children is seriously endangered". The figures and exact formulation of WHO are the following: "3 millions have signs of xerophthalmia. Nevertheless, most of the children affected by VAD - between 140 and 250 million - present only subclinical manifestations, yet live with a greater risk of mortality and the risk of developing severe infections" (WHO, 2000).

It seems to me particularly serious and inacceptable to be so superficial with the suffering of thousands of people (many other mistakes, too simple generalisations and lack of precision could be found in the article of D. Morrissey: all of them are exposed to underline the interest of this technology). But, I fear that biotechnology projects to get financing and/or political support are too often presenting wrongly, badly or superficially, firstly, the social problem, and secondly, the solution that they propose. Most of the time, not to say always, just the technical genetic aspect of the solution is presented.

To continue with GM rice as an example, I would like to emphasise two aspects concerning the proposed solution:

1) Which and how many varieties are supposed to be transformed ? If only very few, as is probable, and if, to have an efficiency on the VAD, it is proposed that these few varieties become dominant, what about the conservation of agricultural biodiversity ? According to me, one of the main problem of GMOs.

2) Who will provide the seeds and at which price ? Will the farmers have to pay each year to renew their seeds ? As a consequence, will not these seeds be available only to the richest farmers ? Will not this technology increase one of the major problems of the world, the increasing gap between the poorest and the others ?

Michel FERRY
Directeur scientifique
Station de Recherche sur le Palmier Dattier
et les Systèmes de Production en Zones Arides
Apartado 996
03201 ELCHE
Espagne
tél: 34.965421551
fax: 34.965423706
e-mail: m.ferry@wanadoo.es

[For those wishing further information on VAD and with access to the Web, an article on VAD by the WHO can be found at http://www.who.int/nut/vad.htm.......Moderator]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 3:36 PM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: A general note regarding third world agriculture

Just an observation to the message of Trevor Fenning [7 November].

In my message [6 November] as, I think, in the message of Felix Oresajo [2 November ], we are not refering to natural disasters or emergencies, but to hunger. The day to day hunger of 790 million people. The permanent daily research of something to eat of nearly 1/6 of the world population. The fact that millions of parents do not know if they will be able to give something to eat to their children today, tomorrow or after tomorrow. We are speaking of this daily scandal so far from our own welfare that we are incapable to conceive it.

[Apologies to Michel Ferry. The article that he refered to in an earlier message today, by Dorothy Morrisey, was in fact published in the ACP-EU Courier (or Le Courrier ACP-UE, in French), which is a development magazine produced within the Development Directorate General of the European Commission (and not in the Swiss newspaper of the same name). It is published every two months (in English and French) and has a circulation of approximately 80,000. The article by Dorothy Morrisey can be found on page 79 and is entitled "grains of hope" at the following site http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/publicat/courier/index_178_en.htm ....Moderator]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 4:15 PM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Vitamin A deficiency // GM rice

In response to Michel Ferry [8 November], the answers to his questions about 'Golden Rice' can be found at the following web sites:

http://www.biotechknowledge.com/showlib.php3?3837

http://www.biotechknowledge.com/showlib.php3?3473

and

http://www.worldbank.org/developmentnews/archives/html/jan18-21-00.htm

In summary, it is available for free to the world's rice breeding centres, so that it's characteristics can be introduced into local varieties as needed, and the people who need it won't have to pay a penny extra. Many thanks to Prof. Ingo Potrykus for his work here.

People might also be interested to see the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Science-online page below, where amongst other things, the results of introducing C3 photosynthesis genes from maize into rice are discussed, boosting its' productivity by up to 30%, for no extra input (in the recent abstracts section). Maybe I'm biased, but this sounds most useful to me:

http://www.isnar.org/irri/Science.html

Dr Trevor Fenning.
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology,
Jena, Germany.
Fenning@ice.mpg.de

[Just a comment to future participants in the conference: Remember to introduce yourself briefly in your first posting - this is the first of our Guidelines for Participation in e-mail Conferences http://www.fao.org/biotech/suggest.asp .....Moderator]

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