12.12.2000

Dear Participants,

We are in now in the last week of this conference, where the last day for receiving messages is Sunday 17 December. We encourage those who haven't already done so, to give us their views on the theme on the conference or on any lessons/conclusions they have taken from the conference. As David Steane [5 December] said "I would hope that all those who have, like me, been 'readers only' in this conference, will now communicate their views - it is crucial that all views are heard !"....Moderator]

In reply to the message of Andrea Johanson [11 December]: Precisely, this is where the difficulty is and our obligation: we do "not have an obligation to investigate all possible solutions" [a quotation from Andrea's message...Moderator]. On the contrary, we have the obligation to use in the best way possible the little money (that each year is less) available to fight against hunger. We have to make choices. The interest of this conference is precisely to discuss whether biotechnologies have or not, or in which case, a place in this fight and consequently, in which cases research in this field is of priority, besides other types of research. I have never said that ABSP was advocating no debate on biosafety. I have just said that there is no information on biosafety concerns in the report of ABSP [referred to by Andrea on 5 December...Moderator]. Worse, if I am not mistaken, there is no one project concerning biosafety research in the large list of projects on biotechnology established by ABSP. That seems to me very symptomatic.

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: [email protected]

[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [email protected] The last day for receiving messages is Sunday 17 December. For further information on the FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 9:45 AM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: Re: Public institutions and the fight against hunger

There has been much ado about the appropriate type of development, and whether we should lock people in rural areas, or encourage them to move to urban areas. There is no intrinsically valid proposition, and what we forget often is that people ultimately do make rational decisions depending on the push/pull factors that operate in a particular context. What is necessary is to understand what drives these rational choices, and try to make interventions in a manner that is acceptable to people according to their desire and the speed with which they want such interventions or are willing to accept them.

The point I want to make though is that all technologies have a transformative ability which we cannot always predict. The internet is a good example of how it has transformed the world, but at the same time also excluded two-thirds of the world from possibly benefiting from the good aspects of globalization.

The problem with the way in which biotechnology is promoted is that it lacks a vision that is centred around the development context of different countries and cultures. And, when you introduce it as a solution, you abstract from one reality to another and hope that it will work. Even worse, the solutions are not even contextualised in the current drive to promote the technology, the abstractions are taken almost as gospel, as being universally valid. The solutions-orientated approach that underpins the current drive of the technology is set against a background where its impact or contribution is not contextualised in terms of what the development needs are. Therefore all technological interventions require contextualisation, otherwise they can increase the vulnerability and risk that poor people will have to bear.

The world is constantly changing. And, all of us have to find ways to adapt. The most vulnerable segments of our society, because of the lack of resources, find it tougher to adapt to change. Therefore the interventions, whatever form they may be, need to understand the process of adaptations that people are engaging in so as to ensure that the interventions we make are not disruptive technologies, but complementary, and facilitatory in nature.

Saliem Fakir
Head of IUCN-South Africa
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 1:06 PM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: Biotechnology in food

I have followed most of the discussion on this topic and have to admit to being disappointed in what has been covered to date.

As a manager of a programme that provides support for research and development in livestock production and the value of this towards poverty alleviation and food security, I had hoped to learn of priority areas for biotechnology in this sector. I had hoped to learn where innovative biotechnology could be usefully employed, what its advantages would be, what the likely products would be and their value, but equally what the pitfalls and dangers might be.

I must confess that I start from the basic premise that biotechnology and gene technology is likely to have some value to improving sustainable livestock production in developing countries but with the obvious realisation that this will not solve all the problems and that there will be disadvantages and dangers. What I was hoping for, was discussions on these technologies in order to better evaluate roles they might have in assisting livestock production (in developing countries). Unfortunately the discussion seems to have remained at a much higher level and dealt only with the general concept of whether biotechnology can assist the poor, why the poor of the world exists and alternative ways in which the poor should be helped.

I find it difficult to address the issue of the role of biotechnology in food production in a realistic way without considering specifics and without evaluating the many varied areas of biotechnology and how they could or could not assist.

In the Joint FAO/IAEA Division based in Vienna, we have been trying to address this problem for some time. In an effort to evaluate the situation further on behalf of the Member States of IAEA and FAO in the livestock sector, we have organised an international symposium in 2003 entitled "Application of Gene-based Technologies for Improving Animal Production and Health in Developing Countries". [IAEA stands for the International Atomic Energy Agency...Moderator]. I had hoped that this conference would provide us with some focus and priority areas for this symposium. This has not occurred either in this area of biotechnology or indeed in others. Would this type of discussion not be valuable and if so how could this be achieved?

My impression at this stage is that we have deliberated the broader context but failed to provide facts, focus and direction across the wide range of biotechnological options that might assist food production.

Dr. Martyn Jeggo
Head,
Animal Production and Health Section
Joint FAO/IAEA Division
of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture
Wagramer Strasse 5
P.O. Box 100
A-1400 Vienna, Austria
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 3:34 PM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: Agbiotech in Africa

The present agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) "solutions" are of extremely limited relevance and use to developing countries, although some solutions may attain future relevance.

South Africa is agriculturally schizophrenic. Two separate systems co-exist; that of modern, industrial farming alongside that of traditional farming practice. The former is well resourced by private extension systems; the latter is largely ignored. We need to move from schizophrenia to symbiosis.

Speaking from an African perspective, our biggest problem is the state of the soil. Biotechnology presently offers limited solutions to this challenge. We instead need holistic land management, concentrating on soil biota, tilth, organic content, etc. before any meaningful improvements in agricultural production can be achieved. This, in conjunction with modern integrated farming practices (permaculture, integrated pest management, intercropping, diversification etc) offer superior options. Unfortunately these aspects of agronomy are not being sufficiently pursued due to a strong bias towards agbiotech and other "silver bullet" solutions.

In order to improve production and innovation we need to improve farming practices through NGO and state extension programmes. There is also an urgent need for the implementation of agricultural reform programmes throughout many indebted nations.

Contrary to industry claims that genetic engineering (GE) is simple to administer as the "solution lies in the seed", there is concern about the lack of understanding of the more technical aspects like refugia and separation distances, even amongst sophisticated farmers. Other dangers are; accidental GE pollution by inadvertent planting of GE animal feed or aid seeds; rejection of export crops from regions due to poor government policy or monitoring and the lack of oversight by civil society unversed in means or sophistication to counter complex agronomic and safety testing or monitoring issues.

The inability to monitor agricultural innovation through lack of resources is leading to a state of effective anarchy in the field throughout South Africa. Given that this country has one of Africa's more efficient bureaucratic systems, the ability of less resourced nations to even monitor the effects of GE crops, remains a considerable concern.

The cost of GE seed has proven a barrier to its introduction in South Africa, even amongst the developed industrial farming sector, where rapid uptake should be presupposed given the active promotion by industry sources. What hope is there that poorer, new entry farmers would be able to afford the technology or understand licensing contracts?

If small farming pursues the logical road of low input, mixed farming practices with an export component, there is a further risk that GE pollen drift and other factors may affect the sale of African agricultural produce to Europe, which is presently our biggest agricultural market.

This debate cannot be separated into scientific and political aspects. The two are inseparable. Science cannot operate in a vacuum of civic non-accountability; further, the development of agbiotech must be openly discussed in fora that are more democratically accessible than the net. Science may appear neutral but its societal context is dynamic, unpredictable and unavoidable, facts highlighted by this debate.

Agbiotech has fallen victim to the same myopia as allopathic (western) medicine in that it is directed at the symptoms and not the underlying causes. Until agbiotech faces the real problems facing third world agriculture and stops levering northern solutions into (perceived) southern problems there is little chance of narrowing differences in this debate or in reality. Most market-driven possibilities are antithetical to southern needs. If agbiotech is to play a role, it is a very limited role that must be contextualised on a case by case basis.

Glenn Ashton
Director
Ekogaia Foundation
Cape Town
South Africa
27-21-789-1751
[email protected]
[email protected]

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