Just to reply to Peter Rosset [23 November]:
In Mexico the major debate on transgenic plants is focused on the introduction of transgenic Maize, Beans and Squashes, and the major concern is that Mexico is the center of origin of these species.
About the BT crops I believe that you should say that the "evidences" that you stating are just few articles that have been criticized by the scientific community.
Alessandro Pellegrineschi
Cell Biologist
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Apdo. Postal 6-641
06600 Mexico, D.F., MEXICO
PH: (52) 5804-7537 [In USA: (650) 833-6655]
FX: (52) 5804-7558, 7559 [In USA: (650) 833-6656]
EM: A.Pellegrineschi@cgiar.org
(CIMMYT home page on WWW: www.cimmyt.cgiar.org)
[To contribute to this conference, send your message to biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org 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: Friday, November 24, 2000 8:48 AM
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Environmental risks are important for.....
We are doing some work on agrobiodiversity, and in South Africa we have noticed a steady decline in interest in landraces, which have been integral to African farming systems. This decline is both a result of Apartheid laws, where millions of black peasantry were systematically displaced off their land from the 1900s onwards, as well as the lack of incentives that encourage interest and invesment in land-races. This problem is further excerbated by the introduction of monoculture and hybrid seeds, because they are easier to grow.
One of the concerns with transgenic crops is that because it is assumed that genetic engineering (GE) offers us a fast-track approach to identifying and introducing new traits compared to conventional breeding systems, less priority is given to land-races. The result is that the attention that should be given to land-races, because they are our endowment of genetic variability for the future, is not as it should be. Or perhaps genetic engineering has generated a false optimism that because of the technology, genetic variability can be introduced artificially and so the concern with conventional methods of securing and generating variability is not worth the investment. This I think is cause for concern, as we are then making ourselves more dependent and prone to risk, because we are relying on high-technology solutions without covering all our bases adequately. This could be one of the major negative spin-offs of GE, as it would create a dis-incentive to maintain in-situ and conventional knowledge and methods of maintaining genetic variability for fast-track technological solutions.
Saliem Fakir,
head of the World Conservation
Union Country Office in South Africa.
sfakir@icon.co.za
[To contribute to this conference, send your message to biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org For further information on the FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]