Dear Forum Members,

Firstly, like many organisations, we have been affected by a certain virus that turned out to be not very 'loving', but everything seems back to normal now. If you sent an e-mail to the Administrator or to either of the 2 conferences for posting during the last week and have had it returned giving an error message, please re-send it again now.

As you all know, the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture hosts a series of e-mail conferences. There are 2 conferences currently underway.

The second conference, Conference 2, has recently begun and the first e-mail message was posted on 4 May (note in this message, 2 words were incomplete: it should have been 'safe' instead of 'afe' and 'larger' instead of 'la ger'). The conference will run until 25 June and the theme is 'how appropriate are currently available biotechnologies for the forestry sector in developing countries'.

The first conference is approaching the end and is expected to finish on Friday 19 May, although an extension may be necessary. The theme of Conference 1 is 'how appropriate are currently available biotechnologies in the crop sector for food production and agriculture in developing countries'. The main aim of this update is to attempt, in a rough and approximate way, to summarise the main aspects of Conference 1 so far. In this way, it will be clear what we have covered and it will give members an opportunity to contribute to the various aspects of the theme of the conference, before it comes to an end in roughly 2 weeks time. At the end of the conference, both a brief and a more detailed Summary Document will be written and eventually published.

So far, 108 messages have been posted, from 42 different participants in 24 different countries. All messages are posted in Archives on the Forum website ( http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp )

In the Background Document (BD) we suggested that three major kinds of recently developed biotechnologies could potentially be used for the crop sector in developing countries:
a) biotechnologies based on molecular markers,
b) genetically modified crops,
c) micropropagation.

The BD also contained a section 4 entitled 'Certain Factors that Should Be Considered in the Discussion' where we indicated what kinds of things it might be valuable to consider. We can now try and evaluate how well this was done - highlighting what has been addressed and some of the main arguments. Participants in the conference have a further 2 weeks to express their opinions and experiences about the theme. The section read as follows:

'The key question in this e-mail conference is how appropriate each of the different biotechnologies, mentioned previously in this document, may be for the crop sector in developing countries and regions. The question of appropriateness should consider the following elements

- The factors determining or influencing the appropriateness of the different biotechnologies e.g. their environmental impact; their impact on human health; the status with respect to intellectual property rights; the status with respect to biosafety regulations and controls; the degree of access to the biotechnologies; the level of capacity-building or resources required to use them; their financial cost; their impact on food production and food security;
- The relative costs (financial, social, political or otherwise) of the biotechnologies versus the relative benefits (productivity, food security or otherwise);
- Whether they are more (or less) appropriate than existing conventional methods in the crop sector for food production and agriculture, given the realities of life in developing countries;
- Whether some of the biotechnologies are more (or less) appropriate than others;
- Whether some biotechnologies are more (or less) suited to certain regions in the developing world than others.'

All of the three kinds of biotechnologies have been discussed in the conference. However, the emphasis has been overwhelmingly on genetically modified crops (GMCs). In some areas of discussion, messages representing very opposing points of view have been posted, which reflects the polarisation that exists regarding some elements of the debate on agricultural biotechnology.

In the discussions, some of the main factors that were considered to have importance for the appropriateness of the biotechnologies were

a) Their status with respect to intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the power that multinational corporations (MNCs) may have because of IPRs over biological material:

This point was discussed extensively. The point was made (by participants in both developing and developed countries) that the existence of strong IPRs, and the fact that they are often owned by MNCs, would lead to dependence of developing country farmers on technologies owned by developed countries (clearly expressed by Soraj Hongladarom, Thailand, 3 April, who suggested that 'The fear [of biotechnology that has been aired in Thailand] does not so much concern the potential risks of the genetically modified crops as does the possibility that after a while farmers may have to rely exclusively on the technologies owned by these corporations'. Romain Berruyer, France, 28 March, also made the point saying 'the problem with biotechnologies is not the tool, but who has the tool'. Several other contributions discussing these fears were also posted e.g. by Mauro Carneiro, Brazil, 13 April; Vijaya Kumar, 18 and 25 April; Robert Lettington, 18 April.

On the other side, it was argued that farmers have always the choice of whether or not to buy improved varieties from MNCs and that 'those that invest in developing a product or technology should get paid for their creativity, capital risk-taking and simple hard work' (Mark Laing, South Africa, 17 April; supported also by Saturnina Halos, Philippines, 4 April).

b) The level of resources available in developing countries:

It was argued that funds in developing countries are scarce and often one of the first items in national budgets to be cut is 'research and development', making it very difficult for countries to develop products themselves that are suitable to their own national needs (messages by Nwalozie, Senegal, 23 March; Halos, Philippines, 23 March; Lettington, Kenya, 24 March; Kuta, Nigeria, 30 March).

c) Their environmental impact:

Many messages stressed the fear that large-scale planting of pesticide-resistant (Bt) crops would accelerate resistance development in pests (e.g. Geiger, USA, 24 March; Lettington, Kenya, 27 March). On the other hand, it was stressed in some messages that these crops were preferable as they would lead to a reduction in the current practice of spraying large amounts of pesticides into the environment (e.g. Halos, Philippines, 24 and 27 March; Kgoz, Turkey, 24 March; Smith, USA, 27 March; Srinivasan, Japan, 3 April). Some participants indicated that early research results were inconclusive about whether Bt crops had reduced pesticide use in practice (e.g. Lettington, Kenya, 3 April).

Regarding GMCs with herbicide tolerance, the fear of aiding development of herbicide tolerant weeds was also expressed e.g. Kumar, Sri Lanka, 31 March. The merits (or lack thereof) of emphasising such labour-saving traits in developing countries were also discussed e.g. Salzman, USA, 24 March and Smith, USA, 27 March.

It was also indicated that biotechnology could have a positive impact on biodiversity in the environment, by increasing the amount of food produced per unit land and thus reducing the need to use forest areas etc. for additional food production in the future (e.g. Wingfield, South Africa, 6 April and Roberts, UK, 12 April). Its potential negative consequences on within-crop species diversity were also mentioned (e.g. Laing, South Africa, 17 April).

d) Their status with respect to biosafety regulations and controls:

The point was made that application and monitoring of biosafety regulations would be more difficult in developing than in developed countries. Thus, Vijaya Kumar, Sri Lanka, 31 March wrote that 'developing countries possess limited scientific infrastructure and expertise and do not have the wherewithal to monitor such experiments or the products of such experiments. Furthermore they are ill equipped to deal with any environmental disasters emanating from these products.' Dr Sivaramakrishnan, India, 14 April argued that even in a country with a strong biosafety system in force, such as India, the monitoring process would not be very easy. See also Lettington, Kenya, 28 March.

e) Their impact on human health:

There were many messages discussing whether GMCs, in particular those with the Bt toxin-producing gene, could be harmful or allergenic to humans. Almost all contributions were from participants in developed countries. It was emphasised on many occasions that, for any type of food, there is no such thing as 'no risk'. Much technical information is available on this subject on the web, and some messages included web addresses. See e.g. Felsot, USA, 19 April; Reel, USA, 7 April; Roberts, UK, 10 April; Wingfield, South Africa, 10 April; Lin, France, 18 April).

f) Their role as tools to increase food production and reduce hunger in developing countries:

As was indicated in the Background Document, the global population is increasing, the amount of land available is finite and more food per hectare is needed in the future, to avoid growing crops on land currently devoted to functions other than food production. Some participants felt therefore that biotechnology was an important element in this process (e.g. Lin, France, 30 and 31 March; Paiva, Brazil, 3 April). Others argued that social and political factors were of greatest importance (e.g. Lohberger, Australia, 31 March; Lettington, Kenya, 3 April; Reel, USA, 3 April). Lin, France, 31 March and McGuire, Netherlands, 31 March emphasised that biotechnology alone could not solve world hunger problems but that they could contribute. McGuire pointed out that 'it is unrealistic (and unreasonable) to expect Southern agricultural scientists to become political activists as well, especially in charged settings'

*******************************************
Other points from the conference:

1) Whereas many messages focused on specific elements of the theme, some tried to deal in a general way with the whole theme of the conference. Schenkel, Germany, 4 and 12 April, gave two valuable contributions based on his experiences with developing country projects. Srinivasan, Japan, 12 April and Wingfield, South Africa, 13 April shared their general experiences regarding marker-based technologies and micropropagation respectively for developing countries. See also Rebai, Tunisia, 25 April.

2) That genetic modification of crops is not the only biotechnology available to developing countries and that these other biotechnologies should not be overlooked. See Guiltinan, USA, 24 March; McGuire, Netherlands, 31 March and Wingfield, South Africa, 3 April).

3) That there is a need to develop biotechnology products that will address specific problems of developing countries, rather than simply using those that are already available from developed countries. This point was made in a few good messages - e.g. Musanje, Zambia, 27 March; Lettington, Kenya, 3 April; Wingfield, South Africa, 3 April; Mwangi, Kenya, 10 April.

4) A point which was very rarely discussed was whether some biotechnologies might be more suited to some regions of the developing world than others. Only Moscardi, Colombia, 28 March, has dealt with this to some degree.

There are roughly two weeks left of Conference 1 and two months of Conference 2. Feel free to participate and share your views and experiences on the themes of these conferences.

Sincerely,

The Forum Administrator

p.s. a useful source of information and links concerning agricultural biotechnology and developing countries has recently been put on the web at http://www.agbiotechnet.com/topics/devco.asp