Professor Diran Makinde
(Board member, AfricaBio, Biotechnology Stakeholders Association)
University of Venda for Science and Technology
South Africa

Last century brought out an era of sustained association of science and its technological applications that resulted in huge investments in research by private companies. This link between academic research, science and technology and company R&D have manifested, for example, in the innovation process of biotechnology in all its manifestations. Biotechnology in simple terms, is the use and modification of living things to make useful products to benefit human beings.

In the case of agricultural biotechnology the phenomenon of genes moving from one chromosome to another (jumping genes or transposons) had been known for over 60 years but has been poorly understood, and in the 1970s the natural processes of transformation (ability of naked DNA to be incorporated into genetic systems in cells) and transduction (genes carried from one species to another by a vector such as a bacterium) were discovered. Improved understanding of these natural phenomena enabled scientists to adapt the systems so that single genes or a cluster of two or three genes could be moved from one species to another. The application of this technology is known as genetic modification or GM. The first commercial GM variety released was a long life (delayed ripening) tomato in 1994. As genetic systems were better understood application was extended to other crops and today more than 40 food species have been genetically modified to contain unique traits such as resistance to specific insect pests, resistance to diseases, tolerance to herbicides, extended shelf life, improved nutritional characteristics, unique new flower colours, or a combination of such traits.

GM crops have established a global safe track record. At the end of 2003 some 68 million hectares were planted by 7 million farmers in over 18 countries. Six million of these farmers are small-scale and subsistence farmers. More than 300 million cumulative hectares of GM crops have been grown commercially since 1996 and these met the expectations of millions of large and small-scale farmers. Approximately 30,000 field trials have been conducted with more than 50 GM crops in 45 countries. Annual increases have continued to be in the double digit figures. Global increase in 2003 over 2002 was 15%.

Six countries grew 99% of the global GM crops; 43% by the USA, 21% by Argentina, 6% by Canada, 4% by China, 4% Brazil, and 1% South Africa(400,000 hectares). India, Romania, Australia, and Uruguay grew more than 50,000hectares each. Spain grew 30,000ha of Bt maize, while Germany, Mexico, Bulgaria, Honduras, Columbia, Philippines and Indonesia each grew less than 50,000ha. Recently Brazil confirmed that they have been growing GM soybeans in substantial volumes. The highest growth rate, year-on-year, occurred in China and South Africa at 33%. China increased its Bt cotton area to 2.8million ha. South Africa increased its combined area of GM maize, soybean and cotton to 0.4 million ha with particularly strong growth in white maize which has increased rapidly from 6,000 ha (2001) to 84,000(2003). South Africa had its first GM crops trials with cotton in 1990 and commercial use was approved by government in 1997. Adoption rose rapidly and the present cotton crop is over 80% GM. The present white maize crop is estimated to be 8%, yellow maize at 20% and soybeans 35%.

Traits and crops: Herbicide tolerance has been the major trait in GM crops, allowing farmers to spray after planting to eradicate all weeds without harming the tolerant food crop. Environmentally friendly herbicides that do not persist in the soil also serve to facilitate crop rotation, as well as minimum tillage practices to combat erosion. Herbicide tolerant crops comprised 73% of total GM crop area in 2003. Insect resistant crops having the Bt gene made up 18% of the total. Crops with a combination of both traits made up 8%. Area planted to other GM crops such as virus resistant papaya and squashes, very valuable traits in their own right, were grown on the remaining 1% global GM area.

In terms of global crop production 55% of the 76 million ha soybeans were GM, 21% of the 34 million ha cotton, 16% canola and 11% of the 140 million ha of maize were GM. The aggregate of these four crops for the first time exceeded one quarter of a billion hectares.

Countries and Continents: In 2003 the three most populous countries in Asia (China, India, Indonesia) with a combined population of 2.5 billion all grew officially approved GM crops.

Argentina, Brazil and Mexico represent the three major economies in Latin America and all three grew officially approved GM crops.

South Africa with the biggest economy in Africa is growing 400,000 ha GM crops.

In North America, the USA and Canada are the leaders in GM technology.

With Australia in Oceania and several countries in Europe having approved GM crops, the global picture tells us that the 18 countries on 6 continents with a combined population of 3.4 billion are growing GM crop and billions of consumers are eating food from GM origin without any deleterious effects having been substantiated.

The 7 million farmers who have adopted GM crops have done so because of crop production benefits and the resultant economic advantages. A growing body of scientific studies has substantiated these benefits. They include:

Biotechnology in Africa must be considered as one of the tools that can be used in the context of Africa’s needs for increased food production, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. Malnutrition is widespread in Africa, even when growing conditions are satisfactory.

It is said that many things in African economies will go wrong unless things go right in African agriculture as farming is the most important economic activity, occupying 60-80% of the population and contributing 30-50% of the national GDP. 80% of food production is in the hands of small-scale farmers with small, low-yielding holdings.

Biotechnology research is currently underway in crops that are important to Africa e.g. maize, banana, millet, sorghum, cowpea and cassava. Key traits such as disease, pest and drought tolerance, nutrient enrichment and quality improvements are being addressed.

The large role of the private sector in biotechnology research and the extensive patenting of research tools and genes are of concerns in the developing countries. These include: (i) the neglect of poor people’s crops and poor regions; (ii) the impact of intellectual property rights and genetic use restriction technology (GURTs) on accessibility of technology and genetic resources to developing country scientists and farmers; and (iii) potential monopoly power of the biotechnology firms and their ability to extract excess profits from farmers.

Access to GM technology is crucial for further research. The barriers to access include the regulatory procedures, IPR issues, poorly functioning markets especially with the traditional trading partners( and the politics), and weak domestic plant and animal breeding capacity.

Four African countries provide leadership in the production of transformed plants, reflecting substantial research investments and national priorities that include GM crops. Each of these countries has specific institutes focused on capacity and product development using particular crops and traits for transformation. This includes an impressive array of crops, with emphasis given to various cereals, vegetables, roots and tubers and for locally important crops such as melon. The traits being used to produce GM crops reveal a wide focus as well, demonstrating depth and breadth of transgenic experience. In Africa emphasis is given to insect and virus resistance, for pests and diseases of local importance and work is intensifying on tolerance to abiotic stresses(drought and salinity). Herbicide tolerance is being undertaken to lesser extent, while work in complex traits is advancing for protein and quality. Success has been achieved in the combination or stacking of genes so that resistance may be improved and longer duration of effect ensured.

Market mechanisms have forced publicly funded organizations to respond to broader economic and market opportunities and to position themselves to be part of the future global agricultural research system (NARS).

The primary purpose of IPR ownership by NARS is to promote the fundamental research mission of the institute, keeping in mind the needs of clients and production of public goods. IPR is to protect innovation and secure the potential rights for future developments (Blakeney et al., 1999). The opportunity to earn financial benefits from national research programmes comes mainly from working with the private sector and by providing for technology transfer. The mechanisms for legally protecting agricultural innovations are plant breeders’/variety rights and patents (extended to cover plants, animals and microorganisms). Other forms are through trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights. Alternatives to these include material transfer agreements of a private contractual nature. If no form of protection is taken, then research results are generally placed in the public domain, mostly in the form of publications, making result available to all without restrictions on use.

The debate on IPR generally and patents in particular centres on adaptation to cover living organisms, genes and biological processes related to agriculture. Many quarters judged patent systems to be inappropriate for protecting living organisms because they imposed practical restrictions. However, unless private sector plant breeders, biotechnology scientists and biotechnology firms are able to make a profit from their inventions they will have little incentive to further invest in research.

Agricultural research yields social benefits for farmers, consumers and society as a whole, through the creation of new technologies, and effective IPR protection for the products of biotechnology. Farmers may benefit through lower production costs and/or improved yields; consumers benefit through lower commodity prices and improved quality attributes; society benefits from the economy-wide growth effects of agricultural productivity gains (Pray and Naseem, 2003).

Patents are essential to encourage innovation and openness in scientific research.

Denial of IPR should not be used as a means to regulate or restrict scientific research. This would discourage transparency, stifle investment in technological advances and confine knowledge.

There are no reasons why biotechnology inventions should be treated differently to any other inventions. Benefit sharing from indigenous knowledge is being addresses by some governments in Africa.

The general release of GMOs, either locally developed or imported, requires the presence of adequate biosafety regulatory capacity. Therefore a functional biosafety system is a compulsory integral part of a government’s R&D and investment policies for biotechnology.

Biosafety evaluates two areas of impact- food and feed safety and environmental impacts. It is estimated that the cost of biosafety package development and obtaining regulatory approval for GM crops is equivalent to the cost of developing a new GMO i.e. between US$1-10 million per approved crop.

South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda (Malawi?) are the five countries in Africa that have functional biosafety/interim processes in place. The other countries span a diverse range in terms of regional location, national capacity and ability to participate in the UNEP-GEF project. Over 30 countries are at various points in developing and implementing national biosafety systems

There are numerous scientists and institutions in developing countries who have the capacity, motivation and often even funding to work towards scientific progress in the areas of biotic and abiotic stresses, expand agricultural productivity to hostile environment, etc. Very few of these have the financial and entrepreneurial capacity to transform a scientific success into an applicable product. Aside from this, the extreme precautionary regulatory procedures is a big hurdle that no public institution/scientist can overcome without resources, experience and determination. Regulatory authorities in the developing countries are less experienced, more insecure and therefore stringent than those in developed countries. If the precautionary principles remain like this the potential of agricultural biotechnology will not reach the poor.

Field trial data shows that developing countries have been slow to take up applied research on GMOs. This is a refection of the lack of private firm interest and the difficulties these governments face in establishing a regulatory system for biosafety.

A private firm investments in research or commercialization of a new technology depend on the expected size of the market, ability to appropriate some of the gains from the crop and the costs of research and commercialization. This therefore has affected production of knowledge, research tools, genes and GM varieties that can be useful in the developing countries.

Impact Assessment: From the few impact assessment studies done on biotechnology in Africa, following the few biotech products or those near commercialization or in the field, demonstrated the potential for these technologies to address food security, poverty alleviation and productivity.

The banana case in Kenya whereby using tissue culture to ensure that virus-free material is distributed to producers, showed that traditional biotechnologies can be implemented readily with a relatively lower level of investments than modern biotechnologies and still command a significant rate of return to investment. In the case of sweet potatoes, virus resistance is derived through modern biotechnology performed by a national research institution in partnership with a multinational company. These showed the potential for institutional managements by the private (or public) sector in developed nations or in advanced research institutions within Africa, by establishing institutional partnerships. However, public sector institutions and the public sector in Africa need to avoid the traps of dependence and unsustainability of their research programmes. Therefore, an appropriate balance is needed between accessing scientific capacity to develop indigenous technology.

The case of insect resistance cotton in South Africa is another example of a technology developed by multinational company and marketed either in joint venture or by a subsidiary of such company. This provides research spillovers when private and public sector institutions establish licensing agreements.

Other research-focussed initiatives for biotechnology in Africa are:

The double digit rate of increase of GM crop area is expected to remain. In the USA the use of double GM genes (stacked traits) is increasing and approval of a new Bt gene against maize rootworm will add new growth. Area under GM crops in countries that have approved GM crops will take off. Approvals for Bt sweet corn in Germany and of Bt maize trials in the UK are expected to be ratified soon. In Kenya testing of a virus resistant sweet potato is in progress. Several African countries are preparing to test GM cotton. Research in drought tolerant GM crops (maize and soybeans in particular) is advancing. The best that we expect from agricultural research is a sustainable agriculture that relies less on water (AfricaBio, Survey).

A lot is being extended to livestock health and production sector, in terms of the development and production of new or improved biopharmaceuticals for diseases, gene therapy, genome sequencing of infectious agents. Molecular breeding, the application of genomics to the breeding of animals with desired genetic traits. Also included is the genetic manipulation of rumen microflora to improve the utilization of low grade forage by ruminants.

Others are soybeans with healthier cooking oils or with omega-3 to help reduce cholesterol maize enriched with vitamin A or with traits optimized for producing ethanol.

Both conventional and GM biotechnological research on traditional African crops like banana, cassava, groundnuts and pigeon peas are in an advanced stage of incorporating virus resistance. South Africa has approved the stacked genes, Bt 1 and Bt 2 in cotton, as well as herbicide tolerance in maize. Application for herbicide tolerance and insect resistance stacked genes in cotton is in progress. Future adoption increases will be driven by developing countries, whereas it may move slowly in Europe.

GMOs are here to stay. GMOs will impact on all aspects of our lives. The question now is how best to manage it in a responsible, practical and affordable manner.

Agricultural biotechnology research itself cannot eliminate poverty and food insecurity but can help reduce it substantially. It may never replace conventional plant and animal breeding. It adds valuable new tool to overcome persistent constraints and should continue to form part of integrated pest and disease management programmes. In combination with these conventional technologies, it will play an important role in extending the diversity of safe food products available to the consumer.

In conclusion the following are therefore recommended:

References:

AfricaBio- Agricultural Biotechnology: Facts for Decision Makers. www.africabio.com

Annonymous, 2004. African Agriculture and Biotechnology- Assuring Safe Use While Addressing Poverty.

Blakeney, M., Cohen, JI, and Crespi, S. 1999. Intellectual property Rights and Agricultural Biotechnology. In: Managing Agric Biotechnology- Addressing Research Program Needs and Policy Implications. Ed. JI Cohen. CABI/ ISNAR.

Pray, CE and Anwar Naseem, 2003. The Economics of Agriculture Biotechnology Research. ESA Working Paper no 03-07. FAO, Rome, Italy.

Pray,CE and Anwar Naseem, 2004. Biotechnology R&D: Policy Options to Ensure Access and Benefits for the Poor. ESA Working Paper No 03- 08. FAO, Rome, Italy.

.