Breakthroughs in agro-biotechnology

The predominance of agriculture in the economies of the developing countries makes it imperative that their scientists remain in close touch with the progress in agro biotechnology. THE INTERNATIONAL agreement recently reached at a session of the U.N.Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for the conservation of genetic resources for the future generation provides an occasion for taking a look at the agro-biotechnology scenario which does not generally invite as much attention as it should in view of its immense relevance to the stepping up of world food production.

It should also focus the attention of how developing countries would have to be alert to the promises of leaping biotechnology in agriculture and how the richer countries, particularly the U.S., could exploit such a lack of awarenesss to their exclusive benefit.

Western, particularly the U.S. approach to the promises made by advances in agrobiotechnology appears to be blatantly partisan by seeking to corner such advanced technology and make it inaccessible to the developing countries. .

The challenge thrown to agricultural scientists by such advancing technology could be far more demanding than corresponding breakthroughs in other disciplines in view of the fact that agro- biotechnology is ``a collection of diverse and reinforcing enabling technologies with a wide range of applications in agriculture, forestry, food processing, waste management, pollution control, chemicals, raw materials, energy, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals'' and other sectors which will make themselves known in the near future''says Dr. Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, Associate professor of Agrobusiness in the University of Missouri-Columbia in a paper presented to the American Agricultural Economics Association recently.

First generation biotechnology products such as herbicide tolerance and resistance to particular insect pests were seen as ``easy pickings''nd regarded as elementary. This should be because the biotechnology involved here was the evolving of a chemical response to ensure crop protection against the endangering to which they were exposed. It would, however, seem that projecting such earlier biotechnology as ``elementary'' uld be an oversimplification since the resistance formulated for the ''over-expression of a single gene coding for one enzyme or toxic protein being relatively less complicated. However, the picking out or the isolation of a gene was preceded by tedious research and trials before it could be accomplished.

The ``pickings'' were regarded as ``easy'' because it turned out to be relatively simpler to isolate and to be identify the genes in comparison with the tasks facing the scientists later with the genes likely to become much larger in number to make the task of isolating and picking them up more difficult.

While the first generation biotechnology products had improved agronomic properties, the second generation bio-engineered crops with enhanced quality traits are being developed by targeting the food and the edible oils markets. Bioengineering has concentrated on plants which could yield improved industrial feedstocks such as oils, starches and other polymers. With the emerging scenario of genes becoming available in excess and not lending themselves to the kind of isolation which had earlier facilitated easier picking, second generation agro- biotechnology has gone beyond the first by associating with many genes or gene complexes ``acting in concert''.

The isolation of genes which were regarded as commercially useful by the first generation agro-biotechnology now seems to have become more difficult in view of the present research programme calling for the study of complex biotechnical and physiological problems as an integrated system instead of its being on a gene- by-gene basis.

The gains from the first generation agro-biotechnology products include the realisation of their economic potential in the herbicide and insect resistant crops they helped to turn out and which had an economic value because of their diminished average costs. The complexity of the second generation bio-technologies has also helped product differentiation with higher economic value.

The questions thrown up by the advances in agro-biotechnology hinge upon the risks implicit in the bioengineering of organisms requiring regulative norms. If there has been an adverse impact of agro- bioengineering, not much seems to be known about it yet.

A rather obtuse awareness of such risks shown by the European Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is that these risks would be the same as those of ``conventional ones'' and share a ``substantial equivalence''.

While in the U.S. and Canada, the public response to agro- bioengineering is reported to have been positive, the scene is different in the E.U. in which the public attitude is negative because of declining faith in regulatory moves.

The International Plant Protection Committee of the FAO is focussing its attention on the safety of biotechnology crops and biotechnology products. Among the questions to which we may have no answers is whether agro-biotechnology scientists do really know enough of plant organisms to be able to claim and apply the expertise for subjecting them for product improvement and the turning out of new products.

If the public attitude towards such bio-engineering in the E.U. is negative, it is not surprising because of the fears about such ``tampering''. If, on the contrary, it is positive in the U.S. as it is said to be, it should reflect the confidence of the public in their agro- scientists.

The response towards agro-biotechnology in the corn importing countries with the exception of Mexico and Taiwan has been negative and they have introduced mandatory regulations. Adoption of agrobiotechnology calls for the segregation of the bioengineered crops from the non- bioengineered.

The adoption of the biotechnology implies that the farmers must be compensated for the higher costs of segregation abd for the sacrifice of proifts from the sale of non-bioengineered crops.

The grain trade has also to be compensated for the costs of segregating, testifying and certifying crops from the field to the market.

C. V. Gopalakrishnan

In Thiruvananthapuram

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