By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
Genetically modified organisms or GMOs have always been “controversial” even before the first commercially available GMO came out in 1994. In this article, I am again giving way to somebody to tell you updates about these crops.
The following article was actually part of an inspirational message during the closing program of the annual convention of the Philippine Association of Research Managers (PHILARM) held in Baguio last week. The convention was the 2nd International Research, Development, and Extension Management Congress, and the 27th National PHILARM Convention co-hosted by Benguet State University.
Incidentally, BSU, through the initiative of its president, Dr. Feliciano G. Calora Jr., is embarking on more forays into the international arena by hosting or co-hosting international conventions or sending students, faculty and employees abroad to expose them to advanced programs in other institutions. The main objective is to learn from those programs and incorporate them into the university’s programs.
Here’s the message, with very little editing done. (It’s from Dr. William D. Dar, the first and only Filipino scientist who became director-general of an international agricultural research center belonging to the CGIAR System. He is presently president of Inang Lupa Movement).
“There is a time when GMO crops were getting a lot of bad press because those oppose to them made a lot of noise in their alleged long term effects on human health and the environment. But GMO, or biotech crops as they are now called, have literally conquered the world over the past 21 years with no real evidence of its alleged negative effects on human health and the environment, when compared to traditional crops. This is good news for experts who are looking for solutions to secure the world’s food needs in the face of numerous challenges, particularly a growing world population and climate change.
I can even say that millions of small holder farmers worldwide have greatly benefited from adopting biotech crops, because the use of inputs can be made more efficient resulting to increase yields and more earnings.
In fact, over a 21 year period, based on evidence, biotech crops have proven their worth in increasing productivity and reducing damage to the environment.
Such evidence are provided by the “The Global Status of Biotech Crops in 2016” published by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) that, I should mention, is headed by a Filipino, Randy Hautea. ISAAA’s headquarters is at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños.
The report showed that for 2016, the global hectarage for biotech crops reached 185 million, or an increase of 5.4 million hectares over that of 2015. While that is a mere 3.0 percent increase, the writing on the wall is very clear– biotech crops are now part of the solutions adopted worldwide to increase food production and give smallholder farmers the chance to earn more.
The ISAAA report stated that more than 18 smallholder million farmers worldwide have already benefited from biotech crops since 1996.
The cumulative hectarage of biotech crops since 1996, when the commercialization for these started, is now 2.1 billion hectares. The report stated that increased crop productivity from the use of biotech crops was 574 million metric tons valued at $167.8 billion from 1996 to 2015.
With those developments, Nobel Laureates last year released a statement supporting biotechnology and condemning those critical of the technology, like Golden Rice. I believe criticisms against biotech crops, which are all unfounded, only served to restrict the enactment of policies favorable to the adoption of such crops in many countries.
Also, the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine published a review of about 900 researches on biotech crops since 1996 and concluded that GMO and conventionally grown crops have no difference when it comes to probable risks to human health and the environment.
Another fear attached to biotech crops is the danger that big Western Corporations will end up monopolizing the technology and take control of the world’s farming sector. Although the development of GMO crops can be largely credited to large corporations, institutions like IRRI and even the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) are into developing Golden Rice, which can be a valuable tool to combat Vitamin A deficiency.
China is also taking great interest in biotech crops with the recent corporate takeover by a Chinese National Chemical Company of Europe-based Syngenta, one of the leaders in biotech crops.
The leader in the adoption of biotech crops is still the United States, with 72.9 million hectares as of 2016. All told, biotech crops are presently grown commercially in 26 countries, including 19 developing nations like the Philippines which has 800,000 hectares already devoted to GMO corn. Overall, the country is ranked No. 13 worldwide in the adoption of biotech crops.
Although the Philippines is No. 13 worldwide in the adoption of biotech corn, it has failed so far to push for the adoption of the fruit borer insect resistant eggplant developed by Institute of Plant Breeding, UPLB
But the good news is there are new methods to develop biotech crops without the unfounded scare that was unjustifiably attached to the first generation of GMO crops, particularly those containing Bt. Among these methods is “gene editing”.
From my own research, gene editing does not require introducing any foreign organism into a plant specie or variety. Instead, the DNA of the plant or crop is “edited” to give specific traits like resistance to certain diseases, or better adaptation to drought and water logging. I believe gene editing, which based on my research is less costly compared to genetic modification, would result to the development of more biotech crops in the future.
What the public may not even know is that nuclear irradiation is even used to improve a variety of crops and is even employed by a number of local research institutions.
What I am driving at is that science and technology hold the key to increasing crop production and even preserving the environment. My research indicates that in 20 years the percentage increase in production of rice is 56 percent, for corn-74%, livestock-60%, and poultry-89%. For fisheries, the increase in production for the 20 years is 150%. The ISAAA report even credited the biotech crops for saving 174 million hectares of natural forest and grasslands from being converted to farmlands.
Also, more than 620 million active ingredients of pesticides were not used or saved because of the worldwide adoption of biotech crops from 1996 to 2015.
Overall, biotech crops should be included in the “basket of options” for smallholder farmers to increase production, which in turn should include mechanization, irrigation, soil and water resources management, skills training and values formation”.
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