Plant Biotech Blog

By ASHOK B SHARMA
The Financial Express

NEW DELHI, NOV 22: The delay in the release of provitamin A rich Golden Rice for mass cultivation in India has led to an avoidable loss of 240,000 lives, says the co-inventor of the product Ingo Potrykus.

The transgenic Golden Rice contains two novel genes - one from maize and other from a soil bacterium. It does not contain an antibiotic resistance marker gene.

The only novelty being the protein from the bacterial gene - phytoene-desaturase, said Potrykus and claimed that no environmental risk or health problem was involved.

According to him, Golden Rice would minimise vitamin A malnutrition on basis of traditional normal diet.
Potrykus is perturbed over the ‘extreme precautionary regulation’ for genetically modified (GM) crops in India. “It led, so far, to a delay of at least six years in the use of Golden Rice with a consequence of an avoidable loss of 240,000 lives,” he said.

He was also very critical of the ‘anti-GMO lobby’ for stalling the process of approval of GM crops and alleged that the delay in Indian regulatory process was due to ‘European influence’.

Golden Rice in India is still at the stage of development in the labs and the developers are yet to apply for permission for contained field trials and hence Potrykus charges against Indian regulatory authority seems to be misplaced.

Potrykus who is also the chairman of the Humanitarian Golden Rice Board and Network that the technology to Indian public sector scientists for public good. Indian scientists can isolate their own genes and use their own constructs and develop their own provitamin A rice lines.

Scientists at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and BRRI are transferring the new trait into 8 carefully selected Indian rice varieties.

Golden Rice, after its approval in the country “would be made available free of charge with limitations within the framework of humanitarian use.” The farmers will be able to save seeds for the next season.

The seed multinational, Syngenta, however, maintains the rights for commercial exploitation and those interested in commercialisation of the product would have to get a licence from that company, said Potrykus.

Potrykus, however, hopes that Golden Rice would be released for farmers’ field by 2012 and would rescue 40,000 lives per year and prevent 125,000 cases of blindness. He estimated annual loss of lives in India due to vitamin A deficiency at 71,600.

The Hindu
November 13, 2006

Coimbatore — Allaying the fears of farmers regarding genetically engineered rice, the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has clarified that it has been proved through “precise bio-safety experiments” that proteins contained in such crops is non-toxic to human beings and animals.

Reacting to a recent incident at Alandurai, about 20 km from here, where a group of farmers and green activists had destroyed GM rice plants, the TNAU said in a release that the development of genetically modified crops has been recognised the world over for the past two decades as a method of crop improvement.

Modern biotechnologiocal approaches were employed to improve specific desired traits of crops, which were otherwise difficult through conventional methods, it said.

No resistance source was available for cotton bollworms among cultivated genotypes and none of the traditional cotton varieties or hybrids is resistant to these pests. This made scientists look for alternative sources and the BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) proteins were the answer to the problem of bollworms.

Such GM crops are cultivated in over 222 million acres by about 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries. The area under these crops has increased since a GM crop was first planted in 1996, it said.

BT cotton is the only GM crop approved for commercial cultivation in India and the area under this has increased from a few thousand acres in 2002 to over 3.25 million acres in 2005, the release said.

Denying allegations by green activists that BT crops were injected with virulent virus, the TNAU said that this was not true and in BT rice, a gene from BT has been introduced to create Crylac protein that killed pests like stem borer and leaf folder.

They were not capable of killing insects belonging to non-target groups, it said.

On arguments that BT crops were a threat to biodiversity, the TNAU said BT genes could be introduced in any variety or hybrid that is popularly cultivated. Hence, it in no way reduced the existing bio-diversity, the TNAU clarified.

Besides, BT crops including rice were harmless to the environment and could fit into any crop sequence, it said.

On activists relating suicides by farmers to BT, it said with the advent of BT cotton, farmers got better returns due to reduction in crop losses due to bollworms, better fibre quality and less use of pesticide. The expansion in the area under BT cotton was testimony to the acceptance of this technology by growers. Currently, one third of the cotton area is planted with BT hybrids, it said.

Saying that TNAU scientists who recently visited the field in Alandurai found the trial being conducted according to biosafety guidelines with the approval of the Centre, TNAU said the regulatory system in India had evolved over the years and was well in place.

The TNAU made it clear that BT gene had nothing to do with infertility, as claimed by some activists.

A few years ago activists, allegedly belonging to the Karnataka Rytha Sangha, the State farmers’ organization, burned Mahyco’s trial Bt cotton fields in Karnataka, India.

On October 28, 2006, in Rampura village in Karnal, Haryana State, the Bharatiya Kissan Union (BKU), a farmers’ organization, using some 400 local farmers torched Mahyco’s Bt rice under field trials. Mahyco suffers a loss of Rupees one million, and needs to restart the process.

A BKU leader threatened to burn all such fields in the country where trials are underway, and said that ‘On Friday (October 27), we got a tip-off from Hyderabad that such tests were underway in Karnal’. In all probability, the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, an active anti-biotech group, could be the source of the tip-off. BKU seems to have also sent a team to Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), where similar trials are going on in a field.

A source considers that ‘it’s plain and simple misinformation that led to this’. But this is a case where ignorance is no bliss.

Though the police were informed of the threat to burn the crop an hour in advance, they seem to have reached the field an hour after the damage was done.

The destroyed rice crop was a Bt transgenic with Cry 1Ac gene, to control the shoot-borer disease, where conventional measures have largely failed. The trials are legal for two reasons: a) on July 11, 2006, the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) permitted Mahyco to conduct multi-location limited field trials of this transgenic, at 12 sites in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh, and b) Mahyco got on lease a two-acre plot of farm land of a Haryana farmer for Rs. 15,000, to conduct these trials.

The activists cited several reasons in defense of their action:

That the farmer who leased the land was not informed of what seeds were sown and for what purpose, but one wonders if Mahyco was obliged to do this. This farmer who joined the arsonists does not lose anything, as he gets his lease money and gains the appreciation of the BKU for joining them.

The Haryana President of BKU said that the ‘tests were being conducted in violation of the rules’. What and whose rules were violated? Under the statutory norms, the RCGM and other expert Committees monitor these trials for compliance of regulations and results. Mahyco maintains that they adhered to all precautions essential for conducting the field tests.

The BKU leader declared that ‘such trials will be disastrous for the farmers as they will not only contaminate the soil, but also adversely affect yield from existing rice varieties’. If he meant that Bt proteins get into the soil, he is ignorant that there is ever so much of Bt proteins in the soil, as Bt is an ubiquitous soil bacterium. The leader certainly cannot explain how the yield from the existing rice varieties would be adversely affected.

Another concern expressed was that ‘on-field GM trials in a region, which is the Centre of Origin, are fraught with risks to the bio-diversity of that crop and can contaminate the rice gene pool’. No part of India is the sole Centre of Origin of rice. Except the north eastern part of India and remotely possibly some districts in Orissa, no Indian region can claim to be the Centre of Diversity. For the past several decades, all rice growing regions in India have been growing different varieties of rice developed in the Green Revolution packages, and the kind of change or ‘damage’ to the diversity feared from GE crops, has already happened.

The statement that ‘its (the GM rice’s) pollen could contaminate other non-GM paddy fields in the vicinity’ reflects sheer ignorance of the reproductive biology of the rice plant. Field trials are carefully planned with adequate separation distances and a refugium. The rice pollen are viable only for about five minutes during which they cannot be carried over more than a few meters and after that period they cannot ‘contaminate’ any other rice variety.

The farmers said multinational companies were trying to destroy Indian seeds by bringing in GM seeds. GE crops are introduced into the country adopting scientific and legal procedures and it was the private seed companies that largely sustained Green Revolution, resulting in surplus production of food grains in the country.

The statement that ‘such trials were being done surreptitiously without taking into account the consequences’ does not mean anything, when the feared consequences are not spelt out. Even when unadvertised field are destroyed, what would be the fate of advertised trial fields?

GE crop vandalization occurred earlier also in Europe. In the event of Golden Rice, research laboratories, trial fields and even scientific workers were attacked, striking such a fear that led to hiding a handful of prototype Golden Rice seed in a bombproof bunker in an unspecified place in Switzerland.

In the European Union countries, the Law often caches up. The Danish Terror Law was invoked in May 2006 against Greenpeace and the French Court of appeal convicted 49 activists for destroying GE maize in June 2006.

In New Zealand, in 1999 the Wild Greens Group destroyed a GM potato trial at Lincoln. In 2002, protesters trashed three years of research on GM potatoes by the Crop and Food Research (CFR). Whenever field tests were done, CFR fences the area and keeps it under 24-hour surveillance. Tight security will now be in place to protect field tests for GE vegetables.

This time in India, fortunately there is some reaction from the Official quarters: a) about a 100 arsonists and their BKU leader were booked by the Karnal District Police, on October 30, on charges of criminal intimidation and damage to property by fire; b) Karnal Superintendent of Police said the role of the police would also be probed and if they were found erring, action would be taken; c) the Haryana Government stated on October 31 that it will inquire into the burning of genetically modified (GM) crops by protesting farmers near Karnal city; and d) the Chief Minister of the State of Haryana stated that the incident of burning of the GM crops was unfortunate and it will be probed.

When the GEAC ordered to burn illegal Bt cotton crop some years ago, farmers’ organizations prevented it, as any crop is sacred and cannot be destroyed. Often farmers who are expected to respect a crop are instigated to vandalize it. But destroying a legally grown private crop is a criminal act, which should not go unpunished.

Dr. Rao is also the executive secretary of the Indian-based Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education(FBAE)

JAMES KIRKUP POLITICAL EDITOR
Scotsman.com

November 3, 2006
TONY Blair yesterday risked infuriating opponents of genetically modified food - who include Prince Charles - by suggesting that their arguments are not “rational.”

The Prime Minister was making a keynote speech on science, in which he called for Britain to discuss technological innovations in a more “scientifically literate” fashion.

“Government must show leadership and courage in standing up for science and rejecting an irrational public debate around it,” he said, attacking those who had “distorted” facts to oppose developments such as GM food.

Mr Blair said he was encouraged by the public debate about stem-cell research: whereas the US has largely banned the practice, Britain is a world leader in the field.

The Prince of Wales has frequently questioned the value and safety of GM crops, which has irritated some government figures. Asked if Mr Blair’s remarks were a criticism of the prince, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said only: “We believe the debate has not been as rational as it should have been.”

The Commission on Green Biotechnology is a constituent of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities (UGASH). The InterAcademy Panel (IAP), a worldwide network of 92 Academies of Sciences, with its Secretariat in Trieste/Italy, advises citizens and politicians in their home countries on current problems of global relevance. The ‘Berlin Group’ are the participants of a workshop on ‘Genetically modified crops in developing countries’, jointly conducted by UGASH and IAP in Berlin (May 27-29, 2006). The statement of the Berlin Group on GE crops in the developing countries was discussed on this site earlier.

The Berlin Group has now released two well discussed position papers, one on ‘Are there health hazards for the consumer from eating genetically modified food?’ and the other on ‘Genetically modified insect resistant crops with regard to developing countries’. The significant points from these papers are summarized here.

On the question of health hazards for the consumer from eating genetically modified food, the paper states that the campaigns of opponents of agricultural biotechnology have deliberately provoked widespread public anxiety by asserting that food from genetically modified organisms is a health hazard. ‘Organic’ products are advertised as especially healthy. The paper asserts that evidence suggests it to be most unlikely that the consumption of the well-characterized transgenic DNA from approved GMO food harbours any recognizable health risk.

Since absolute safety is never possible, the basis for approving GM food products is the failure (after extensive prescribed testing) to find any adverse indicators. Such tests have shown that these foods are at least as safe and nutritious as the corresponding products from conventionally produced crops.

The present regulations for the approval of GM plants and their product have established a framework which a) affords an effective safety evaluation on the basis of scientific data before marketing; b) requires GM products to be labelled by law, so offering the consumer an informed choice; c) specifies monitoring procedures which will reveal unexpected effects after the introduction of GM products onto the market; and d) permit the regulatory authorities to evaluate these data at any time.

Because of the rigour with which they must be tested and the controls to which they are subject, it is extremely unlikely that GMO products approved for market in the European Union and other countries present a greater health risk than the corresponding products from conventional sources. On the contrary, in some cases such as maize, food from GM plants appears to be superior with respect to health. Since 1996, millions of people in the Americas and elsewhere have regularly been consuming GM products as part of their normal diets without any proven evidence of adverse health effects.

The second paper relates to the issue of GM insect resistant crops with regard to developing countries. Citing extensive literature, the ecological and economical aspects of the cultivation of genetically modified insect-resistant varieties of maize, rice and cotton, were evaluated, to conclude that the cultivation of these crops by smallholder farmers in developing countries can be beneficial for their earnings, their health and also the ecosystem.

Seeds incorporating Bt technology are particularly suitable for smallholder farmers, because they do not require the equipment and knowledge necessary for pesticide applications, and reduce farmers’ exposure to insecticides, particularly for those using hand sprayers.

As conventional practices of the application of pesticides kill a very broad spectrum of non-target insects and have adverse effects on the agricultural ecosystems, an alternative approach is the use of GM crops resistant to pests. In just over ten years since the first GM crops were introduced, they are very popular with farmers. Some 90 per cent of those benefited were resource-poor farmers from developing countries whose increased incomes from biotech crops contributed to the alleviation of their poverty. However, the benefits of genetically modified crops in comparison with their conventional counterparts and conventional practices of cultivation should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Bt technology can indeed be valuable in economic terms to smallholder farmers with relatively small fields in developing countries as well as to the large farms in developed countries. However, pest control will have to rely on integrated pest management practices, which include crop rotation, biological control, Bt technology and the sparing use of pesticides.

Against the background of an overwhelmingly negative campaign on GE crops in Europe, the Berlin Group’s efforts to strike a rational balance are to be much appreciated. It is very necessary in the interests of crop biotechnology, that the scientific community from outside Europe supported the efforts of the Berlin Group. The developing countries, in whose interests the Group is deliberating, should strengthen the hands of the Berlin Group in significantly modifying public opinion in favour of modern crop biotechnology in Europe and elsewhere. Those who are interested in supporting the Group’s efforts may communicate with Professor Hans-Walter Heldt, Universität Göttingen, the Co-Ordinator of the Berlin Group via e-mail at HansWalterHeldt@aol.com.

The full text of the two papers can be accessed using the following links:
http://www.fbae.org/Channels/agri_biotech/general_topics/are_there_health_hazards_for_the.htm and http://www.fbae.org/Channels/agri_biotech/general_topics/genetically_modified_insect_resi.htm.

Dr. Rao is also the executive secretary of the Indian-based Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education(FBAE)

Over one million children die weakened by vitamin A deficiency and about 3,50,000 others go blind, every year worldwide. Several thousands of adults too suffer from vitamin A deficiency diseases (VADs)). The World Bank estimated that VAD is an important health problem in the developing world, accounting for the loss of over 11.8 million Disability Adopted Life Years (DALY) plus 39.1 million DALY of associated disorders making for one quarter of global burden of diseases from malnutrition.

The staple food cereal grains, more particularly rice, do not contain much of nutrients, other than starch. Consequently, vast numbers of people in the developing countries who do not take diverse items of food, out of ignorance or a lack of availability or accessibility, risk a severe of vitamin A deficiency.

Beta-carotene, produced primarily exclusively by plants, is essential to our health as it is converted by our body system into vitamin A. Although two more carotenoids, alpha-carotene and beta-cryptoxanthine, are also vitamin A precursors, beta-carotene is metabolically efficient as one molecule of it results in two molecules of vitamin A, while the other two yield only one molecule per molecule.

Incorporation of the genes for beta-carotene synthesis in food grains, which contained none, has thus become an important innovation in genetically engineered crops. Those who consume beta-carotene enriched foods would get some amount of the pro-vitamin into their system, without an additional expense or effort.

Having realized the seriousness of the problem and the inadequacy of conventional interventions, India has been developing three different genetically engineered (GE) crops with enriched beta-carotene, to ameliorate vitamin A deficiency in the country. Such an effort is not possible by conventional crop breeding practices. However, there is still a long regulatory process and none of the products is likely to reach the market in this decade.

Golden Rice
In the year 2000, Ingo Potrykus and his team developed the Golden Rice (GR), which contained genes from the temperate garden plant daffodil and a fungus, for the synthesis of beta-carotene in the grain. In 2001, the GR technology was offered to the developing countries such as India, free of technology costs and freedom to operate, under the ‘Golden Rice Humanitarian Board’, constituted with an active participation of Syngenta, a partner in the development of GR. There is an attached condition that GR should not cost more than a comparable variety of rice in the market, in order to make it affordable to the masses.

There has been severe, often absurd criticism, of the very concept of GR and its usefulness to the masses, from anti-tech activists and the affront continues. In addition to the objection to the participation of the multinational company Syngenta, an important argument was that the quantity of beta-carotene in GR was too low to confer any benefits on the consumer, unless consumed in impractically large quantities. From the original two microgram/gram, the level of beta-carotene in GR has been enhanced to 46 micrograms/gram, which is more than adequate for a day’s individual requirement of beta-carotene. In response to several other questions raised, critical studies, that resulted in convincing scientific data, were conducted at the International Rice Research Institute, near Manila, on the bioavailability, stability in storage and food preparation, of beta-carotene in GR.

Since 2001, efforts are being made in India, to incorporate the GR gene construct into suitable Indian rice cultivars, at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, Directorate of Rice Research, Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), stated recently that ‘India is not lagging behind in developing its versions of the genetically modified (GM) Golden Rice’ and that large-scale field trials of GR will happen within a year. However, with details of progress under the wrap, there was more room for suspicion and criticism.

The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, has now constituted the ‘Indian Rice Project Development Group’ to consolidate the progress and implement the programme on development of Indian GR.

Beta-carotene enriched mustard
TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), New Delhi, an autonomous institution, has developed a GE mustard containing high levels of beta-carotene, with the support of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and in collaboration with Michigan State University. Although the development process was completed, this product has long way to go through the regulatory process, before it reaches the market.

Beta-carotene enriched peanut
Since 2003, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, has been developing a GE peanut with beta-carotene genes from corn. ICRISAT considers that their GE peanut holds a higher potential than the other GE beta-carotene crops, as they have targeted 500 to 600 microgram/gram content of beta-carotene in this product and hope that this will be developed much faster than the others. However, their testing would take another three years or so, followed by the GEAC’s regulatory regime. ICRISAT is also planning to study the bioavailability of the beta-carotene in the GE peanut, along with biosafety testing on animals. After a satisfactory regulatory testing, this gene construct would be available to other countries too, to be put into their own peanut background.

ICRISAT feels that ‘Stricter government regulation is hindering commercialization of GMOs’, a frustration shared by many other developers of GE crops.

ICRISAT’s peanut project is financed by Harvest Plus, supported by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) and the William and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr Rao is also the executive secretary of the Indian-based Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education(FBAE)