BIOTECHNOLOGY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: BENEFITS AND POTENTIAL RISKS
International conference examines the question, "Can Biotechnology Help?"
WASHINGTON, October 20, 1999—The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), are convening a conference,. "Ensuring Food Security, Protecting the Environment, and Reducing Poverty in Developing Countries: Can Biotechnology Help?" October 21-22, at the World Bank in Washington.
Keynote speakers include Ismail Serageldin, CGIAR Chairman and World Bank Vice President, M.S. Swaminathan, a Green Revolution pioneer and winner of the World Food Prize, Alex McCalla, director of the World Bank's Rural Development Department, and Marc van Montagu of the Laboratory of Genetics at the University of Ghent, Belgium.
The conference will provide the first international, public forum for developing countries to voice their opinions and concerns on this subject.
With the world’s population already reaching 6 billion people this month, and expected to exceed 8 billion by 2025, an increasing number of scientists around the world are recognizing that agribiotechnology, with adequate ethical and safety standards, offers important new tools in boosting food output and feeding the burgeoning population.
Recent advances in molecular genetics, informatics, and genomics research have created many new possibilities for applying biotechnology in agriculture. The promise of biotechnology as an instrument of development lies in its capacity to improve the quantity and quality of plants and animals quickly and effectively. The time required to identify and combine favorable traits through traditional crop breeding is greatly reduced. Increased precision in plant breeding has meant improved predictability of the resulting products in desirable areas, such as performance and survival.
The application of biotechnology holds great potential for creating plants that are more drought resistant, more tolerant to acidic and saline soils, and more resistant to pests without pesticides. Plant characteristics can be genetically altered for earlier maturity, increased transportability, reduced post-harvest losses, and improved nutritional quality. Vaccines against diseases afflicting livestock are already important products of biotechnological research.
However, the revolution in the biological sciences holds both promise and problems. It presents profound ethical and safety issues, complicated by the issues of proprietary science. The strong position of the private sector in the North, where the bulk of developments in agribiotechnology have so far taken place, raises fears of increased dependency in the South.. Others have raise concerns about creation of uncontrollable "super weeds" or "super viruses". Protests have been staged by farmers and citizens groups in several countries on ethical and ecological grounds. At the center of controversy are patenting and intellectual property rights.
The two-day conference will examine numerous issues and public concerns related to biotechnology, particularly the risks to the environment and to human health, the risks and impact on social and economic order, the ethical challenges, and the roles of public and private sectors in biotechnology research for developing country agriculture.
"Can Biotechnology Help?" brings together senior policy makers, scientists, business representatives, non-governmental organizations, and leaders of national agricultural research systems from developing and industrialized countries to discuss key aspects of applying biotechnology in farming. The key objectives of the conference are:
-###-