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Moderated conference on GMOs in the pipeline, hosted by the FAO Biotechnology Forum in 2012

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Fri, 23 Nov 2012 13:26:23 +0100
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My name is Jonathan Shoham. Until about 18 months ago I worked for Syngenta, where I founded and headed the Business Intelligence function. In this capacity I monitored all external trends likely to have an impact on the business, including biotechnology. I am currently working as an independent consultant based in Haslemere, Surrey, UK. In this capacity I am managing a database of public-private partnership (PPPs) which I set up for the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and also act as agricultural adviser for the business intelligence company Prognoz. My comments all relate to crops.

Most of the contributions about crops to this conference so far have focused on work going on in the developing countries themselves, for example the very useful inputs from Pascal Tillie (Message 21) and Jose Falck-Zepeda (Message 49).  As also mentioned, China is investing heavily in this area.  However the bulk of R&D investment in GM crops comes from the leading seed companies - Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont/Pioneer, Bayer, Dow and BASF.  Their combined spend on seed R&D is around $3 billion and I would estimate around half of this is on GM.  Many of the traits developed as a result have been launched.  However even where traits have been launched their use is often limited to a relatively small number of countries.  According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), currently only around 30 countries have so far launched GM crops, although the number grows every year and growth is much faster in emerging markets than the developed world.

There are various reasons for relatively low number of countries where GM crops have so far been launched.  For example:

*    Bio-safety regimes may not be developed. I recently read that only 5 of the 50+ countries of Africa have bio-safety regimes in place

*    There may be political opposition to GM crops even where the regimes are in place
Whatever the reasons the corollary is that there is potential for traits already launched in some countries to be rolled out to others as the regulatory and political environment improves and this could lead to greater uptake of GM crops in developing markets.  For example herbicide tolerance in soybeans is the single largest trait in area terms and used on over 90% of the crop area in the US, Argentina and Brazil, but has yet to be launched in China or India, the 4th and 5th largest soybean producers in the world. In addition to traits already commercialized the major R&D companies also have new traits in their pipelines which could be launched in developing markets over the next few years.

To help identify existing and new traits which might be launched within the next 5 years in developing markets I have prepared the table below.  This distinguishes between different types of traits as this can influence their acceptability.  There is more sensitivity around 'consumer traits' than traits directed at the farmer.  Likewise there is a lot more resistance to traits in  food crops than in those crops used primarily for processing, as exemplified by what has happened with Bt brinjal in India, and the delays to Bt rice in China.

GM traits so far launched and [in development] in the major crops

Crop

Herbicide tolerance (HT)

Insect resistance (IR)

Disease resistance/
Agronomic traits

Processor/Consumer traits
(e.g. bio-fortification)

Comments/scope for technology transfer

Maize

Glyphosate resistance
Glufosinate resistance
Dicamba resistance
2,4-D resistance
[HPPD resistance]

Bt
vegetative insecticidal protein (VIP)

Drought tolerance

[Nitrogen use efficiency]



[WEMA project in East Africa]

Soybeans

Glyphosate resistance


[Bt]



Healthy oils

Scope to expand HT and IR to (other) developing countries

Cotton

Glyphosate resistance
[Glufosinate resistance]
[Dicamba resistance]

Bt
[VIP]

[Drought tolerance]



Bt cotton the most widely used trait in emerging markets so far

Canola



Glyphosate resistance
Glufosinate resistance





[Healthy oils]



Sugar Cane

[Glyphosate resistance]


[Bt]





Initially being developed in Brazil but potential in many emerging markets

Rice




[Bt]

[Drought tolerance]
[Nitrogen use efficiency]
[Salt tolerance]

[Golden rice]

Launch of Bt rice in China would be highly significant
Agronomic traits unlikely before 2017?
Not clear if all these traits are GM or native traits

Wheat







[Ug99]






[  ] denotes under development

Finally, I developed a PPP database of public-private partnership in agriculture, especially those aimed at smallholders in emerging markets, for the Syngenta Foundation For sustainable Agriculture.  This contains more information on the some of the traits already mentioned by other contributors - e.g. Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), bio-fortification projects - and can be found here: http://www.syngentafoundation.org/index.cfm?pageID=745


Jonathan Shoham

Agricultural Economist

Haslemere, Surrey,

United Kingdom

e-mail: jonathanl.shoham (at) gmail.com



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