SPAIN
ANNOUNCES COEXISTENCE DECREE
After eight years of biotechnology self-regulation, the
Spanish government will issue a coexistence decree. The United
States Department of Agriculture reports that key representatives
of the ministries of agriculture and the environment made
this announcement in a press conference. The Royal Decree
will be finalized by the end of 2005 and will be operational
for corn planting in 2006.
Among
the provisions in the Decree are:
- Authorities
from the ministries of agriculture and environment, and
the autonomous
regional governments will work jointly
to develop an annual “National Supervision Plan” encompassing
all facets of coexistence, paying special attention to
organic production, the level of adventitious material
resulting
from the biotechnology crops grown under the Decree,
and to the labeling of biotechnology crops.
- The
National ministries of agriculture and the environment
will come out with a yearly report that will focus
on problems between farmers planting biotechnology and
traditional,
traditional/organic crops; the biotechnology adventitious levels in traditional,
traditional/organic crops; and farmer adherence to
the coexistence
requirements.
- The
ministry of agriculture will organize educational programs
and additional recommendations for
biotechnology use
by local farmers.
The
Decree will also set expectations for other stakeholders
such as farmers, seed companies, and local associations.
For more details, visit http://www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/
200507/146130388.doc
EU
OKS GM MAIZE FOR FEED
The
European Commission granted a 10-year license to Monsanto
Co. to export a genetically
modified (GM) maize, known
as MON 863, for use as animal feed. It is the third GM
product approved by the European Union since the end
of its six-year moratorium in April 2004. EU health ministers
are expected to vote on whether to clear the same maize
for human consumption in September 2005.
See
the full story in http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/
story/0,,1545304,00.html#article_continue
SATELLITE
TECH TO DETERMINE IF CROP IS GM OR NON-GM
There
is potential for satellite technology to be used
to help distinguish between genetically modified (GM) crops
and non-GM crops. Anthony Fletcher of Food USA Navigator
says that the US Environmental Protection Agency is now
working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) to adapt hyperspectral imaging for agricultural
use.
Through
hyperspectral imaging, data can be obtained on a
crop's health status, need for irrigation, pest attacks,
weed status, soil nutrients and other previously unquantifiable
variables, including gene drift. It uses a special camera
to cut one photograph into 120 color-specific images.
Each image shows a unique characteristic not visible to
the
human eye.
The
hyperspectral camera and its applications were developed
by the Institute for Technology Development
at NASA's
Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, USA.
Visit http://www.ucbiotech.org for
more biotechnology news.
GROWERS
ASSOC DISCUSS BIOTECH WHEAT FUTURE
The
US National Association of Wheat Growers, through its President,
Sherman Reese,
told Monsanto Growers Advisory
Council that discussions are being made with other
agribusiness groups on the future of growing and selling
biotech wheat.
It noted that producers need to take a more active
role to bring about its introduction inasmuch as they
are direct
beneficiaries of wheat industry developments as a
result of biotechnology.
Noting
that the domestic market will be more accepting of the
biotech crop than the foreign
sector, the
wheat growers
felt that wheat might risk being an orphan crop and
be supplanted domestically by future crops like
drought-tolerant corn and
soybeans. Nevertheless, they opined that efforts
to segregate should focus on non-biotech varieties such
as organic wheat
for customers who demand them.
More
on this development at http://www.wheatworld.org/
blog/blogger.html or view
the news release at http://www.grainnet.com/info/articles.html?
type=bn&ID=27479
WORLD FOOD DAY 2005 THEME: INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE
The Food and Agriculture Organization announced that this
year’s World Food Day theme is 'Agriculture and intercultural
dialogue'. The theme stresses “the contribution of
different cultures to world agriculture and argues that sincere
intercultural dialogue is a precondition for progress against
hunger and environmental degradation.”
"Intercultural dialogue between developing countries
facing similar food and agriculture problems is an important
way of sharing expertise and technologies," FAO said.
Hence, South-South cooperation through sharing of expertise
and technologies has resulted in “the transfer of many
solutions suited to local conditions.” World Food Day
provides an opportunity at various institutional levels to
further dialogue and enhances solidarity on many issues that
affect developing countries.
World Food Day is celebrated annually to coincide with
the founding of FAO. This year’s celebration will
be on October 16 at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy.
Additional information on World Food Day at
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/105677/
index.html
NEW BT TECHNIQUES REVIEWED
In “Sustainable
and durable insect pest resistance in transgenic crops,” Paul
Christou of the John
Innes Center in the United Kingdom reviews
existing and emerging
techniques in introducing the Bt
gene into plants. His
work appears in the latest issue of the Information Systems
for
Biotechnology news report.
Current
research in agricultural biotechnology has so far been
limited to introducing a single gene into plants whose
product is already widely used. Although the evolution of
insects resistant to Bt has yet to be seen in the field,
scientists are still taking precautions to ensure that no
such evolution will happen. Stacking or pyramiding of multiple
transgenes in one plant is a way by which eventual insect
resistance can be managed.
Another
method is to introduce fusion proteins – or
a new protein with two domains, one containing the Bt toxin,
and the other containing a non-toxin. Christou cited a
fusion protein comprising a Bt toxin and a lectin polypeptide
as
an example, where the latter portion could serve as a novel
binding domain, allowing the fusion protein to bind to
a greater number of insect receptors. Christou found that
such
a fusion protein conferred plant resistance to a broader
spectrum of insect pests such as the striped
stemborer,
cotton
leaf worm, and leafhopper.
For
more information, visit http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/
news05.aug.htm#aug0501
STUDY FINDS NO GM CORN IN MEXICO
Two
articles, one in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Science, and the other in Nature,
report that no genetically modified (GM) corn has been found
in Mexico. This is based on the work of Sol Ortiz-Garcia
and colleagues, who sampled maize seeds of 870 plants from
125 fields in 18 localities in Oaxaca, Mexico.
The
Mexican government imposed a six-year moratorium on GM
maize release
in 1998, but the GM corn was found in Oaxaca
a few years later, according to a previous study published
in Nature. To test if this was still true, scientists screened
seeds for the two transgenes present in the corn. After
tests on 153,000 seeds, they did not detect the transgenes,
and
concluded that the genes were absent or in very low quantities
in native maize. They likewise speculated that the transgenes
may have been present in fields as early as the year 2000,
but had dropped out of local maize varieties thanks to
a farmer education program and a reduction in GM maize
imports.
For more information, contact Allison Snow of Ohio State
University, at Snow.1@osu.edu. You can find more news at
http://www.nature.com and http://www.pnas.org.
RICE
GENOME MAPPED
After
working with ten nations on the rice genome, the International
Rice Genome Sequencing Project
has obtained a finished
quality sequence, and has mapped the complete genome
of rice (Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica cv. Nipponbare).
Findings
and maps are published in the journal Nature.
Analysis
of the sequences, which represent 95% of the 389 million
base pair genome, revealed, among others,
that there
are 37,544 protein-coding genes, 71% of which have homologs in Arabidopsis; and 0.38-0.49% of the nuclear genome
contains DNA fragments from cell organelles, suggesting
repeated
and ongoing transfer of DNA from chloroplasts and mitochondria
into the nucleus.
The
maps and the complete genome sequence will allow rice breeders
to increase yield potential and
yield stability,
through a combination of biotechnology and improved
conventional breeding.
Nature
subscribers can access the full text of the article at
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7052/
full/nature03895.html.
Other readers can view the abstract at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7052/
abs/nature03895.html.
FOOD CHANNEL MARKETS AND GM PERCEPTION
Highly negative
consumer sentiment towards genetic modification (GM) in
Europe seems likely to continue to influence food
industry buyers against importing GM food. However, the presence
of GM crops in a country does not cause negative perception
of non-GM food imported from that country as long as adequate
steps are taken to avoid accidental contamination of conventional
crops. This was a finding of the study “Impact of genetic
modification on country image of imported food products in
European markets: Perceptions of channel members” by
John G. Knight, Damien W. Mather, and David K. Holdsworth
of the University of Otago, New Zealand.
In-depth interviews were conducted with key distributors
in the European food sector to find out what they consider
important in determining the reputation of exporting countries,
and to ascertain whether GM impacts on such reputations.
The authors noted that producer countries should be cautious
when considering commercial GM release in any crop situation
where a conventional or organic version of that crop is currently
exported to European markets. Commercial release of GM farm
animals for meat or milk production as well as GM crops for
pasture and animal feed seem likely to produce an unfavorable
reaction. GM applications in non-food areas seem unlikely
to impact on perceptions of country-of-origin image in relation
to food products.
Contact John Knight for details of this study at jknight@business.otago.ac.nz.
REPORT RECOMMENDS MORE RESEARCH INTO FOOD, AGRI
In a recent report,
the American Academy for Microbiology (AAM) recommends “Research Opportunities in Food and
Agriculture Microbiology.” The AAM is the honorific
leadership group of the American Society for Microbiology,
and its report is the result of an AAM colloquium of 19 scientists,
who met to examine the future of food and agricultural microbiology.
Among others, the report recommends that multidisciplinary
research be undertaken to capitalize on advances in different
disciplines, such as genomics, nanotechnology, and computational
biology. Part of their recommended research agenda include
developing a more sophisticated understanding of the nature,
specificity and adaptation of microorganisms to food environments,
hosts, and host responses to both pathogenic and beneficial
microbes; and developing microbial technologies that can
be applied in agricultural contexts for reduction of inputs,
bioremediation of pollution, conversion of biomass, and converting
wastes to fuel.
The report also suggests that barriers to research be surmounted
through coordinating development and standardizing the use
of diagnostic tests across agricultural production, food
processing, and public health systems to provide a foundation
for integrated surveillance systems; providing, through integrated
educational initiatives, scientifically trained professionals
who will serve the food and agricultural communities; and
facilitating the implementation of systems approaches, long-term
projects, and multidisciplinary research in food and agricultural
microbiology.
Download a PDF file of the report at http://www.asm.org/
ASM/files/ccLibraryFiles/FILENAME/000000001684/
AgriFoodMicrobiology.pdf.
CRY PROTEIN IN INDIAN BT COTTON HYBRIDS STUDIED
Dr.
K.R. Kranthi and colleagues of the Central Institute for
Cotton Research (CICR) document their four year in depth
study of Bt cotton
in India in “Temporal and intra-plant variability of
Cry1Ac expression in Bt-cotton and its influence on
the survival of the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner)
(Noctuidae:
Lepidoptera).” The article appears in the latest issue
of the Indian journal
Current Science.
By
quantifying the Cry1Ac content and activity of leaves and
fruiting parts
taken from eight Bt cotton hybrids, scientists found that
at least 1.9 micrograms
of Cry1Ac should be available per gram of tissue in order
for H. armigera to be
made susceptible to the toxin. They also found that 1) Cry1Ac
expression was
variable among hybrids; 2) expression of the gene declined
progressively over
crop growth and went below critical levels when plants turned
100-115 days
old; and 3) Cry1Ac expression was variable among different
plant parts,
with leaves expressing the highest amounts of the toxin,
and ovary and
boll rind the lowest.
Dr. Akhilesh Prasad
Singh, India’s Minister of State
for Agriculture, said
in response that the government is evolving resistant management
strategies
for Bt cotton technology to increase the crop’s effective
life span from 11-12
years to 30-40 years, with the hope that it will continuously
yield bumper
cotton production and ensure environmental sustainability.
Read the press release at http://pib.nic.in/release/
release.asp?relid=10674 or download the article from http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jul252005/291.pdf.
You may also Bhagirath Choudhary of ISAAA South Asia at b.choudhary@cgiar.org.
INTERNATIONAL
CONGRESS ON FUNGAL BIOTECHNOLOGY An International Congress on Fungal Biotechnology will be
held this year, from December 1st-5th, at Amity University
in India. Sponsored by the Amity Institute of Herbal and
Microbial Studies, the congress will discuss such themes
as industrial enzymes; antibiotics and toxins; food, feed,
and beverages; and viticulture and arboriculture, among others.
For more information, visit http://www.amity.edu/aihms.
AGRIC BIOTECH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
”Unlocking the potential of agricultural biotechnology” is
the theme of the Agricultural Biotechnology International
Conference (ABIC) 2006 to be held at the Melbourne Convention
Centre, Melbourne, Australia from August 6-9, 2006. Conference
details are available at http://www.abic2006.org.
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