NEW AGRICULTURE INITIATIVES TO AID AFRICA

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development, will develop and implement a trade enhancement program to help Africa's raw agricultural products enter the global market. This will be done by improving the capacity of African producers to meet international plant and health requirements. USDA Secretary Mike Johanns made this announcement during the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Dakar, Senegal. The AGOA serves as a framework to strengthen trade ties in agricultural goods.

Later this year, a trade and investment mission will be sent to southern Africa to see possibilities for joint venture, bilateral trade, and investments in the agricultural sector. The USDA is also working on a new program to encourage investment in agricultural processing and in encouraging African countries to take a more active role in global trade negotiations.

In the same AGOA Forum, Kenya Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Zaddock Syon’goh stressed that agriculture is critical to African economies and that there is a need to add value to its exports. He called on African farmers to “embrace biotechnology” to improve agricultural productivity and make farming a viable occupation.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/Jul/19-966715.html

CHINA TO BENEFIT FROM U.S. TRADE PROJECTS

China will be assisted by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) to enhance its trade opportunities. These include the conduct of three training programs to open the Chinese market to agricultural biotechnology products, strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in China, and strengthen bank lending practices. This was announced by USTDA Director Thelma J. Askey in Beijing during the 16th Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade consultations between the two countries.

USTDA will fund a program to train Chinese policy makers and regulators on science-based risk assessment, food safety, regulatory principles, and practices for import and approval of genetically engineered agricultural products. Another training program will assist China in complying with its World Trade Organization commitments and obligations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. It will cover the role of customs inspection and enforcement in IPR protection including copyright, patent, and trademark issues.

Since 2001, USTDA has funded over 75 activities supporting important development objectives in China. For more of the agency’s activities in China, visit http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/uscn/trade/
general/others/2005/071101.htm

CROP BIOTECH – OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

The implementation of a system to enable a sustainable platform for the future should be given high priority in society. This means developing biotechnology and genomic tools to enable the development of crops with specific traits that are optimized for biofuels and bioenergy. So says James McLaren of the StrathKirn Inc. in an article in the journal TRENDS in Biotechnology.

McLaren said that a combination of specifically designed biomass with new approaches to bioprocessing might provide the best opportunity to create this sustainable future. Such biomass may include grains, tubers, oilseeds and lignocellulosic products.

The author added that biotechnology has a new toolset that can be used to design and optimize the capture of solar energy through crops. The better understanding of genome sequences, gene function, gene expression, protein interactions and metabolic control mechanisms will enable a sound scientific basis for further applications of biotechnology tools in renewable primary production and in bioprocessing.

Read the full paper on “Crop biotechnology provides an opportunity to develop a sustainable future” in the Vol. 23, No. 7 July 2005 issue of TRENDS in Biotechnology or email James McLaren at mclaren@strathkirn.com

COTTON BY-PRODUCT FINDS ITS ROOTS

Recent work by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been focused on the production of gossypol, a compound with antifungal, antibacterial, and possibly even anti-cancer properties.

Gossypol is found throughout the cotton plant, but can be difficult to extract in large quantities. This prompted ARS plant physiologist Barbara Triplett to initiate concentration of the compound in cotton roots, by allowing the plant to grow clumps of hairy roots specially primed to produce gossypol.

Hairy root culture can be started from almost any plant, given the right environmental conditions. Researchers can tweak temperature, pH, nutrients, and hormones, and from then on can culture roots in the laboratory. In this case, researchers found that the hairy roots were able to produce gossypol in vitro, and that the compound was also present in the surrounding culture medium.

Read the details at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/
archive/jul05/root0705.htm

BETTER BARLEY TO BE DEVELOPED FOR BETTER BREWS

Scientists from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) of the United Kingdom are focusing their research on barley improvement by investigating the activities of certain key genes that control specific characteristics of the crop. The project, entitled “Association Genetics of UK elite Barley,” is sponsored by BBSRC, the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD), and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) through the Sustainable Arable LINK Programme.

Barley is especially important to Scotland, which uses it to brew whiskey and beer. It is grown on about 50% of Scotland’s arable land, and whiskey is the biggest food-and-drink export earner for the UK. To improve the crop, barley genes affecting yield, disease and pest resistance, and the amount of alcohol that can be extracted to produce malt whiskey are currently being studied.

For more information, visit http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk.

When Tzann-Wei Wang and colleagues of the University of Waterloo, Canada suppressed the activity of deoxyhypusine synthase (DHS) in tomato plants, they found that the tomato fruits did not ripen as quickly as their conventional counterparts, and that, at higher levels of suppression, plants were sterile or had changes in plant structure. Their work, “Antisense Suppression of Deoxyhypusine Synthase in Tomato Delays Fruit Softening and Alters Growth and Development,” appears in this month’s Plant Physiology.

DHS is an enzyme present in eukaryotic cells, and participates in reactions that activate other enzymes, which in turn initiate protein translation. Researchers found, through RNA blotting, that the enzyme family activated by DHS likewise increased in expression as fruits began to age and soften.

Researchers suppressed the activity of DHS by expressing part of the enzyme’s untranslated region in tomato, resulting in antisense gene control for the plant. With much lower DHS activity in the transgenic tomato, researchers found that 1) transgenic fruits ripened normally, but exhibited delayed post-harvest softening and aging; 2) transgenic plants under strong DHS suppression were also male sterile and did not produce fruit; and 3) these same plants had larger, thicker leaves with higher levels of chlorophyll.

Read more in this month’s Plant Physiology at http://www.plantphysiol.org. The article appears on pp. 1372-1382 of the journal.

VITAMIN AIDS PLANT IMMUNO AS WELL

Thiamine, or Vitamin B1, is a potent compound useful in maintaining the immune system of humans. Spraying it on plants, however, can also contribute to the plant immune system, and it is this new property of thiamine that Il-Pyung Ahn and colleagues from the Seoul National University explore in “Vitamin B1 Functions as an Activator of Plant Disease Resistance.” Their findings appear in this month’s Plant Physiology.

Researchers found that thiamine induces systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in plants, which enhances resistance to many, but not all fungal, bacterial, and viral pathogens. By spraying thiamine on rice, Arabidopsis, and cucumber, among other crops, and inoculating the plants with the pathogens, the researchers found that the incidence of viral and bacterial infections amongst the plants was much lower. For instance, thiamine treatment of the rice cultivar Nakdong also induced resistance to the compatible bacterial leaf blight pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae strain.

The effect of thiamine spraying lasted for as long as 15 days for the plants. These findings provide a new way by which scientists could develop strategies for the control of plant diseases.

Read more in this month’s Plant Physiology at http://www.plantphysiol.org. The article appears on pp. 1505-1515 of the journal.

RESEARCH COMPARES GM, CONVENTIONAL POTATO VARIETIES

An article in this month’s Plant Physiology reports on the “Comparison of Tuber Proteomes of Potato Varieties, Landraces, and Genetically Modified Lines,” a study conducted by Satu J. Lehesranta and colleagues of the University of Kuopio, Finland. Using 2-dimensional protein electrophoresis, researchers compared 32 non-genetically modified (GM) genotypes, 21 tetraploid cultivars, 8 landraces, and 3 diploid lines.

Researchers found that only 9 out of 730 proteins showed significant differences between GM lines and their controls. There was much less variation between GM lines and their non-GM controls, compared with that found between different varieties and landraces. Moreover, no new proteins unique to individual GM lines were observed; thus, there was no evidence for any major changes in protein pattern in the GM lines tested.

Read more in this month’s Plant Physiology at http://www.plantphysiol.org. The article appears on pp. 1690-1699 of the journal.

The Biotech Consortium India Ltd (BCIL), in collaboration with ISAAA, is organizing a “National Workshop on Management of Field Trials of Genetically Modified Crops” at the NAAS Lecture Hall, NASC Complex, Dev Prakash Shastri Marg, New Delhi on the 9th August 2005. The workshop is supported by the CropLife International.

The main feature of the workshop is the rolling out of Croplife International's “Model Best Practices Guidelines for the Management of Confined Field Trial of Genetically Engineered Plants” by international experts. The workshop will also provide participants an opportunity to discuss various issues related to conducting field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops in India.

For further information contact Dr. Vibha Ahuja through vibhaahuja@biotech.co.in.

NEW WEBSITE FOR TEACHING AVAILABLE

The Biotechnology Online Secondary School Resource, now available online at http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/, has just been launched. Fitting in with Australian State and Territory Science curriculums, the site provides information on biotechnology meant for teachers and students of the subject, and aims to supplement current educational resources through informational text, case studies, worksheets, activities for students, and advice for teachers. It is produced and maintained by Biotechnology Australia, a government agency.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has just released two documents and opened them for public comment. The documents, “Draft Guidance Document for the Risk Assessment of GMMs [Genetically Modified Microorganisms] and their Derived Products Intended for Food and Feed Use” and “General Surveillance of the Impact of GM Plants” are available at http://www.efsa.eu.int. EFSA welcomes written comments on the documents until the 15th of September, 2005. The outcome of this consultation will be taken into account during the final adoption of this document by EFSA’s GMO Panel.

WARDA RELEASES NEW DOCUMENTS

The Africa Rice Center (WARDA) has just released new documents detailing work done by WARDA, as well as its plans for the coming years. These include Warda at A Glance, Highlights of WARDA’s 10-year strategic plan, and The Growing NERICA boom in Uganda. All documents are also available in French. Download them at http://www.warda.org

FAO PUBLISHES WORKSHOP REPORT

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Crop and Grassland Service held a workshop early this year, entitled “The way forward to strengthen national plant breeding and biotechnology capacity.” The workshop brought together participants of wide and varying expertise, from developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America, in order to discuss the decline in plant breeding and how it might be remedied. For details on the workshop, download the report at http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/
AGPC/doc/themes/pb-
workshop.pdf or contact elcio.guimaraes@fao.org for more information.