Biotechnology in South and Sub-Saharan Africa Shared by Prominent African Scientist

Dr. Jennifer Thompson, Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa, shared the status and development of agricultural biotechnology in South and sub-Saharan Africa in a seminar held last October 27, 2010 at SEARCA, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. Drought tolerant maize, virus resistant maize, insect resistant potato, and nutritionally enhanced sorghum are crops currently being improved through genetic modification in South Africa. Prof. Thompson is hopeful that these crops would be commercialized in the future.

Prof. Thompson's team at UCT is working on drought tolerant maize, to be tested with genes from a "resurrection plant" which can survive months in a dehydrated state and come back to life in 72 hours once exposed to water. Another project addressing drought tolerance for maize is the Water Efficient Maize for Africa or WEMA. The WEMA is a public-private partnership project that aims to bring royalty-free drought tolerant maize varieties to farmers of sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition, Prof. Thompson and her team are also developing maize resistant to the maize streak virus (MSV) using replicase genes. She reported that MSV is endemic to Africa, and has caused huge economic losses to both commercial and small scale farmers. Development of the virus-resistant maize will be beneficial to the entire African region. 

For more details about the seminar, visit http://www.bic.searca.org or email bic@agri.searca.org