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BOOKLET Transgenic Plants 08 THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Study Week Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development 15-19 May 2009 • Casina Pio IV Introduction p.3 Programme p.5 Abstracts p. 9 Biographies of Participants p.14 List of Participants p.21 Memorandum p. 22 14 EMIA A D C S A C I E A N I T C I I A F I R T V M N O P VATICAN CITY 2008 Tomorrow, 7 July, the Heads of State and Government of the G8 Member Countries, together with other world leaders, will be meeting in Japan for their annual Summit. In these days many voices have been raised – including those of the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of the Nations mentioned – to ask for the implementation of the commitments made at previous G8 Meetings and for all the necessary measures to be adopted to put an end to the scourges of extreme poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy which still affect such a large part of humanity. I join in this pressing appeal for solidarity! Thus I address the participants in the Meeting at Hokkaido-Toyako, asking that they make the centre of their deliberations the needs of the weakest and poorest people whose vulnerability today has increased because of financial speculation and instability and their pernicious effect on the price of foodstuffs and energy. I hope that generosity and farsightedness will help them take the decisions ca- pable of relaunching a fair process of integral development to safeguard human dignity. Benedict XVI, Angelus, Papal Summer Residence, Castel Gandolfo, Sunday, 6 July 2008 2 Transgenic Plants for Food Security INTRODUCTION in the Context of Development I. POTRYKUS CONSTRAINTS TO BIOTECHNOLOGY INTRODUCTION FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION overty in developing countries is usually stantiated environmental or health risks have linked to low agricultural productivity. Inad- been noted. Opposition to biotechnology in agri- Pequate quantity and quality of food impacts hu- culture is usually ideological. man development potential, physically and mentally. The huge potential of plant biotechnology to pro- Reduced immunity to disease due to poor nutrition duce more, and more nutritive, food for the poor increases the burden, and kills. Current technologies will be lost if GMO-regulation is not changed from (fertiliser, improved seed, irrigation, pesticides) cor- being driven by ‘extreme precaution’ principles to rectly applied can sustainably and safely increase crop being driven by ‘science-based’ principles. yields. Purchase cost and infrastructural issues Changing societal attitudes, including the regu- (lack of roads, credit, market access and market- latory processes involved, is extremely important affecting trade-distortions), however, severely limit if we are to save biotechnology, in its broadest ap- small-scale farmers’ ability to adopt these life-sus- plications, for the poor, so that public institutions taining and lifesaving technologies. in developing as well as industrialised countries can Plant Biotechnology has a great potential to im- harness its power for good. prove the lives of the poor. Delivery of the technology The programme is organized into eight sessions. in the seed largely overcomes the logistical prob- The Introduction to the Study Week will present lems of distribution involved with packaged prod- the problem of increasing food insecurity in de- ucts: farmers can pass seed to one another. Once veloping countries, the need for continued im- the initial research is completed the ‘cost of goods’ provement of crop plants and agricultural pro- (that is, of a biotechnologically-delivered trait car- ductivity to address the problem, the track record ried in a seed) is zero. Total time to market is com- and perspective of transgene technology, and the parable between biotechnology products and con- roadblock to efficient use by the established con- ventionally bred seed. For some traits conventional cept of ‘extreme precautionary regulation’. Con- breeding is not an option: the only way to introduce tributions from Transgenic Plants will highlight a trait is by genetic modification. In developing what important contributions in the areas of tol- countries, in pro-poor agriculture, intellectual erance to abiotic stress, resistance to biological property issues are not usually a constraint. stress, improved water use efficiency, improved nu- It is worth noting that agricultural biotechnol- tritional quality, inactivation of allergens and re- ogy uptake has been extremely rapid, for com- duction in toxins, and on nutritionally improved mercially introduced traits, even in developing coun- agricultural crops in general, are already in use or tries (James, 2007).1 However, for products from the in the R&D pipeline. Following an account of the public sector, despite much research in developing state-of-the-art of the technology and the worldwide, countries (Cohen, 2005),2 this potential has not ma- radical opposition to the use of the technology in terialized. The politicisation of the regulatory agriculture, this session will continue with the ques- process is an extremely significant impediment to tion of whether or not GMOs diminish or promote the use of biotechnology by public institutions for biodiversity, and will describe all that is necessary public goods (Taverne, 2007).3 Costs, time and com- to achieve a sustainable yield, including contribu- plexity of product introduction are severely and neg- tions from the private sector, presenting examples atively affected. Pro-poor projects are significant- of how the private sector supports humanitarian ly impeded in delivering their benefits, especially projects. In the session on the State of Application in a developing country context. (Without such po- of the Technology concrete examples from India, litical impediment the technology is very appropriate China, Africa, and Argentina will show which for adoption by developing country scientists and products have overcome the hurdles of the regu- farmers: it does not require intensive capitalisation). latory regimes. This session will end with a lecture The regulatory process in place is bureaucratic and on the problems and possible solutions with regards unwarranted by science: despite rigorous investi- to intellectual property rights attached to the use gation over more than a decade of commercial use of the technology, and with a discourse on the ethics of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), no sub- of the use and non-use of transgenic plants in the 3 Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development Introduction context of development. Finally, it will be shown how straints of ‘extreme precautionary regulation’, in or- altruistic foundations are increasingly filling the gap der to enable the public sector in both developing in support of humanitarian projects, where the pub- and developed countries to use their R&D poten- lic sector fails to fulfil its vital role. The session on tial to take advantage of the potential of transgenic the Potential Impact on Development will high- plants as a contribution to food security and de- light what an important role transgenic plants could velopment. play – were they not considered so highly risky by As is obvious from the programme, this is not a the public, the politicians, and the regulatory au- standard ‘science’ meeting. It is designed to pres- thorities. The question of whether or not there is ent the potential of plant genetic engineering and any scientific base for this attitude will be analysed to analyse the hurdles responsible for the fact that, in the Putative Risk and Risk Management ses- so far, product applications to benefit small-scale sion. In the introduction to this session a com- farmers have mostly excluded the public sector. If parison between molecular alterations to the we are to rescue agricultural biotechnology in its genome by natural genetic variation and genetic en- broadest form for the underprivileged, we have to gineering will show that there is little reason to be change social attitudes including regulatory attitudes concerned about genetic engineering. Detailed to GMOs. This seems an impossible task: extreme case studies will analyse putative risks to the en- precautionary regulation has been established as vironment and the consumer to explore whether, a legal requirement in most countries around the in the history of its use, there has been any case for world. It finds strong support from politics, the me- concern. This will be followed by the lessons we dia, and the public, and numerous NGOs are mak- should have learned from 25 years of use, biosafe- ing sure it is applied with rigor and would even wel- ty studies and regulatory oversight, and by an come stricter regulations. However, because of its overview comparing GMO myths and realities. A negative impact and lack of scientific justification, brief session on Biofuels Must Not Compete with changing the system should be tried seriously at least Food will indicate the novel problem arising from once. The idea of the study ‘week’ is to explore what the concept of biofuel production from agricultural is necessary to make this possible. We need to har- products, which is seriously affecting food securi- ness arguments: ty already, and the novel concepts under study aim- • as to why food security for the poor needs ef- ing at biofuel production from biological materi- ficient access to GM-technology, als which will not compete for food sources, agri- • as to why ‘extreme precautionary regulation’ cultural land and freshwater. Hurdles Against Ef-
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