December 1998, Volume 19 No. 4
- General News
- Biorational
- Training News
- Internet Round-up
- Announcements
- New Books
- Conference Reports
- Proceedings
Integrated pest management (IPM) involves the use of many techniques, including biological control, to provide effective control of crop pests with minimum harmful side-effects. Those techniques which are compatible with the use of biological control or have little impact on natural enemies have been described as `biorational'.
Arguments about transgenic crop technology were brought into focus this summer when an advertising campaign urged readers of European newspapers to embrace biotechnology as a means of feeding the hungry in Africa. In a move intended to close the North Atlantic rift in opinion and convert a transgenically sceptical Europe, Monsanto sought endorsement for genetically engineered food crops from African heads of state, and ran whole-page advertisements entitled `Let the Harvest Begin', in which they asked readers to accept agricultural biotechnology so food production could be increased. They said, "Biotechnology is one of tomorrow's tools in our hands today. Slowing its acceptance is a luxury our hungry world cannot afford" 1. Some representatives of the alleged `hungry world' begged to differ. Delegates from 19 African countries who attended FAO negotiations on the International Undertaking for Plant Genetic Resources issued a statement in August that said they "strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from our countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly, nor economically beneficial to us"1.
However, the FAO delegates took advantage of the opportunity to voice their objection to one particular development in biotechnology in particular: "Rather than developing technology that feeds the world," their statement continued, "Monsanto uses genetic engineering to stop farmers from replanting seed and further develop their agricultural systems..." The biotechnology brainchild the delegates left firmly out in the cold was the so-called `Terminator Technology'2. Developed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Delta & Pine Land Co. (DPL - now a subsidiary of Monsanto), it was granted a US patent in March entitled `Control of plant gene expression'. This is a complex technology based on a series of genes which culminates in killing the second generation seed before it can germinate.
The following explanation of how `Terminator' works is based on a description by Dave Culley3. A gene, consisting of a DNA sequence coding for a protein toxic to the plant and a promoter sequence (a `switch' that controls production of the protein), is inserted into the plant's DNA. The `Late Embryogenesis Abundant' (LEA) promoter used in this instance, as its name suggests, causes abundant quantities of the toxin to be produced at the late embryo stage, which kills it. To produce a viable F1 seed from these plants, a spacer sequence is added to separate physically the promoter from the toxin coding sequence, which prevents the promoter from switching on toxin production. The spacer sequence can be cut out by a recombinase enzyme to bring the toxin and promoter sequences back together. But to control when the spacer is removed, the recombinase gene is itself put behind another promoter that is only expressed during late germination - so the recombinase protein is expressed only after the F1 seed has germinated. The plant grows normally - until the reactivated toxin gene is expressed late in the development of the second generation (F2) seed, and kills the embryo inside it.
For hybrid seed production, the LEA-toxin construct (or gene sequence) is put in one parent and the recombinase construct in the other, which means that when the parent seeds germinate the recombinase enzyme produced in one parent is neatly kept apart from the toxin gene in the other. However, the F1 seed they produce when crossed contains both the toxin and recombinase sequences. So the recombinase produced when this seed germinates excises the spacer from the LEA-toxin sequence to bring the toxin and promoter back together, and at F2 seed maturation the toxin is produced which kills the seed.
But what of self-and open-pollinated plants? The latter group includes crops such as maize and sorghum which are fundamental to food security in Africa. The parental plants used to produce the seed that will be planted by the farmer must contain both toxin and recombinase sequences, so how are viable seeds to be produced? The answer is that a control sequence is added to the promoter of the recombinase gene, which allows it to be turned off in the presence of a repressor protein. The repressor coding sequence is inserted behind a promoter which is active when the recombinase is produced, but can be turned off by the application of a (so far unspecified) chemical - and this allows the recombinase to be produced, which ultimately leads to toxin production. Plants will germinate, grow and produce viable seed which will germinate - unless they are treated with this chemical. Once this is done, the next generation seed will behave as described for hybrid seed above: it will germinate (and produce recombinase at this time which excises the spacer from the toxin sequence); it will grow as normal, but the next generation seed will die during the late stages of maturation of the seed on the plant (as toxin production is activated by the LEA-toxin construct).
In simple terms, this technology enables a seed company to alter seed genetically so that seed saved at crop harvest will not germinate if the farmer plants it the following season. So far it has been shown to work in cotton and tobacco, but the US patent covers plants and seeds of all species, transgenic and conventionally bred. Patent applications are pending for the technology throughout the world.
The USDA's motive in developing seed killer technology is apparently very simple - to regulate the unauthorized use of American transgenic technology and to protect US intellectual property rights. The goal is "to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and open up new markets in Second and Third World countries", a USDA spokesman said2. Melvin Oliver, a USDA molecular biologist and primary inventor of the technology explained that his main interest was protection of American technology.... "Our mission is to protect US agriculture, and to make us competitive in the face of foreign competition"2.
DPL explained that their aim is to stimulate investment and plant breeder interest in small grain crops such as wheat and rice, and in cotton and soyabeans where the production of hybrids has proved difficult; they say that they have already had much interest from seed companies in licensing the system. A press release issued in March said that the technology has "the prospect of opening significant worldwide seed markets to the sale of transgenic technology for crops in which the seed is currently saved and used in subsequent plantings"2. DPL argue that the development will "broaden access to continuing agricultural improvements", and say that the practice of saving seed has locked farmers into "obsolete (i.e. old-fashioned, low-yielding) varieties"4.
Seed killer technology probably sounded like good economic sense in the board room, where looking for a return on the industry's massive investment in transgenic technology is understandably a preoccupation. (Currently, 80% of crops in the developing world are grown from farmer-saved seed4.) But it has sent shock waves rippling out into the rest of the world, and has especially caused alarm in the developing world, already suspicious about the motives of the agrochemical industry in invading such resource-poor markets. The FAO African delegates' statement was damning in its criticism: "The only aim of this technology is to force farmers back to the Monsanto shop every year, and to destroy an age old practice of local seed saving that forms the basis of food security in our countries... We do not believe that such companies or gene technologies will help our farmers to produce the food that is needed in the 21st century. On the contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for millenia and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves"1.
Although proponents of `Terminator Technology' argue that small farmers will be unaffected, many are unconvinced of this. In Bratislava this May, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity recommended that the precautionary principle be applied to the `Terminator Technology'. The Conference also directed its scientific body to examine the technology's impact on farmers and biodiversity. In July, India pre-emptively banned import of any seed containing the `Terminator' genes because of the potential threat to Indian biosafety. In October the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) launched an international campaign to urge US government officials to stop negotiations on `Terminator Technology' with Monsanto's subsidiary DPL and to halt all commercial development of it2.
Capital in the developing world is scarce, and, it is argued, transgenic seed is expensive particularly when licensing fees are taken into account. Small farmers in Africa characteristically minimize their risks and production costs. For them, it is good economic and agricultural practice to save seed from the best plants for the following season. This minimizes planting costs and allows farmers to practise farm-level varietal selection. It is also argued that the introduction of transgenic crops, and seed-sterile cultivars in particular, would increase monocultures and ultimately lead to a decrease in the crop biodiversity that farm-level selection has preserved. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN have estimated that some 1.4 billion people - 300 million in Africa - rely on farmer-saved seed for planting4, and `Terminator Technology' is seen as a threat to the food security of these, the most vulnerable. Many - both governments and pressure groups - have said that such technology is inappropriate for the developing world, and that investment in research should be about developing appropriate production technologies suited to the needs of small farmers, based on traditional practices and integrated techniques. They argue that current problems centre on poverty and poor food distribution, not lack of sophisticated seed and breeding technology. The Monsanto fact sheet stated that enough food is currently produced to supply 3800 kilocalories each day to every person in the world1. But, the Monsanto advertising campaign argued, it is the predicted growth in world food population that is the problem - and they say that biotechnology is the answer. They say that it will: allow more food to be produced on less land, and thus both reduce pressure on marginal land and safeguard biodiversity; reduce post-harvest losses and improve food nutritional quality; displace resource- and energy-intensive inputs (fuel and chemicals); encourage a change to more sustainable agricultural practices; and stimulate economic growth4.
No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?
The publicity surrounding the awarding of the `Terminator' patent and the `Let the Harvest Begin' advertisements increased the public profile of the transgenic crops debate, and served to highlight concerns about their appropriateness for small-scale farmers practising traditional agriculture - and in a wider context, the role of biotechnology in sustainable agriculture.
Not surprisingly, the faith Monsanto declared in biotechnology for solving agriculture's problems has been endorsed by other agrochemical companies. In August RAFI announced that UK-based Zeneca was applying for patents for a chemically activated seed killer (dubbed `Verminator Technology' because one application involved an uncoupling protein gene isolated from rat brown adipose tissue)2. However, Nigel Poole of Zeneca says5 that the patent was granted in 1994, but the system has not been worked on since 1992, and he denies that they have any interest in seed killer technology. He said that their research interests centre on `switches' which turn genes on and off, and cites three applications with big potential benefits: to prevent premature sprouting (and therefore losses) in tuber crops such as potatoes; to control flowering time in field and fruit crops; and to improve targeting for toxins incorporated into transgenic crops, for example so as to turn `on' transgenic fungal toxin genes only when the plant is affected by the target disease.
Among supporters of biotechnology being transferred to Africa is the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, (ISAAA). The Executive Director, Anatole Krattiger, points out in his introduction to their `Strategy for Africa'6 that Africa has the highest population growth and highest level of malnutrition, and faces the highest challenge in feeding its people. "Provided they are properly integrated into production systems", he argues, biotechnology applications offer new opportunities to increase productivity... "and often allow users to switch to a more sustainable and ecologically friendly system with reduce dependence on chemicals". He goes further and claims that "some of the more sophisticated applications such as transgenic crops are the only hope for millions of farmers for overcoming problems that have proved intractable" and cites the current collaborative development of genetically modified virus-resistant sweet potato in Kenya, based on eight local varieties and technology donated by Monsanto.
The phrase "Provided they are properly integrated into production systems" presumably rules out `Terminator Technology', but what of transgenic crops such as the virus-resistant sweetpotato, for example? Opponents argue that only a minority will benefit: those who can afford the seed, and of course the seed companies. What of the rest?
Krattiger7 disputes the argument that transgenic seed is too expensive. He says that it all depends on value; farmers the world over are far from stupid, and they will be prepared to pay for something only if they can be convinced that there is a return on it. He argues that African farmers have thus far been largely denied access to any inputs, for example fertilizers, or choice in the seed market at any price. He suggests that opening the market to commercial interests will help to redress this. Krattiger also argues that every farmer will always have the option to stay with traditional varieties and farm-saved seed, a point he says is ignored by opponents of transgenic crops. He points out that subsistence farmers aren't interested in maintaining their way of life - they want to increase their income and improve their situation, and that biotechnology can help them to do this.
According to Krattiger, the rationale of the projects ISAAA is developing is that there is room for both commercial and non-commercial biotechnology transfer from North to South. Although the cost of developing transgenic crops is high, the cost of putting the traits into many different varieties is far less. His vision is for national capacities in biotechnology to serve the areas for which lack of commercial viability makes them unattractive for industrial development, which he says covers most of developing country agriculture. To this end he has already persuaded companies such as Monsanto, Novartis, AgrEvo and Zeneca to donate biotechnology.
Transgenic Crops and Safety
It is not only queries about the socioeconomics of transgenic crops that are at issue. Although it is too early to say whether benefits or fears about transgenics will materialize, the technology raises many questions of science, law, ethics and economics4.
Safety regulations and legislation relating to biotechnological developments in agriculture are still not fully developed in Africa - only South Africa and Egypt have adopted legislation (and transgenic crops have now been planted in both countries) while Kenya is in the process of developing regulations. The tortuous recent history of biotechnology legislation in Europe is not likely to convince those involved in the same process in Africa that it will be easy. The testing and registration processes, which countries have to undertake for the transgenic varieties independently, are lengthy and expensive.
There are more extreme concerns about the potential ability of a handful of multinational giants to control the harvests and thus the food security of large parts of the world - and the potential for seed to be withheld as a political weapon. As the Monsanto fact sheet pointed out, only 15 crop plants provide 90% of the world's food energy intake1. These could be a potent weapon in the wrong hands.
There are still questions about the environmental safety of transgenic crops. Critics argue that biotechnologists are too focused on the crops they are developing and pay too little attention to the environmental context in which they will be grown4. Issues surrounding the use of Bt crops were dealt with in a recent article (BNI 19(2), 38N-39N) and there are related queries about herbicide-tolerant and disease-resistant transgenic cultivars. In summary, queries about the reliability/stability of these crops have not yet been satisfactorily answered; there is evidence that out-crossing into non-transgenic varieties and related weedy species may occur; the transgenic traits may have a direct adverse impact on the ecosystem, biodiversity and beneficial species in particular; and there are worries over the efficacy of resistance management plans for slowing the development of resistance to pest-resistant transgenics. Opponents say testing has been inadequate on all these counts. They also dispute that chemical inputs will be reduced and raise fears about health risks4. To the criticism that such views suggest a wholesale rejection of biotechnology, the answer is simple: convince us before introducing it.
For seed killer technology, the issue of possible outcrossing is highly significant. DPL say that one positive aspect of their `Terminator Technology' is that it would circumvent problems arising in the event of transgenic crops out-crossing into weeds - any hybrids would be sterile2. Martha Crouch8 argues that depending on `Terminator' to prevent transgenic traits from spreading unintentionally is unrealistic: she says that recombinase activation [see `For the Curious', above] and therefore `Terminator' expression is unlikely to be 100% effective, in which case `Terminator' and other transgenic traits in the parent plant could be passed on. A phenomenon known as `gene silencing', whereby genes are not expressed for some reason, but can still be passed on, could have the same consequences.
`Terminator' outcrossing with non-transgenic/non-'Terminator' crops in adjacent fields would be highly undesirable: neighbouring farmers could find their yields falling over a number of years if a portion of their seed stocks were rendered sterile - and crops such as maize and sorghum normally have a high level of outcrossing. It is probably not possible at this time to predict the likelihood of the `Terminator' trait `escaping' into adjacent fields, because many factors including genetic compatibility, crop proximity and plant maturation timing affect this, but it is reasonable to be concerned3. According to Crouch8 it is likely to happen under some conditions, and although it would almost always be confined to one generation (as hybridized seeds would be sterile), she suggests that in exceptional circumstances the trait could be inherited. On the other hand, Krattiger7 argues that hybrid maize has been grown for decades next to open-pollinated (traditional) varieties, and that there has been no problem with out-crossing.
Krattiger also dismisses some other safety concerns: he suggests that arguments over resistance management plans going on in North America may be irrelevant to Africa: agriculture is much less monocultural and if adoption rates vary it is possible that no such management plans will be necessary. He also suggests that problems of decreasing biodiversity related to the deployment of transgenic varieties should be considered in the context of losses in biodiversity and environmental degradation that would result from an increasing population encroaching further and further into marginal land to grow more crops.
Biotechnology, IPM and Biocontrol
Krattiger7 argues that biotechnology is here to stay, and that the billions of dollars of investment in it can be harnessed in many different and complementary ways, by private companies and through private-public partnerships. However, the problem with this, as perceived by some biocontrol and IPM practitioners, is how this is being done. They argue that biotechnology as it is now used in the agricultural context is potentially detrimental to sustainability, and that a major refocusing is needed if it is to make a positive long-term contribution to world agricultural production and food security. They point to the failures of past attempts to improve agriculture and suggest that lessons learned there have yet to be understood by the biotechnology sector. Professor Swaminathan, respected agronomist and `father' of India's `Green Revolution', supports yield-enhancing research including biotechnological approaches, since, he argues, there is no alternative for countries with limited land and large populations but to produce more food on the same land. He firmly believes that biotechnology can have an important role, so long as it is developed and introduced as part of an holistic system of environmental and socioeconomic sustainability4.
In a recent paper9, Jeff Waage argued that although biotechnology can potentially bring a great deal to IPM, the current agrochemical industry approach is a mixture of technological conservatism mixed with opportunism; biotechnology is being used merely to stretch the boundaries of markets already served by other technologies. In an examination of the pest-resistant transgenic crop sector, he pointed out that they were using two already over-exploited and non-sustainable paradigms: the pesticide model and the total vertical resistance model for plant breeding. In particular, two key aspects of biocontrol - persistence and self-renewal - are incompatible with current bioengineering approaches.
The current focus of biotechnology in the areas of host plant resistance and biocontrol is narrow and locked into single-technology systems, which are incompatible with IPM, Waage argued, and instead of attempting to provide a one-stop answer to pest problems, biotechnologists need to rethink, and redirect their energies and investment into those areas where biotechnology could make a significant contribution to sustainable systems: for example, mass production systems for predators, parasitoids and pathogens, and altering the specific properties of these organisms to enhance their impact, dispersion and persistence; so far biotechnology seems to have focused on reducing these capabilities in organisms used as biopesticides.
At the Overseas Development Institute, London in September, Hans Herren, Director-General of the Nairobi-based International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) and a former winner of the World Food Prize, said10 that "too much hope and expectations are entrusted in [transgenic crop] technology, at the detriment of more conventional and proven technologies and approaches". He said he did "not see the likelihood of transgenic varieties making an impact on food production in Africa within the next 15 or 20 years" and dismissed transgenic varieties as "not affordable by the average farmer". He also questioned the narrow genetic base of most transgenic varieties, particularly in the African context of a wide variety of agro-ecosystems and the history of crop failures in recent years.
Herren argued that there are other cheaper, proven and sustainable ways of improving crop abundance, and that these would be a more appropriate channel for the funding now pouring into biotechnology research from both commercial and public sources. He called for the goals of biotechnology research to be rethought, and suggested that the most useful role for transgenic crop research could be to improve crop quality once problems of abundance have been addressed. He pointed to the irreconcilability of profit sustainability (of which `Terminator Technology' is the latest development) and agricultural sustainability: in marketing terms, product sustainability is often a bad thing, in agricultural terms it is a good thing.
In summary, Herren concluded, although biotechnology may in the end give us better quality seed, unless current approaches are changed, this will be at the expense of the economic stability of small farmers, the sustainability of the African farming system, and the continued evolution of land races on which food security depends - and from which the genetic material now being exploited by the agrochemical industry came.
Martin Kimani, IPM programme coordinator for the CABI African Regional Office in Nairobi, speaking at a Panos Institute public debate in October11, said that in Kenya the `Genetic Modification Revolution' was in danger of repeating the mistakes of the `Green Revolution' of the 1970s, and reintroducing an inappropriate high-cost high-input agriculture. Currently working to reintroduce a `mosaic of crops' which he believes is central to a traditional agriculture, Kimani emphasized that crop management should take into account experience passed down from generation to generation and include simple remedies to develop an organic system of agriculture tailored to local needs and conditions. He argued that funding for transgenic crop development would be better put into developing organic methods of agriculture. He focused also on the importance of making this a demand-led process - in this way, he said, farmers would be encouraged to participate, combining their indigenous knowledge with recent technologies, to create a `bottom-up' effect whereby local needs govern the processes of development. He expressed concern that current pressures for developing and introducing transgenic crops are mostly commercial, and that farmers need to know and understand the risks involved and make the decisions.
Beyond `Terminator'
It would not be unreasonable for others in the biotechnology sector to be quietly furious with Monsanto. The main outcome so far of the `Terminator' debate and the `Let the Harvest Begin' debacle has been to add anger to the already unpalatable cocktail of suspicion and scepticism with which the sector is viewed by many. The challenge is to replace this with trust. Biocontrol and IPM practitioners, themselves no strangers to criticism, have criticized the current top-down, technology-driven approach of the biotechnology sector. Biotechnology has much to offer, but it needs to stop seeing itself as a world apart from other technically less-advanced approaches. It should learn from current demand-led farmer-based IPM approaches: it should be asking farmers what they want, and finding out how biotechnology can contribute to an integrated and sustainable agriculture - then refocusing its considerable energies appropriately.
1 Panos Alert Pack (July 1998)
The Panos Institute, 9 White Lion Street, London N1 9PD, UK
E-mail:
Fax: +44 171 278 0345
Internet: http://www.oneworld.org/panos/
2 RAFI (1998): The Terminator Technology (Communique, March/April, 6 pp.); And Now, the Verminator (News Release, 24 August); Help Stop the Terminator (Action Alert, October).
Rural Advancement Foundation International - International Office, 110 Osborne St., Suite 202, Winnipeg MB R3L 1Y5, Canada
E-mail:
Fax: +1 204 925-8034
Internet: http://www.rafi.ca/
3 Written with input, gratefully acknowledged, from Dr David E. Culley, Glass Garden Research, NW 745 Darrow St., Pullman, WA 99163, USA
E-mail:
The explanation of `Terminator' is based on descriptions by Culley on the Plant-TC listserver. Archives can be accessed at:
http://www.agro.agri.umn.edu/plant-tc/listserv/1998
4 Panos Environment and Development Briefing No. 30. Greed or need? Genetically modified crops. (September 1998). [address as 1]
5 Poole, N. (pers. comm., 1998)
6 Krattiger, A. (1998) ISAAA: Our strategy in Africa. Introduction by the Executive Director.
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, 260 Emerson hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
E-mail:
Internet: http://www.isaaa.cornell.edu/
7 Krattiger, A. (pers. comm., 1998)
8 Crouch, M. (1998) How the Terminator terminates: an explanation for the non-scientist of a remarkable patent for killing second generation seeds of crop plants.
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
E-mail:
An occasional paper of The Edmonds Institute, 20319-92nd Avenue, West Edmonds, WA 98020, USA. The paper is on the Internet at:
http://www.bio.indiana.edu/people/terminator.html
9 Waage, J. K. (1997) What does biotechnology bring to integrated pest management? Biotechnology and Development Monitor 32, 19-21.
10 Herren, H. R. (1998) The wishes of the rich versus the needs of the poor: which biotechnologies are appropriate for sustainable agricultural production in the tropics? Paper given at the Overseas Development Institute, London, 30 September 1998.
11 Kimani, M. (1998) In: Proceedings of a Panos public debate: `Will genetically modified crops feed the world or increase poverty in developing countries?' London, 16 October 1998. [address as 1]