Crop biotechnology and biosafety

Biotechnology refers to any technique that uses living organisms, or substances derived thereof, to make or modify a product or to improve plants, animals or micro-organisms. This discussion paper will focus on crop biotechnology issues of relevance to West and Central Africa (WCA) and specifically the application of molecular biology techniques to generate higher crop yields or plant varieties that can be grown under adverse conditions. Increased crop yields are necessary to assist Africa to meet its increasing food security needs; the continent’s estimated annual rate of population growth of 2.8% will lead to a doubling of the population in 25 years (see Eicher et al., 2006). In West Africa, agriculture contributes to more than 35% of the region’s GDP (CORAF/WECARD, 2004) and estimates show that a 10% increase in the level of agricultural productivity is associated with a 7.2% reduction in poverty (IFPRI, 2004).

One particular technique referred to as genetic modification (GM) enables new crop varieties to be developed rapidly, which is particularly useful for crops that rarely or never set seed or are difficult to cross-breed (e.g. banana, sweet potato, yam). GM allows isolated genes of interest to be inserted into a plant genome such that this ‘transformation’ event is stable and inherited by the plant’s progeny. The most common GM traits introduced to date have generally been ones of value to farmers in Northern America that are encoded for by single genes for which the metabolic pathways are well understood, e.g. herbicide resistance, insect pest resistance. Transgenic crops resistant to other biotic (plant pathogens) and abiotic stresses (drought, saline soils, etc) have also been produced. Genetic engineering has also made it possible to grow pharmaceuticals and industrial products in plants, such as biodegradable plastics, adhesives, antibodies and vaccines, e.g. a GM rice producing a vaccine for cholera has recently been produced and has the advantage that the rice can be stored at room temperature for over a year and the vaccine remain effective. Moreover, purification of the vaccine from the rice is not necessary reducing production costs.