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January – March 2005 BIO LIFE 

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2 BIO LIFE January – March 2005


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In this issue 

Maiden Issue January-March 2005 

Farmers shifting to new 

corn technologies 19 

The hunt for food-borne diseases 20 

Biotechnology: solving 

national hunger 22 

Cover story 

Gov’t agriculturists at the helm 

of GMO testing 6 

Bt cotton: an alternative 

high-value crop 10 

You’re wearing Bt cotton! 11 

Biotechnology around the world 12 

‘Doubly green revolution’ 

now in Asia 14 

After one year of commercial adoption: 

Has the Filipino farmer 

benefited from Bt corn 16 

Cover design: Benjo Laygo 

Illustrations: Leonilo Doloricon 

Photo: Joe Galvez 

The Philippines as Asia’s 

agri-trade center 24 

Agricultural biotechnology 

and food security 26 

Biotech Trivia 28 

Exhibit showcases biotech’s 

support to development 8 

Primer on Biotechnology 30 

In Africa, biotech is a matter 

of survival 34 

Quotes to live with 36 

Columns 

A sunrise industry 4 

Dr. Benigno Peczon 

Modern biotechnology 

and ‘People Power’ 5 

Alice Ilaga 

Emerging job provider 15 

Joe Escartin 

BioLife is a quarterly magazine published by the 

Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines in cooperation 

with the J. Burgos Media Services Inc. with editorial 

offices at 6F Lansbergh Place, Tomas Morato Avenue 

corner Scout Castor Street, Quezon City, Philippines. 

Telephone (63-2) 3728506. Fax No. (63-2)3728560. 

E-mail: peoplead@mozcom.com. 

Website: biotechforlife.com.ph. 

Joel C. Paredes, editorial director • Roja Salvador, Iskho Lopez, associate editors 

Benjo Laygo, art director • Nanie Gonzales, assistant art director • Joe Galvez, photo editor 

Dr. Edith Burgos, Fr. Noli Alparce and Abe Manalo, editorial consultants 

Leonilo Doloricon, art consultant • Paolo Capino, Alfonso Sabilano, Menchu Bon, 

Rose Bingayen, Natividad Guerrero, editorial staff. 

Our partner agencies are the Department of Agriculture, DA-Biotech Program Implementation 

Unit, and Technical Committee for Public Awareness and Education of the Philippine Agricultural 

and Fisheries Biotechnology Program, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study 

and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Philippine Council for Agriculture Forestry 

and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) 

Our Biotech for Life Media and Advocacy Resource Center is open to the public. It is located 

at 92 Road 1 corner Road 33, Project 6, Quezon City with telefax No. (63-2) 4569339.

4 BIO LIFE January – March 2005 

A sunrise industry 

THE evidence is in. Biotechnology 

offers: 

• more food with better quality 

• products to combat specific medical 

conditions 

In December 2002, the Philippine 

Government approved the commercial 

planting of genetically modified corn. 

This corn called Bt corn has built-in resistance 

to infestation by the Asiatic 

corn borer. Before December 2002, the 

Asiatic corn borer was a major problem 

in corn production. Since the borer 

resides inside the plant, it cannot be 

easily controlled by insecticide sprays. 

In cases of heavy infestation, up to 80 

percent of the crop has been reported 

to have been lost. With Bt corn, the 

corn produced is unlikely to contain 

aflatoxin, because the kernels are not 

attacked by corn borers. Aflatoxin is a 

by-product of molds which grow on 

kernels damaged by borers. It has been 

identified as one of the most potent 

carcinogens or cancer-inducing agents. 

In the early 1980s, scientists successfully 

produced human insulin in bacteria 

called E. coli by transferring the human 

gene which codes for insulin into 

the bacteria. Since recombinant human 

insulin entered the market in the 1980s, 

virtually all diabetics have shifted to this 

type of insulin. Previously, insulin-dependent 

diabetics obtained insulin purified 

from pigs and cows. Insulin from 

these animals differ slightly from human 

insulin. The differences sometimes 

Benigno 

D. 

Peczon, 

Ph.D. 

have resulted in allergic reactions. Beginning 

this year, 2004, Filipinos can 

purchase human growth hormone produced 

using modern biotechnology. 

Heretofore, only minute amounts of 

human growth hormone could be collected 

and purified from its traditional 

sources. Proper administration of this 

hormone can address medical concerns 

such as physical growth which was almost 

impossible to successfully address 

in the past. 

More innovation are in the pipeline. 

Using genes obtained from daffodils 

which code for the production of the 

precursor of Vitamin A, scientists 

working in the Philippines are in the 

process of transferring these genes to 

local rice varieties to create Golden Rice. 

Vitamin A deficiency can result in blindness. 

At the Philippine Rice Research 

Institute in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, Filipino 

scientists are performing research 

to create rice which is resistant to bacterial 

blight. Bacterial blight is one of 

the more significant causes of substan- 

tial yield loss in rice production. Filipino 

researchers at UP Los Baños are 

developing papaya which is resistant to 

viral ringspot disease. Viruses from this 

disease severely stunt productivity, virtually 

wiping out papaya plantations. A 

host of other researches aimed at improving 

Philippine agriculture and industry 

are in various stages of development 

at places such as BIOTECH at 

UP Los Baños, UP Diliman, Leyte State 

University, Central Luzon State University, 

etc. 

Research is also being performed in 

the health sector at various places, including 

UST, the Marine Science Institute 

at UP Diliman, UP Manila, and the 

Centro Escolar University. Filipino scientists 

are involved in scientific approaches 

to combat cancer and AIDS. 

Research on edible vaccines is ongoing. 

This would obviate the need for injections 

which many, particularly children, 

find disagreeable. 

Clearly, millions of Filipinos have 

benefited from the innovations already 

available. Millions more will benefit as 

innovations progress from the research 

stage to commercialization. 

Unfounded fears may delay, or 

worse, put a straightjacket on innovations. 

While there are risks in any innovation, 

the core idea is containment of 

risks. Innovators pursue research and 

development and government agencies 

create and implement policy with maximum 

focus on human safety and regard 

for the environment. Each and every 

innovation in biotechnology is examined 

on a case-by-case basis. 

The Biotechnology Coalition of the 

Philippines, Inc. (BCP), the membership 

of which consists of researchers, 

farmers, government functionaries, institutional 

employees, private citizens, 

as well as established institutions, was 

established to ensure the safe and responsible 

use of biotechnology. BCP 

exists to serve as your ally in progress 

and the betterment of the Philippine 

way of life – through judicious utilization 

of biotechnology. 

Dr. Benigno Peczon is the president and 

CEO of the Biotechnology Coalition of the 

Philippines


5 

Modern biotechnology 

and ‘People Power’ 

THE use and commercial application 

of the tools of modern 

biotechnology and its being propeople 

is one big irony that many 

would say and agree with. However, 

the reality is the contrary. 

It’s just that we were made to 

believe that this modern agricultural 

tool is a “technological monopoly” by 

the big multinational companies. The 

mention of the name of one biotech 

company might even instantly ring a 

bell, after biotech critics conjured 

images of a ‘Monster’ that is eating 

up farmers among other allegations. 

However, the fact is the immediate 

beneficiaries of these modern biotechnology 

applications are the 

majority of the population who will 

be receiving on their tables its blessings 

of good and safe foods. 

But if the detractors of modern 

biotechnology would really want to 

engage the corporations who have 

Alice 

Ilaga 

invested so much in research and 

development of this modern agricultural 

tool, giving them some reasonable 

right to get back a fair return-oninvestments, 

then the Philippine 

experience should show them a good 

lesson in public good and public 

trust. 

Through the Department of 

Agriculture’s Biotechnology Program, 

the modern biotechnology sector has 

somehow carved out a niche of its 

own in the public sector arena of 

modern biotechnology research. 

The DA Biotech Program has 

funded several research and development 

projects in the government 

research labs to develop local products 

of modern biotechnology using 

indigenous crops—such as our local 

hybrid rice and papaya, and other 

crops. 

If in the near future the product 

of these researchers will bear the 

‘Pinoy GM’ fruit of this labor and 

reaches full commercialization, this 

will surely belie that great irony that 

this technology is “foreign domination” 

of local agriculture. In this case, 

this will be more than just Pinoy GM 

but rather it’s People’s GM. Isn’t that 

revolutionary Isn’t that People 

Power 

Alice Ilaga is the director of The Department 

of Agriculture Biotechnology Program Implementation 

Unit.


Dr. Merle Palacpac (right) and her team in the Biotechnology Core team. 

By JOEL C. PAREDES 

ON a Friday morning Dr. Aurora Legaspi was unusually busy at 

tending to her small farm. It’s actually a mini- green house inside 

the Bureau of Plant Industry’s National Seeds Quality Control 

Services (NSQCS) offices near Diliman in Quezon City. 

As NSQCS’ chief, Dr. Legaspi, who describes herself as a seeds 

technologist, was overseeing the planting of their agency’s first experimental 

hybrid GMO rice seeds, which they acquired from Philippine 

Rice Research Institute (Philrice). Her enthusiastic agriculturist, 

Jane Bartolini, was busy attending to the tiny seeds. She was 

the experiment’s mother hen, although the agency also tapped a 

Philrice expert consultant for the seed testing. 

After over 44 years in service, Dr. Legaspi could have just looked 

forward to a quiet retirement. 

Yet soft-spoken Dr. Legaspi still looks eager to be part of a crucial 

project – that of institutionalizing biotechnology in seed testing. 

By January, the NSQCS would have fully operationalized their 

high-tech biotechnology laboratory. Dr. Legaspi managed to give us 

a good tour of her modest office-cum-laboratory, which was granted 

late last year with the necessary equipments to venture in GMO 

seeds, starting with hybrid rice. 

She is convinced that the trend in biotechnology is a key in pursuing 

modern methods in seed testing to ensure that government 

can maintain the quality of seeds to improve agricultural production 

in the country. 

DR. LEGASPI


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Senior Agriculturist Jane Bartolini isolates DNA from individual plant samples for purity testing. 

This will also give the government an opportunity to use advanced 

testing based on reliable and efficient molecular techniques 

for variety verification, pathogen identification in relation to seed 

health testing and seed quality control program, she says. 

The NSQCS is actually the agency that is mandated to continuously 

provide services such as seed certification, seed testing and 

training needed in assuring and maintaining the quality of seeds 

used to improve agricultural production in the country. 

Maribel Querijero, a senior agriculturist who is stationed at the 

biotech laboratory, says that as a member of the International Seed 

Testing Association, they have to cope with the challenges triggered 

by the globalization for the Philippines to regain competitiveness in 

the seed market. 

As government’s regulatory body, the NSQCS is tasked to assure 

planters a steady supply of high quality seeds and planting 

materials with distinctness, uniformity and stability. 

“If seed growers or seed companies want to prove their seed is 

not contaminated by any GM we can test. But since some producers 

are promoting GMOs, we can also prove that in testing their 

products,” says Querijero, who has been into seed testing since 1990 

when she joined the BPI after a brief stint with the International Rice 

Research Institute in Los Banos. 

With her experience in biotech products, Querijero says she can 

assure that GMOs that are being tested here do no create allergens, 

contrary to critics claim. “I’ve seen it. The genes that they 

insert in feed do not really harm humans,” she says. 

THE year 2002 was actually the time when the Corn MON810, or 

popularly known as Bt corn, was finally approved by government 

for propagation as well as direct use for food or feed and processing. 

It was widely acknowledged as a major breakthrough in the agriculture 

and science communities. It opened the country to the propagation 

of modern biotechnology. It also took the challenge needed 

to help ensure the success of government’s food security agenda. 

The Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt corn, is resistant to corn borer, 

an insect that destroys corn crops. Bt corn is produced by transferring 

bacterial genes to the corn to make it resistant to corn borer. 

The product was already commercially available in the United 

States, Canada, Japan, European Union, South Africa and Argentina 

but the BT corn still had to pass through the Department of 

Agriculture’s stringent—and rigid — evaluation process. The Bureau 

of Animal Industry (BAI) tapped 16 personnel for feed safety, 

the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product Standards (BFARS) 

and two technical experts from the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority 

(FPA ) the safety in handling of BT corn in food and feed. 

Finally, experts concluded that Bt corn was safe to humans, 

animals, non-target organisms. It was also as nutritious as any ordinary 

corn, safer than chemical insecticides and very effective in controlling 

Asiatic corn borer. 

Despite its discovered wonders, it’s not surprising that cynics 

would simply find BT corn a killer. It has a smack of multinational 

control, tracing its roots to the US multinational giant Monsanto, which 

was a target of a worldwide campaign by anti-biotech activists.


Says environmentalist-turned anti-biotech activist Roberto 

Verzola:”This is so important to me that I didn’t feel like eating for 30 

days, when government decided to commercialize a GMO called Bt 

Corn.” 

He even alleged that so-called “genetic contamination” is becoming 

a worldwide problem. “Certainly (this) requires a second hard 

look,” he says. 

Today, however, Dr. Merle Palacpac, co-chair of the BPI Biotechnology 

Core Team, feels vindicated. She was part of the team 

that evaluated the biotech products. “At least we have proven that 

Bt corn, no matter how controversial, is safe after all” she says. 

Dr. Palacpac, chief of the post entry quarantine station in Los 

Banos, Laguna, says there are 18 other GMOs that government is 

now evaluating for possible commercial use, among them soybeans, 

canola, cotton and potato. 

With the influx of GMOs, the government has begun modernizing 

the plant quarantine services laboratories for GM and plant pathogen 

detection. 

Dr. Palacpac says their target is to establish an internationally 

accredited testing facility for rapid detection of GMOs as well pests 

in plants, planting materials and plant products. 

Palacpac says they hope to increase the export with the expedition 

of sector certification and application of modern phytosanitary 

measures acceptable to other country. 

While modernizing plant quarantine services, the laboratory can 

help build people’s confidence of the general public on the capacity 

of government to safeguard the public from plant pests and unwanted 

organisms on plants, plant products and regulated articles. 

Indeed, while the country is open to GMOs, the BPI maintains 

the need to detect “unapproved” GM transformation events in imported 

GMOs using validated protocols. While these products are 

already commercially available in other countries, they will have to 

pass through stringent evaluation by government experts. 

As then Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor puts it when 

he issued administration order No. 8, in April 2002: “The products of 

modern biotechnology cannot be enjoyed fully by the people unless 

uncertainties regarding their risks to human health and the environment 

are minimized and managed, if not eliminated”. 

Montemayor issued the order nearly a year after President Gloria 

Macapagal Arroyo issued a policy statement on modern biotechnology, 

declaring that the promotion of safe and responsible use of modern 

biotechnology and its products as “one of the several means to 

achieve and sustain food security, equitable access to health services, 

sustainable and safe environment and industry development.” 

Senior agriculturists Maribel Querijero, Josephine Malabanan and Jane Bartolini load DNA samples to 

polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tubes at the NSQCS Biotech Unit laboratory.


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Recent advances in molecular techniques, however, opened new 

opportunities for seed quality assurance and plant variety protection. 

Newer methods based on DNA variations have gained increasing 

acceptance in variety verification and seed testing because of 

the robustness of the method and opportunity for automation. 

DNA-based techniques also offer simple, fast and accurate for 

discriminating seemingly identical varieties or seeds such as hybrid 

seed parentals that are otherwise difficult to be distinguished through 

conventional methods. 

These methods used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a 

powerful technique developed not only for plant variety verification 

and seed purity testing but also for the precise detection of generically 

modified seeds. 

The Bureau of Plant Industry has started training laboratory 

staff on various aspects of DNA analysis and operation of various 

equipment which Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap allocated late last 

year for the biotechnology project. 

With their new laboratory, NSQC’s Dr. Legaspi says they can 

evaluate and validate modern-biotechnology based procedures for 

plant variety verification, seed purity testing especially for hybrid 

seeds and detection of GMO in conventional seed lots. 

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap (top) and sample 

seedlings ofGM hybrid rice (right) which are now being 

tested at the NSQCS’ biotechnology laboratory. 

Photos by JOE GALVEZ 

AT the National Seed Quality Control Service, the opening of a 

new biotechnology laboratory gives government an opportunity 

to use advanced testing procedures based on reliable and efficient 

molecular techniques. 

Varietal purity is an important seed quality control parameter 

affecting the performance of a variety and quality of its produce. 

Genetic purity on the other hand, is also an important requirement 

to obtain and maintain plant variety protection. 

Traditionally, the method used by government for varietal testing 

was mainly based only on ocular inspection of a representative 

seed sample. In some cases, varietal purity certification was done 

by conducting a grow-out test. 

These methods lack precision due to subjectiveness, long duration 

required to produce grow-out results, costs and environmental 

effects that complicate the assessment of genetic traits.


Bt cotton: 

an alternative 

high-value crop 

By GAMALIEL TEJADA 

‘H 

OW much will I gain if I plant cotton’ 

is the immediate question of a farmer 

enjoined to grow cotton by a field worker of 

the Cotton Development Administration 

(CODA). It’s not surprising that this becomes 

the primary concern: as the cost of fertilizers, 

chemicals and labor escalates, farmers 

want to squeeze whatever meager profit they 

can out of growing a certain crop, be it cotton, 

tobacco, rice, or corn. 

Under current practice in growing cotton, 

the net cash income is as low as P1,250 

a hectare. This is based on the 2001/2002 

cotton season’s national average seed cotton 

yield of 1,030 kilograms, total production 

cash cost of P20,350 a hectare, and P20 

a kilogram of seed cotton. 

While a homegrown technology for growing 

cotton is in place to obtain optimum yield 

and income, farmers are going beyond 

what’s recommended, especially in pest control. 

Cotton bollworm, the most destructive 

of cotton pests, accounts for a big chunk of 

total pest-control budget. A cotton farmer 

would often spray pesticides 8-11 times in 

one hectare—which costs him P6,400. 

Besides entailing high cost, this practice 

of extensive spraying puts the farmer, 

his family and community at risk. The danger 

to the environment of non-judicious 

use of chemicals has been extensively 

documented here and abroad——contaminated 

water supply, air pollution, not 

to mention the resulting health ailments, 

among others. 

The increasing problems from chemical 

use have prodded scientists to keep seeking 

efficient and safer means of production 

in agriculture and fishery. 

One noteworthy product of this endeavor 

is a biotechnology product called Bt cotton. 

Transgenic plant 

Bt cotton is a transgenic plant, i.e., developed 

through genetic engineering. With 

its built-in ability to control the cotton bollworm 

and other sucking pests, it has highly 

improved cotton production in 16 Bt cottongrowing 

countries, among them Australia, 

Canada, Argentina, India, Indonesia, Thailand 

and the United States. Higher productivity 

and greater socioeconomic advantages 

are among the documented benefits. 

The Philippines is in a position to enjoy 

similar benefits with the commercial planting 

of Bt cotton. Calculations made by CODA 

experts——toxicologist Dr. Aida Solsoloy, 

and Dr. Edison C. Rinen, breeder and director 

of the Cotton Research Center—show 

that introducing Bt cotton in the country will 

increase farm level yield to 3,000 kilograms 

per hectare; reduce cost of chemicals to 

P1,600 (from the average P6,400 for spraying 

8-11 times) and raise net cash income to 

P40,770 per hectare. 

According to Solsoloy, even if the Bt cotton 

seed is more expensive than currently 

recommended cotton cultivars, this is augmented 

by the increase in yield and lower 

pest control cost. 

In sum, the promise of Bt cotton may be 

summed up thus: high yield plus low production 

cost equals high profit and a healthy 

environment.


11 

You’re wearing 

Science shows how fashion can be hip, cool 

—and technologically, economically smart. 

By MARICHEL NAVARRO 

THE popular denim pants and t-shirt worn like a uniform by young 

and old alike are made from natural cotton fiber. Indeed, cotton 

still wins hands down over synthetic or other natural fibers like silk, 

abaca and ramie as a favorite clothing material in the tropics. 

Cotton fiber, after all, is comfortable, easy to maintain and relatively 

inexpensive. Not many people know there is a great probability 

that the cotton fiber used to weave the imported fabric came from a Bt 

cotton variety. 

What is Bt cotton This insect-damage-immune cotton contains a 

naturally occurring substance, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) protein, which 

is the active ingredient in safe and effective sprays for morre than 50 

years. The production of this protein directly by cotton plants has virtually 

revolutionized insect control, making the lives and work of farmers 

better. 

The major pest afflicting the crop, cotton bollworm, is easily controlled 

by Bt cotton. 

The lint produced by the Bt cotton variety looks and feels like conventionally 

bred cotton. Side by side, they manifest no remarkable 

difference. The difference is significant in the production process. A 

farmer planting Bt cotton benefits in terms of lower production cost, 

owing to reduced inputs of pesticide and reduced labor requirements, 

as well as a marked increase in yield. Seed cost, though, is admittedly 

higher, but overall, this is compensated for by lower production expense 

and higher yield. 

The significance of Bt cotton cannot be overemphasized enough, 

especially when considering the overall irony in the present situation. 

While most everyone, from babies to senior citizens, wear or use cotton-based 

material, the Philippines still imports 95 percent of domestic 

requirements from the US, Australia and Pakistan. The local textile 

industry accounts for 53 percent of its total raw material requirements. 

Nearly 50 percent of our cotton imports come from Bt cotton-growing 

countries, the US and Australia. In 2002, some 20 percent of total 

cotton planted all over the world was of Bt cotton variety, with Australia 

and the US among the most significant planters. 

Here in the Philippines, there is some hope the lopsided equation 

in sourcing cotton can be cured. The Department through the Cotton 

Development Administration proposes to introduce Bt cotton as an 

alternative to conventionally-bred varieties. If this happens, farmers 

can increase their income from planting Bt cotton, and textile millers 

will have a local source for good-quality fiber. More important, the 

country will benefit from homegrown cotton, and save an estimated 

$86 million in import costs yearly. 

Soon, with the wonders of science, fashion can be not only aesthetically 

good, but also economically sound. 

Bt cotton!


BIOTECHNOLOGY AROUND THE WORLD 

EU okays foods 

containing GM maize 

BRUSSELS—The European Commission 

recently announced it was granting 

authorization for importing food products 

with the genetically-modified NK 603 

maize. The decision “takes effect immediately 

and will remain valid for 10 years,” 

the EC said. 

Previously, farm and environment 

ministers of the European Union had 

failed to reach any agreement on the 

matter. 

NK 603 maize has been geneticallymodified 

to tolerate glyphosphate 

herbicide. Before the authorization for 

food importation, it had been allowed 

for use as animal feed and for industrial 

processes. The new authorization 

means that foodstuffs for both people 

and animals that contain NK 603 and 

its derivatives like starch, oil, gluten 

and grains may be imported into the 

EU. 

The commission stressed, however, 

that the maize would be grown and 

harvested outside the EU. 

In compliance with EU legislation, 

any item containing the geneticallymodified 

maize must be clearly labelled 

as such. Earlier this year, in May, the 

commission allowed the importation of 

another genetically-modified corn, BT- 

11, ending a five-year European embargo 

on genetically modified products. 

“The NK 603 maize has been scientifically 

assessed by the European food 

safety authority as being as safe as any 

conventional maize,” EU Environment 

Commissioner Margot Wallstroem said 

in July, adding that, “Its safety therefore 

is not in question, and neither is the 

question of user or consumer choice.” 

Explaining the latter, she said that “ 

clear labelling provides the farmers and 

consumers with the information they 

need to decide whether to buy the 

product or not.” 

Fish that glow 

in the dark 

WUKU, Taiwan—A Taiwanese company 

that became famous for its 

transgenic fish, has added a new species 

to its product line: a species that glows 

fluorescent gold in the dark. 

The gene-transferring exercise used 

by the researchers of Taikong Corp. 

involves the introduction of a fluorescent 

protein extracted from jellyfish, into the 

nucleus of a rice fish embryo by “microinjection.” 

The fluorescence is replicated 

through this process and takes hold in 

the fish embryo, and officials said the 

transplanted genes may come from a 

fish of the same or different species. 

The company’s finance manager Bill 

Kuo said the glow-gold-in-the-dark fish is 

the latest in a line of genetically modified 

fish his company developed since three 

years ago. 

Each fish sells for 59 Taiwan dollars 

($1.80). 

TIME magazine had dubbed the 

company’s first neon fish, which hit the 

market last year, as “one of the coolest 

inventions” of 2003. 

Having overcome barriers to mass 

breeding the fish, Taikong has now set 

its sights on China. A Chinese fish farm 

has been licensed to mass-produce the 

transgenic fish, for which worldwide 

demand is estimated at 200 million. 

Meanwhile, some environmentalists 

remain wary about allowing mass breeding 

unless more tests and evaluations are 

done. (From Khaleej Times Online)


13 

US agriculture 

department has new 

biotech unit 

WASHINGTON—The US Department 

of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service (APHIS) has a new 

dedicated compliance and enforcement 

unit under its Biotechnology Regulatory 

Services program. 

The APHIs administrator, Bobby 

Acord, said the new compliance program 

will focus on violation prevention, riskbased 

criteria for quality inspections and 

auditing, uniform enforcement and 

thorough documentation. He noted that 

“compliance with APHIs biotechnology 

regulations had been very high over the 

past 15 years, but with ever-changing 

science, it is imperative that the safeguards 

in place to protect America’s 

agriculture continue to evolve.” 

The unit is building on efforts already 

under way in the BRS to enhance 

compliance—including changes In 

Brazil, China gearing 

for GM legislation 

TWO of the world’s biggest farming 

nations, Brazil and China, are set to 

legalize genetically modified crops, 

according to the Nov. 19, 2004 issue of 

The Economist magazine. 

China is reported to be likely soon to 

authorize commercial growing of GM rice, 

while Brazil is just about ready to set up 

its mechanism for legalizing all GM 

crops. 

Actually, many farmers already grow 

GM cotton in China. And Brazil’s farmers 

plant GM soya in the far south, with the 

seed smuggled from Argentina. That 

practice is illegal in theory, but in October, 

well after planting had begun, such was 

given a go-ahead by a presidential 

decree. 

Meanwhile, a bill to regulate GM 

crops has been approved in the Senate 

and is being passed upon by the Chamber 

of Deputies. One problem standing in 

the way of speedy passage is this, 

though: the bill also embraces the 

controversial stem-cell research. 

It is known that the government 

cannot crack down hard on violators, 

because farmers have seen the advantage 

of GM crops. Brazil is the world’s 

second largest soya grower after the US, 

where nearly all soya is GM. Up to one 

third of the expected huge (60 million 

tonnes) soya crop this season could be 

GM. With legality questions being torn 

down, the proportion of GM is seen to 

increase. The GM seed, derived from 

Monsanto’s herbicide-resistant variety, 

does not in itself raise yields; but it cuts 

costs, making soya attractive to plant. 

For its part, China is well-prepared. 

Its scientists have long been developing 

GM rice varieties—mostly pest-resistant; 

and occasionally herbicide- and diseaseresistant. 

For three years now Chinese 

officials have done “pre-production” trials, 

giving the new seeds to farmers in 

diverse areas. So far, the trials show 

pesticide use down by 80 percent and 

yields up by 4-8 percent. 

While China’s environmental protection 

agency shares the usual doubts 

about GM and unofficial environmental 

campaigners are active against GM, 

China’s biosafety committee is seen in 

some quarters as likely to give the gosignal, 

primarily because of the health of 

farmers. Crop spraying that is now 

extensively used is not as safe as in 

richer countries; and consumers fear the 

risk of pesticide residues. 

Yet another implication that is seen is 

in nearby India, where farmers had 

rushed to sow GM cotton and where 

scientists have lots of biotech-rice skills. 

India might also rush into GM rice in 

order not to be left behind by China. 

regulations, permit conditions, inspections 

and auditing procedures. 

Created in August 2002, BRS is 

charged with regulating the introduction 

(importation, interstate movement and 

field release) of genetically engineered 

organisms like plants, insects, microorganisms, 

and any other organism that is 

known to be, or could be, a plant pest. 

Through a strong regulatory framework, 

BRS ensures the safe and contained 

introduction of new genetically engineered 

plants with significant safeguards 

to prevent the accidental release of any 

such material. Under the Plant Protection 

Act of 2000, failure to follow the conditions 

set by BRS can result in serious 

fines and even jail time.


‘Doubly green 

revolution’ 

now in Asia 

TRADITIONAL corn farming in Mindanao. 

A 

“BETTER” kind of Green Revolution, release at IRRI’s website www.irri.org said. 

this time called “doubly green revolution,” 

The “doubly green revolution” was 

is now invading the rice fields of first conceptualized by Gordon Conway, 

Asia, including the Philippines, as farmers former head of the Rockefeller Foundation 

adopt new technologies that reduce their 

in a 1997 book of the same title. 

inappropriate use of pesticides and boost Conway argued that the world needed a 

their incomes, a rice expert said. 

doubly-green revolution that would be 

Ronald Cantrell, director general of the even more productive than the first 

Philippines-based International Rice 

Green Revolution, and “doubly green” by 

Research Institute (IRRI), told the annual conserving natural resources and 

general meeting of the Consultative Group protecting the environment. 

on International Agricultural Research 

“Today, we would like to suggest that, 

(CGIAR) held in Mexico in October, that certainly in rice, the doubly green revolution 

the days of unsustainable, high-input rice 

has commenced,” Cantrell said. “IRRI 

farming will soon be a thing of the past. and its partners in Asia have already 

He described IRRI’s research strategy enjoyed noteworthy success with environment-friendly 

for the 21st century as breeding improved 

technologies for improving 

rice varieties with durable diseaseresistance, 

rice productivity and poor farmers’ lives.” 

while developing innovative, 

In Asia, the Green Revolution in rice 

sustainable cropping systems, a news began with IRRI’s release in 1966 of IR8, 

the first modern, high-yielding semi-dwarf 

rice variety, IRRI said. 

Half of the modern rice varieties released 

in South and Southeast Asia over 38 years 

derive at least partly from work by IRRI and 

its partners. The global rice harvest has 

more than doubled in that period, racing 

slightly ahead of population growth. 

Larger per capita harvests have helped 

to reduce world rice prices by 80 percent 

over the past 20 years. At the same time, 

poor consumers have benefited through 

lower prices for their staple food and their 

single largest expense, and farmers have 

enjoyed lower unit costs and higher profits. 

At the national level, Asians have achieved 

food security. 

“However, as we all know, the job 

started in the first Green Revolution is not 

finished,” Cantrell said. 

“Although it did stave off hunger to a 

significant extent on two continents, an 

estimated 800 million still do not have 

access to sufficient food to meet their 

needs, and millions of farmers remain 

trapped in poverty. 

“We have learned some important 

lessons over the last 40 years,” Cantrell 

added. “Modern technologies can be 

environmentally sensitive if they are 

designed and used with the benefit of 

modern ecological knowledge. And IRRI is 

committed to ensuring a cleaner, greener 

environment.” 

Cantrell cited four environmentally 

focused research achievements. First, 

work in China has confirmed that crop 

biodiversity can play a key role in helping 

farmers improve their livelihoods while 

protecting the environment and their 

families’ health. In 1997, IRRI scientists 

and collaborators in Yunnan started 

experiments with interplanting to control 

the devastating rice blast fungus, while 

reducing fungicide use. The technology 

spread from a mere 12 hectares in an 

initial experiment in 1997 to 812 hectares 

in 1998, 3,000 hectares in 1999 and 

43,000 hectares in 2000. 

In 2000, The New York Times described 

this project as one of the largest 

agricultural experiments ever. 

Today, farmers across 10 Chinese 

provinces interplant nearly 1 million 

hectares, achieving better plant protection 

with minimal fungicide use and preserving 

popular traditional varieties, IRRI said. 

In Vietnam, IRRI and its government 

partners have succeeded in implementing 

integrated pest management and breaking 

the farmers’ dependence on insecticides. 

Research there has shown that


15 

spraying in the first 40 days after sowing 

rice is a waste of money and a threat to 

farmers’ health and the environment. 

Through communication campaign, 

using radio dramas, leaflets, posters and 

billboards, researchers persuaded almost 

2 million rice-growing households in the 

Mekong Delta to spray much less. 

Surveys in 1999 showed insecticide 

use had halved from an average of 3.4 

applications per farmer per season to 1.7 

applications. The percentage of farmers 

who believed that insecticides bring higher 

yield had plunged from 83 to 13 percent, 

and those who realized that insecticides 

killed the natural enemies of rice pests had 

risen from 29 to 79 percent, IRRI said. 

In Bangladesh, the success story in 

reducing chemical use in rice farming 

came after three years of the IRRI-led 

project called Livelihood Improvement 

Through Ecology (LITE), where more 

than 2,000 farmers have reduced their 

insecticide use by 99 percent. Before the 

project, high government subsidies on 

insecticides got farmers hooked on 

spraying. With continued donor support 

for the project, the next decade may see 

insecticide use disappear among the 11.8 

million rice farmers of Bangladesh. 

The challenge for farmers in the use of 

chemical fertilizers has always been when to 

apply them and how much. After about 10 

years of development and study, IRRI is 

promoting a simple site-specific nutrient 

management (SSNM) technique by which 

farmers feed the rice plant nutrients only 

as and when needed, when nutrients in 

indigenous sources—soil, water, crop 

residues and manure—are less than optimal. 

As the two SSNM sites in Bangladesh 

showed, net return with real-time nitrogen 

management, compared with that of the 

farmers’ practice, was on average US$41 

to US$65 per hectare better for each 

season—across five seasons, IRRI said. 

The benefits from SSNM multiply when 

improved management of phosphorus and 

potassium is included. 

SSNM is currently being evaluated by 

extension workers and farmers at some 20 

locations in Bangladesh, China, India, 

Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines 

and Vietnam. Each location represents 

an area of intensive rice farming on 

more than 100,000 hectares with similar 

soils and cropping systems, it added. 

“And so, as farmers across the riceproducing 

world join us in the doubly green 

revolution,” Cantrell said, “we are confident 

that food security will improve significantly 

for millions of impoverished people.” 

The emerging 

job provider 

THE predicament of the present 

gov-ernment is how to address its 

job crisis at the same time compete in 

the global economic arena. Its economic 

policy must coincide with its social 

and political agenda. Programs and 

policies to solve the unemployment 

problem must be politically sensitive. 

Their implementation must cushion 

the undesirable impact on 

marginalized sector. Investments 

sourced locally or overseas must have 

strong employment orientation and 

work-force-biased. 

One such area which have high potentials 

to provide job opportunities is 

biotechnology-based industries. Referred 

to as entrepreneurial life science 

sector by an international accounting 

firm, Ernest and Young, biotechnology 

industry offers windows of opportunities 

for employment. While its applications 

which involve the use of modern 

scientific techniques to produce or develop 

products and services have encountered 

resistance and consumer distrust, 

biotechnology will certainly become 

a strategic employment generator. 

In north American and European 

countries, biotechnology industry has 

significantly provided jobs for thousands 

of workers. As a multibillion 

dollar industry in the US biotech companies 

which invested about $10 billion 

in research and development were 

reported to have already provided jobs 

to more than 200,000 persons. Other 

companies in Canada and Europe have 

similarly accounted for increased job 

opportunities in these areas. 

As a result of scientifically and financially 

successful applications in 

health and environment, investors 

have shifted their funds to biotechbased 

businesses. In the health sector, 

about a hundred biotechnology drugs 

are expected to be in the market. More 

companies are reported to be involved 

in agro-food business. Applications of 

modern biotechnology to crops and 

to the conservation of food have been 

advancing rapidly. Environmental degradation 

and climate change have pro- 

Joe Escartin 

vided added impetus for the adoption 

of biotechnology, particularly GMOs 

in agri-based industry. Certainly concern 

for food security will make the 

advent of biotechnology inevitable. 

Being a knowledge-intensive industry, 

biotechnology will bring about expansion 

in research and development activities 

of companies as their competitive 

edge. Investments in the intellectual 

capital of companies will usher a bright 

prospects for employment for the Filipino 

knowledge-based workforce. 

Manufacturing industries for materials 

such as biodegradable plastics, 

biopolymers and biopesticides, novel 

fibers and timbers are potential employment 

generators. With its contributions 

to industrial processes, food 

production and storage as well as 

drugs; safe health and environment, 

biotechnology will become the business 

of the future. It will be a significant 

jobs provider for many of our 

graduates of science-based courses. 

As we welcome the advent of biotechnology 

as potential provider of job 

opportunities for our knowledgebased 

workers, we cannot disregard 

some apprehensions and distrusts of 

some sectors. Unease about health and 

safety is very prominent. One of the 

reasons for the public unease is the 

genetically modified foods and crops. 

For instance, it is feared that antibiotic 

resistant genes inserted in genetically 

modified plants for monitoring 

purposes may spread to humans. 

Also, the so called “super weeds” 

due to possible leak out of genes put 

into plant to make them resistant to 

disease and pests may cause 

Turn to page 29


AFTER ONE YEAR OF COMMERCIAL ADOPTION: 

By LYN RESURRECCION 

THE debate on biotechnology, or specifi 

cally on genetically modified organisms 

(GMOs), has quieted down in the past year 

from the fever-pitch level of more than two 

years ago, although the opposition against 

the modern technology that is seen to dominate 

the new millennium still persists. 

At the center of the debate in the country 

was the controversial Bt (Bacillus 

thuringiensis) corn, the product of a process 

where the Bt protein found in the soil is integrated 

into the corn plant to equip it with a 

high degree of resistance to the damaging 

Asian corn borer. 

Critics oppose the technology in the 

name of human safety and the environment, 

despite the scientists’ persistent denials 

of such peril, and painstaking explanations 

that there has been no evidence to 

that effect. 

But, at least, so far for now, the days of 

plant pulling, such as in the Bt corn field 

trial in Tampakan, South Cotabato, and the 

emotion-filled rallies or fora against the 

technology, have passed. 

Since the Department of Agriculture approved 

in December 2002 the commercial 

release of Bt corn, what have been seen 

and heard are testimonies in favor of the 

main beneficiaries of the technology—the 

farmers—on the advantages of the use of 

Bt corn. In a paper at the 45th National 

PAEDA Convention in Quezon City in October, 

entitled, “Economic Impact of Bt Corn 

in the Philippines,” Jose M. Yorobe Jr., assistant 

professor of the Department of Agricultural 

Economics at the University of the 

Philippines Los Baños, said that after one 

year of commercial adoption in only about 

10,000 hectares planted to Bt corn in the 

country, substantial unit-yield increase of 

as much as 37 percent was realized by the 

Bt corn farms. 

“This translates to an additional profit 

of P10,132 per hectare with a reduction in 

insecticide expenditures of 60 percent. An 

incremental net income of P1.34 per kilogram 

was gained by the Bt corn users, al- 

though the seed cost was twice the ordinary 

hybrid,” Yorobe said in the paper. He 

acknowledged that the paper was part of a 

study by the International Service for the 

Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications 

(ISAAA), a not-for-profit organization, on 

the impact of Bt corn in the Philippines. 

ISAAA centers are based in the Philippines, 

Kenya and the United States. He 

stressed that the adoption of Bt corn in the 

country, albeit still limited in time and 

hectarage, showed a significant impact on 

the farm financial performance as shown 

by the adoption elasticity that was even 

higher than those observed in developed 

countries. The Yorobe paper used data from 

the ISAAA survey, which interviewed 107 

Bt and 362 non-Bt corn farmers in the wet 

and dry seasons of crop-year 2003 and 

2004 in four major Bt-corn adopting provinces 

of Isabela, Camarines Sur, Bukidnon 

and South Cotabato. 

At least three towns and three 

barangays per town were chosen based on 

the density of Bt corn adopters.


17 

Table 1. Expenditures on Insecticide Use, 

407 Bt and non-Bt Corn Farmers, Philippines, 2003-2004 

Insecticide Cost (PhP/ha) 

Location/Cropping 

No. of 

observations Bt Non-Bt Difference 

1st Cropping 

Camarines Sur 53 149 328 179.00 

Bukidnon 68 134 56 (78.00) 

2nd Cropping 

Bukidnon 51 0 47 47.00 

South Cotabato 103 206 652 446.00 

Isabela 132 149 281 132.00 

ALL 407 156 324 168.00 

Source of data: ISAAA Corn Survey, 2003-2004 

Table 2. Yield differences between Bt and non-Bt corn farms, 

407 farmers, Philippines, 2003-2004 

CROPPING/LOCATION Bt Non-Bt % Difference 

1st cropping 

Camarines Sur 4516.67 3287.46 37.39 ** 

Bukidnon 4215.90 3324.18 26.83 ns 

All locations 4301.83 3307.75 30.05 ** 

2nd cropping 

Bukidnon 2868.36 3566.30 (19.57) ns 

Isabela 5303.85 4483.77 18.29 *** 

South Cotabato 4793.55 3486.31 37.50 *** 

All locations 4890.28 3789.96 29.03 *** 

Both croppings 4849.50 3610.31 34.32 *** 

*** = significant at 1 percent 

** = significant at 5 percent 

ns = not significant 


Lesser use of insecticide 

Before the adoption of Bt corn in the Philippines, 

damage by the Asian corn borer on 

corn yield had reached as high as 30 percent, 

or a low of 4.3 percent. Farmers used insecticides, 

which have been proven costly and 

unsafe to the human health and to the environment. 

With the Bt corn, Yorobe said insecticide 

use by farmers was reduced based on 

the amount spent on insecticides per hectare. 

About P168 per hectare was saved on 

insecticide expenditures by Bt corn farmers. 

“This implies that farmers sprayed fewer times 

and used less insecticides,” he said. 

Yorobe explained that Table 1 (Table 4 

in the study) showed that the amount used 

by non-Bt farmers on insecticides was relatively 

high in Isabela and Camarines Sur 

because of the prevalent incidence of corn 

borer. The cost advantage was not conspicuous 

in Bukidnon especially during the 

second (dry) season because the incidence 

of corn borer was slight. More insecticide 

use was also reported in Bukidnon in the 

wet season because of the prevalence of 

corn borer. 

High yield and income 

Of course, the major consideration in the 

use of new technology—this time Bt corn— 

is profitability. Farmers venture into new 

methods to be able to increase their income. 

The reduction in pest damage, Yorobe said, 

translates to better yield and income. He 

stressed: “Experiences in other countries 

already indicate the superior financial performance 

of Bt-corn farms over the non-Bt 

corn ones.” A comparison of mean yield per 

hectare of Bt corn and non-Bt corn showed 

the “substantial absolute advantage” of Bt 

corn (Table 2) 

(Table 2 in the study). Yorobe observed 

that in all locations in both cropping seasons, 

the Bt corn farms had a yield advantage 

of 34.32 percent over non-Bt corn users, 

with a high of more than 37 percent in 

Camarines Sur and South Cotabato. The 

average yield of Bt corn farms was 4,850kg/ 

hectare compared to only 3,610kg/hectare 

for non-Bt corn. 

The study said that financial evaluation 

on the performance of Bt corn farms also 

indicated an increase of about 25 percent in 

profitability over non-Bt corn farms. The yield 

differences between Bt corn and non-Bt corn 

farms were “statistically significant” in all locations, 

except in Bukidnon, the study said, 

at 1-percent level for the first cropping, and 

5 percent level for the second cropping. The 

favorable growing conditions in Isabela and 

South Cotabato in the second or dry season 

contributed significantly to better corn production, 

Yorobe said. 

Table 3 (Table 5 in the study) presented 

an evaluation of the financial performance 

of Bt and non-Bt farms for 2003-2004. The 

production cost of a kilo of Bt corn was lower


by 23 centavos than the non-Bt, but cash 

costs were higher. The net income per kilo Table 3. Prices, Net Income and Returns to Labor and Management, 

showed a difference of 10 centavos for the 

407 Bt and Non-Bt Corn Farms, Philippines, 2003-2004 

Bt corn and had an advantage of more than CORN TYPE/ Cost of Net Cash Return to 

P1/kg in returns over the non-Bt varieties. LOCATION Price Production Income Costs Labor and 

Yorobe also observed that Bt corn received 

Pesos/kg Management 

a premium price in the market due to better 

(1 - 4) 

quality and less impurities. He said that Bt Bt 

corn farmers, particularly in Camarines Sur Camarines Sur 8.00 5.86 2.14 5.38 2.62 

and Bukidnon, received premium prices by Bukidnon1st crop 6.86 5.99 0.87 5.27 1.59 

as much as P1.61/kg during the second crop. Bukidnon 2nd crop 9.80 10.08 (0.28) 9.30 0.50 

Many farmers traced this to the fact that Bt South Cotabato 8.83 4.61 4.22 4.29 4.54 

corn kernels and ears were bigger and Isabela 8.92 4.27 4.66 4.10 4.82 

cleaner with uniform sizes. 

All locations 8.82 4.97 3.85 4.66 4.16 

In sum, (Table 4) (Table 6 in the study) 

the increase in total revenue of Bt corn farms Non-Bt 

amounts to P14,849 per hectare, with savings 

of P168/hectare in insecticide expendi- 

Bukidnon 1st crop 6.66 5.31 1.36 4.30 2.36 

ture. Although the seed costs were twice Bukidnon 2nd crop 8.19 5.16 3.02 4.23 3.96 

higher than the non-Bt varieties, the study South Cotabato 8.11 4.92 3.20 4.35 3.76 

showed that the profit advantage almost Isabela 8.68 4.77 3.90 4.52 4.16 

doubled. The benefit cost ratio of 2.014 All locations 7.71 5.20 2.51 4.56 3.15 

shows the better performance of Bt corn. Source of data: ISAAA Corn Survey, 2003-2004 

With the estimated area planted to Bt corn 

Bicol 6.84 6.10 0.74 5.66 1.18 

in 2003-2004 at 10,769 hectares, Table 5 

(Table 13 in the study) shows the results of 

the distribution of benefits. The estimates are Table 4. Income and Cost Advantages of Bt corn Farm Adopters, 

presented by region owing to wide differences 

in agro-climatic conditions and man- 

407 Bt and non-Bt Corn Farmers, Philippines, 2003-2004 

agement practices across regions, Yorobe CROPPING/ Increase Pesticide BC Ratio 

explained. 

LOCATION in Total Application Additional Additional (total 

Variations in yield per hectare and cost 

Revenue Savings Seed Cost Profit returns/ 

per unit were evident in the results. With a 

(Pesos/hectare) 

total cost) 

larger area planted to Bt corn and a higher 1st Cropping 

cost reduction per unit, the net benefit to Camarines Sur 13,833.00 179.00 2,202.00 4,462.00 1.363 

farmers was largest in Northern Luzon, with Bukidnon 7,210.00 (78.00) 2,626.00 (701.00) 1.201 

P20.95 million. Farmers in other regions had 

lesser benefits because of the smaller area 2nd Cropping 

planted to Bt corn and minimal reported cost Bukidnon (710.00) 47.00 2,649.00 (6,283.00) 1.365 

reduction per unit of production. 

Isabela 8,680.00 132.00 1,741.00 7,910.00 2.285 

Farmers in Northern Mindanao had South Cotabato 14,046.00 446.00 2,289.00 7,669.00 1.991 

negative benefits as more costs were reported 

on fertilizers, chemicals and hired labor. 

Farms in these areas also experienced Source of data: ISAAA Corn Survey, 2003-2004 

drought and stalk rot infestation. 

All locations 14,849.00 168.00 2,047.00 10,132.00 2.014 

After one year of commercialization, the 

net benefit to farmers in the aggregate 

amounted to P46.44 million. This was estimated 

using the area planted to Bt and the 

reduction in per-unit costs. The estimated 

gross revenue by the seed company was 

P43.48 million, which includes the cost of 

the technology. These benefits, Yorobe underlined, 

represent the direct and immediate 

impact of the corn industry and now cover 

the indirect effects with other industries, like 

livestock, where corn is a big demand. 

Farmers’ profile 

It is interesting to note that there are 

some noticeable differences observed in 

the characteristics between Bt and non-Bt 

After one year of 

commercialization, the 

net benefit to farmers in 

the aggregate amounted 

to P46.44 million. 

This was estimated 

using the area planted 

to Bt and the reduction 

in per-unit costs. 

corn farmers, which could be important factors 

in the adoption of the new technology. 

(Table 6) 

(Table 1 in the study). It shows that Bt 

corn farmers were relatively younger (45.38 

against 46.77 years), and have larger farms 

((4.04 hectares against 2.47 hectares) than 

their non-Bt counterparts. The area planted 

to Bt corn was also larger (2.64 hectares) 

compared to non-Bt corn (1.64 hectares). Bt 

corn farmers were also better-educated 

(about 10 years of formal schooling against 

the non-Bt users’ eight years); they earned 

more—over P2,000 a month—from other 

sources besides farming, and this is an important 

source of capital for farming opera-


19 

Table 5. Welfare Effects of Bt corn Adoption, 

by location, Philippines, 2003-2004 

Northern Southern Northern Southern All 

Item Luzon Luzon Mindanao Mindanao Locations 

Area (hect ares)a 7, 901 2,257 130 481 10,769 

Yield/ha (kg) 5, 304 4,516 4,215 4,794 4,850 

Price (PhP/ kg) 8.68 8.00 8.33 8.11 8.82 

Cost reduction 

(PhP/ kg) 0.50 0.24 (0.68) 0.31 0.23 

Net Benefit to 

Farmers (million P)b 20. 95 2.45 (0.37) 0.71 46.44 

Estimated Gross 

Revenue to Seed 

Companies (million P) 30. 61 10.16 0.62 2.09 43.48 

a Estimates provided by Monsanto, Philippines. 

b Taken from Appendix Table 1. 


Table 6. Selected characteristics of farming households, 

Bt Corn Study, Philippines, 2003-2004. 

Characteristic Bt Non-Bt All 

Farm size (ha) 4.04 2.47 2.82 

Corn area (ha) 2.64 1.64 1.86 

Planted corn area (ha) 2.32 1.55 1.72 

Age (years) 45.38 46.77 46.46 

Years of schooling 9.65 7.81 8.22 

Income from other sources 

(per month) 4,066.79 1,088.56 1,766.58 

Membership in farmer organization (%) 47.66 57.02 54.89 

Contact with extension worker (%) 91.04 84.89 86.30 

Chemical expense (PhP/ha) 267.21 406.52 371.69 

Hired labor (Man-days/ha) 51.99 46.98 48.22 

Variety used (%) 25 75 100 

Source of data: ISAAA Corn Survey, 2003- 2004 

tions. The study also showed that although 

fewer Bt corn farmers were members of 

farmers’ organizations, many of them (91 

percent) have frequent contact with extension 

workers. 

What needs to be done 

With the high cost of Bt corn seeds, 

Yorobe said findings ways to reduce that cost 

will certainly result in a net benefit to farmers. 

“The current effects are still minimal 

considering an adoption rate of only 1 percent,” 

he said. In order to further realize the 

benefits of Bt corn through higher adoption 

rates, public support is needed in terms of 

information dissemination, development of 

the Bt corn seed market and the government 

incentives to facilitate farmers’ access to the 

technology. 

He said that the availability of Bt corn 

seeds is still limited and domestic seed production 

capacity is still low. “As the seed 

market is opened to other entrants, the adoption 

rate and welfare gains are expected to 

increase in the future,” he said. 

Despite its current limitations, Yorobe 

said that the results of the one-year introduction 

of Bt corn to Filipino farmers “clearly 

favor the national agenda of increased productivity 

and income for small corn farmers.” 

But, he asserted, “the adoption level should 

be increased.” 

Farmers 

shifting to 

new corn 

technologies 

WHENEVER farmers find a crop that 

offers good income and is more 

comfortable to work on than their 

existing crop, they would not take so 

much time to decide on whether or not 

they are going to adopt the new crop. 

Chances are that they would 

switch to the new crop to make their 

lives a little bit more comfortable. 

Such is the case in three towns of 

Pampanga, particularly in Lubao, 

Arayat and Mexico. 

Traditionally, almost all farmers in 

these towns have been producing rice 

and sugarcane. Others are into 

banana, mango and eggplant farming. 

With fellow farmers in Pampanga 

making more profit from Bt (Bacillus 

thuringiensis) corn, more and more 

farmers in these towns are going into 

Bt corn production in order to cut cost 

of production, increase yield and 

reduce the use of chemical sprays. 

Bt corn, a bio-engineered or 

genetically modified crop, is resistant 

to the Asian corn borer, which can 

cause severe yield losses. 

One of the farmers who has made 

the switch is Carlos “Caloy” G. 

Guevarra, who operates a 10-hectare 

corn production area in barangay 

Anao, Mexico, Pampanga. 

Using a Pioneer hybrid 30Y73 with 

YieldGard Corn Borer Protection 

during the dry season, he was able to 

harvest an average yield of a recordhigh 

10.25 metric tons (mt)/hectare, 

equivalent to 153 cavans. 

Guevarra said, “At a price of P7.50 

a kilo corn grain, my gross income 

reached around P76,000, giving me a 

net income of more than P50,000 a 

hectare.” 

Guevarra likes to use the new 

technology even if he does not usually 

encounter corn borer problems in his 

farm because he claims that farmers 

can never really predict when the 

insect pest will significantly damage 

Turn to page 33



By JOEL C. PAREDES 

FOR many Filipinos, urban living means 

survival in a carnivorous world. But are 

those juicy burgers or chicken wings and 

drumsticks safe enough for the yuppie 

crowd 

Well, think twice. Contaminated beef 

and other meat, milk and water are the most 

common sources of disease- producing organisms—or 

pathogens. 

Bloody diarrhea and related diseases 

for instance are caused by a pathogen 

called Escherichia coli. 

Typhoid fever, meanwhile, is caused by 

Salmonella thypimurium. 

The Salmonella are actually common 

inhabitants of intestinal tracts of animals, 

especially poultry and cattle. 

Government scientists concede that 

The hunt for 

food-borne 

diseases 

these are but two of the most common foodborne 

pathogens which have become a 

major concern of government and the private 

sector in public health safety. 

Pathogenic microorganisms, including 

Campylobacter and Listeria pose a foodpoisoning 

threat. Fortunately, identifying these 

pathogenic microorganisms has become a


21 

Dr. Criselda Pagluanan (top), head of the 

of the NMIS central meat laboratory. 

Miicrobiologist Candice Lumibao (left and 

top right) prepares a reagent for DNA 

centrifugation at the NMIS Biotech Unit 

laboratory. Dr. Cynthia Nalo-Ochona 

(right) loads DNA samples to a 

polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tube. 

priority of the Department of Agriculture. 

The National Meat Inspection Commission, 

which is in charge of surveillance, prevention 

and control of food-borne disease, 

says that it is now requiring microbiological 

analysis to assess the quality and safety of 

food prior to public consumption. 

This usually involves employing the conventional 

method of detecting pathogenic 

microorganisms. This method, however, is 

quite laborious and time-consuming. 

Lately, the agency has ventured into a 

new procedure—which is accurate and 

rapid – in identifying these pathogens. DNAbased 

assays are now used for identification. 

These methods rely on the nucleic acid 

composition of the bacterium rather than the 

phenotypic expressions that may be variable 

under culture conditions. 

Lately, Dr. Criselda Pagluanan, head of 

the central meat laboratory of the National 

Meat Inspection Services (NMIS) of the 

agency, says that because of the new procedure, 

they were able to issue clearance 

within two days, compared to five days using 

the traditional methods. 

They have started using polymerase 

chain reaction (PCR), molecular based 

screening and detection of bacterial pathogens. 

All these are being done at the NMIC’s 

new biotechnology laboratory near Visayas 

avenue in Quezon City. The P11 million laboratory 

caters to 20 slaughterhouses in Metro 

Manila, but government hopes to set up similar 

laboratories nationwide. 

Candice Lumibao, who is in charge of 

the NMIS’ biotechnology laboratory, says 

they are now testing more than 270 meat 

samples ranging from chicken, beef, pork, 

hotdogs, processed meat products from 

various slaughterhouses and private food 

corporations like Swifts, Purefoods and 

CDO Karne Norte. 

Lumibao, a molecular biology and biotechnology 

graduate from the University of 

the Philippines, says they also plan to do 

more screening on four micro-organisms. 

She began the meat testing on May 

2004 for the screening of pathogenic micro-organism 

in meat and the screening of 

salmonella. 

Lumibao was formerly a technical assistant 

at the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development 

Center (SEAFDEC) in Iloilo before 

moving to NMIS. 

Dr. Pagluanan, an animal science specialist, 

says that although they have just 

started in April she is convinced that biotechnology 

has helped a lot in promoting 

food safety.



By PAOLO CAPINO 

IMAGINE this is the year 2030. The Philippines 

has increased its population by 

150 per cent. On top of that, poverty has 

widened rapidly and virtually all the resources 

generated in the past century have 

been used up. 

Hunger reaches epidemic proportions, 

and the starving masses scavenge for anything 

that they can eat. Economic development 

has hurtled in the opposite direction, 

plunging toward an economic crisis. The 

basic sustaining means for a society to expand 

productively have already expired and 

we see an era where food is scarce. 

The government, however, is illequipped 

in providing for its citizens, resulting 

in various problems which the country is 

also incapable of managing. 

Exaggerated and over-analyzed as the 

scenario seems to be, it is not impossible 

nor even improbable. The setting would 

appear like it came straight out of a novel, 

but if people continually look at it as just a 

fictional dilemma, then 26 years from now it 

may well become reality. 

With the Philippines teetering on the 

brink of a potential fiscal crisis, the odds remain 

high that the demands of food security 

cannot be adequately met, or met in a timely 

fashion. 

In November this year, biotechnology 

advocates from the private and government 

sectors held a round-table dialog with local 

mayors to build a partnership in promoting 

the use of biotechnology as a means of 

improving agricultural production in order to 

promote the welfare of the local population. 

Key players were leaders of the League 

of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) 

and a panel from the Department of Agriculture. 

They tackled the issues which can be 

deemed crucial to the food sufficiency and 

security program of the government. 

Dr. Saturnina Halos, Ph.D., the Chair- 

DR. SATURNINA Halos (top) gives 

mayors an overview on why 

biotechnology’s crucial role to the 

country’s food security program as 

LMP Sec. Gen. Gerardo Calderon 

(top, right) urges his colleagues to 

forge partnership with the 

Department of Agriculture. 

Catanauan Mayor Sebastian 

Serrano (below) raises a question 

to DA Biotech Implementing Unit 

Director Alice Ilaga and Biotech 

for Life Media and Advocacy 

Resource Center’s Jose Escartin.


23 

person for the Biotechnology Advisory Team 

of the Department of Agriculture (BAT-DA), 

asserted: “Biotechnology plays a vital role 

in innovations on medicine, fuel production, 

health services and even in food preparations.” 

“Biotechnology is the wave of the future 

and it would help agricultural communities 

increase their production, improve their incomes 

and provide consumers with nutritious 

and disease resistant food products,” she 

told the mayors. 

Halos lamented the “resistance in some 

quarters to biotechnology,” saying that the 

fears raised by critics have been adequately 

addressed by the scientific community and 

the government. 

To address their concerns, Halos said 

the government, through the Department of 

Agriculture, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, 

Forestry and National Resources 

Research and Development (PCARRD) and 

the Southeast Asian Center for Graduate 

Study and Media Research in Agriculture 

(SEARCA), joined hands with the private 

sector led by the Biotechnology Coalition of 

the Philippines to set up a Biotechnology 

Media and Advocacy Resource Center as 

its research and advocacy arm. 

In her discussion, Halos noted that “scientific 

rigor has attended biotechnology research 

in the country, with only Biotechnology 

corn (Bt corn) securing accreditation for 

commercial cultivation.” 

She told mayors that “experiments with 

Bt corn have yielded a wealth of information 

on promoting disease-resistant crops and 

higher-yielding varieties.” 

Contrary to the fears raised by critics, 

she assured the mayors, “Biotechnology research 

has revealed that no ailments related 

to biotechnology crops specifically Bt corn 

cultivation have been confirmed and that 

charges about super weeds arising from Bt 

corn have proven to be false.” 

Meanwhile Dr. Alice Ilaga, the Director 

of the Biotech Implementation Unit, noted 

that“when it comes to GMO’s however, there 

are those who oppose and those who support 

it.” 

Few may realize it, but “GMO yields are 

already utilized in everyday life”, she said 

Earlier, Dr. Halos already published her 

report confirming that “more than 1,000 

canned goods already stored in grocery 

shelves may already contain GMO’s.” 

It is this ‘pro-anti’ stance which became 

the concern of the local government units. 

Catanauan Mayor Sebastian Serrano observed 

that there was open resistance of 

religious groups in their areas. 

Serrano described the peasant farmers 

as “very religious” and said that “it cannot 

be avoided that priests who sternly oppose 

the use of GMOs dissuade them from employing 

GMO technology” Mayor Serrano 

expressed disappointment over the church’s 

releasing a pastoral letter against the utilization 

of biotechnology. 

With the separation of Church and State 

in mind, the Secretary General of the LMP, 

Gerardo Calderon wants to establish a concrete 

organization to support biotechnology. 

“In my last term of office, I want to create a 

Mayor’s Development Academy so that we 

can include educational programs for Biotechnology.” 

said Calderon. 

The government has the power to initiate 

a program to decrease hunger, if not 

totally dissolve it, so that it can protect future 

generations from this problem, the biotechnology 

advocates told the mayors. 

As an official policy, and realizing the 

tremendous benefits from biotechnology, 

the government is urging LGUs to keep an 

open mind to the option of biotechnology, 

as it will help farmers become more competitive, 

reduce damage to the environment 

and produce foods with cutting-edge nutrition 

qualities. 

A research regarding Bt corn growth, for 

instance, showed it can actually induce an 

additional P10,000 per hectare in income. 

Having larger crop yields with productive 

monetary growth, biotechnology surely creates 

an environment for agricultural profit. 

The law is on the side of biotechnology, 

mandating that agriculture must rely increasingly 

on more modern technologies. President 

Arroyo in an official statement stated 

that “the country must promote safe and 

sustainable biotechnology”. 

Shutting the door to biotech because of 

invalidated fears, the experts have stressed 

time and time again, will produce a more 

certain and certifiable outcome: massive 

hunger, agricultural trade imbalances and 

nutritional lapses.



The Philippines 

as Asia’s agri-trade center 

By ROJA SALVADOR 

IMAGINE the Philippines as a center of 

agricultural trade in Asia. We could be exporting 

200 million chickens to our Asian 

neighbors. We can also be the source of beef 

and beef products of Japan and other Asian 

countries. But all these could happen only if 

the Philippines can maximize its food security 

program. Biotechnology can be its cutting 

edge. 

The Philippines remains as the only 

country in Asia that is free from avian flu or 

“bird flu”. All our Asian neighbors are infected 

with the highly pathogenic avian flu. If the 

Philippines remains bird-flu free, then it will 

be the source of poultry supply of its neighbors. 

Moreover, Japan, after having two incidences 

of Bovine Spongiform 

Encephatology (BSE)–a cattle disease that 

can be transmitted to human—is eyeing the 

Philippines as its source of beef and beef 

products. This is only possible if we are capable 

of detecting animal disease even before 

it reaches enters the Philippines and if 

our standards of testing meat and animals 

are globally accepted. Such a tough job falls 

on the lap of the Department of Agriculture’s 

Bureau of Animal Industry-Philippine Animal 

Health Center Biotechnology Project. 

Through that center’s project titled, “Enhancing 

Biotechnology Laboratory Capabilities 

for Animal Disease Diagnosis, Control, 

Prevention and Improved Livestock Production,” 

the Philippines is envisioned to achieve 

globally-accepted standards of testing animal 

diseases. Through the use of biotechnology, 

the center can detect animal diseases and 

find cures faster and more accurately. 

The Department of Agriculture aims to 

improve poultry and livestock production in 

the Philippines. The Biotechnology Experimental 

Laboratory Animal Section (BELAS) 

is manned by two women: project leader Dra. 

Calcita M. Morales and co-project leader 

Dra. Cynthia Nalo-Ochona. They have undergone 

training in various countries to make 

sure that their testing procedures would be 

accepted internationally. Their mission is to 

conduct tests on animal diseases in order to 

learn how to prevent these even before they 

reach the country and to find cures to the 

existing diseases even before they spread 

in the country. 

The team has already collected brain 

samples to detect BSE or the mad cow disease, 

which affects the cow’s central nervous 

system. The disease can be transferred to 

human beings when the infected cow’s meat 

is eaten. At present, no incidence of BSE has


25 

A MICROBIOLOGIST working at 

the Biotech Lab Unit of the 

National Meat Inspection Services 

(left), while Dr. Cynthia Nalo- 

Ochona (below) extracts RNA from 

a tissue culture of an animal 

disease virus. At right, Dr. Ochona 

slices a bovine brain for BSE or 

“mad cow” disease testing. 

been detected in the country. One of the diseases 

given priority attention in the project is 

the Infectious Laryngotracheitis (ILT) which 

affects poultry. It is an acute viral disease of 

mature chickens, pheasants and peafowl, affecting 

the respiratory system. 

The disease has been reported and 

documented to be present in the country. 

Outbreaks of ILT have recently been occurring 

in the provinces of Batangas, 

Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija and 

Bacolod with reports of 30-40 percent mortalities 

in pullets. 

“Namamatay ang mga manok; and at 

the time that they are ready to lay eggs, that’s 

when they die,” laments Dr. Morales, who 

describes ILT as a reemerging disease in 

the Philippines. The chickens die even before 

they lay eggs. The disease has been 

discovered to be concentrated in Batangas, 

Bataan, Nueva Ecija and Pampanga. It is 

concentrated in Batangas and Pampanga, 

which is the egg basket of the Philippines. 

“We have to stop the disease even before 

it spreads in other parts of the country, 

so [there must be] support [for] the modern 

biotechnology methods of detecting the disease” 

said Morales. 

The traditional method of detecting ILT 

is very slow, tedious and expensive. The 

faster, reliable, specific and more accurate 

method of detecting the viral agent is through 

the use of DNA-based techniques, whereby 

not only the ILT virus is detected but also 

the type and strain present. These are important 

considerations for an effective and 

appropriate vaccination, control, and disease 

prevention. 

The group also conducts tests to develop 

more accurate and specific tools for the control, 

prevention and eradication of Hog Cholera, 

a highly contagious disease affecting 

pigs and wild boar. This has caused major 

economic loss in the global pig industry. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Ochona has just finished 

conducting safety and feeding trials on the 

use of BT corn on pig. The initial result is 

that the pigs which eat BT corn are fatter. 

More results will soon come out. 

Morales, who has been in the Bureau 

for 30 years, believes that a more supportive 

government and civil society is crucial to 

their success. “Twenty years ago, the Philippines 

used to be at the top in terms of advancing 

biotechnology among Asian countries; 

now we are lagging behind. Let us not 

waste the opportunities,” she stresses.


Agricultural biotechno 

By ISKHO F. LOPEZ 

FOOD SECURITY concerns the 

availability of food in a community 

and having sufficient supply. The 

community either produces the food or 

buys from outside the community. 

Food production depends on the level 

of skills and on what is provided by natural 

resources. Should the community prove to 

be inadequate in producing food and its 

natural resources are scarce, and at the 

same time it is unable to afford food from 

outside, then food security is expectedly low. 

In places where natural resources are 

abundant, the community needs to 

develop the proper food production skills in 

order to make the most of what its natural 

resources can offer. And therein lies the 

challenge to productivity. 

Developing food production skills 

involve transfer of technology or the use of 

scientific or other organized knowledge 

and its application to practical tasks in 

order to improve or enhance food productivity. 

Where such technology reduces 

reliance on skills, the result would be an 

increase in food security. As it has been 

proven, genetically modified organisms 

(GMOs) help increase food security, and 

an example would be the stalk borerresistant 

maize. 

The Philippine government has 

adopted a policy to promote the safe and 

responsible use of biotechnology as one of 

the means to achieve food security, 

according to Dr. Saturnina Halos, Senior 

Project Development Adviser of the 

Bureau of Agricultural Research of the 

Department of Agriculture. “As a developing 

country, the Philippines has a large 

proportion (40percent) of its population 

dependent on agriculture,” explains Halos. 

She points out that individual farms in 

the Philippines are relatively small with the 

average size being about 1.5 hectares. 

Such farms usually support a family of 6- 

12 persons. These farms would have 

variable soil fertility, and some would 

contain problem minerals. Rainfall in these 

places would be variable and access to 

markets, while easy for some, would be 

difficult for many others. 

Providing a sketchy profile of Filipino 

farmers, Halos says these farmers’ 

Benjo 04


27 

logy and food security 

schooling ranges from two to 20 years, with 

many of the poor having at most four years 

of primary education. “In short, conditions 

are so variable,” says Halos. “It is folly to 

provide a single solution to problems of 

low productivity which, in general, characterize 

Philippine agriculture. 

Hence, we believe that biotechnology 

is only one of the technological means to 

increase incomes.” 

She cites as an example the organic 

produce market, where products are 

priced about twice as much as the nonorganic 

ones. “Depending upon market 

conditions, income increases can be 

achieved by targeting a niche market,” she 

continues. “This market is limited to 

the higher-income bracket (5 percent 

of the Philippine population) and 

accessible to farmers mainly around 

urban centers.” 

Organic farming incurs higher 

production cost and lower yields due 

to insect pests and diseases, which 

today are not reliably controlled by 

organic means. Halos likewise 

underscores that there is lower 

efficiency in organic farming owing to 

these factors. “Besides, tropical 

conditions breed so many insect 

pests and diseases,” she says. 

Another means to increase incomes is 

to increase yields per unit area. A dramatic 

example is the use of hybrid corn compared 

with traditional varieties introduced 

by the Spaniards centuries ago. Hybrid 

corn yields range from 3-9 tons/ha 

whereas traditional corn varieties yield 0.3- 

2 tons/ha. 

On the other hand, income increases 

can be achieved by preventing losses 

mainly from pests and diseases. These 

losses range from 35-100 percent. In corn, 

reports on yield losses due to the insect 

Asiatic corn borer range from 5-95 percent. 

Currently, farmers control this insect 

with a chemical pesticide applied by hand 

into individual plants. This chemical can 

cause nausea and vomiting among the 

applicators, death to farm animals, and 

can kill any insect species that encounters 

it. Moreover, for the chemical to be 

effective, it must be applied at a particular 

time within a short period during corn 

growth. 

“Farmers are therefore looking for a 

better solution to the borer problem,” 

continues Halos. Multi-location trials 

conducted with the genetically modified Bt 

corn have conclusively shown that the 

borer cannot thrive on Bt corn and yield 

gains averaged 40 percent. Bt corn is 

genetically modified to include a toxinproducing 

gene from a soil bacterium, 

Bacillus thuringiensis, which poisons 

insects feeding on the plant. “For this 

reason, planting Bt corn has become 

attractive to many farmers who don’t mind 

paying for the seeds because they beleive 

that their increase in yields will compensate 

for the additional seed cost,” says 

The increasing hectarage 

of GM crops (from 1.6 million 

in 1996 to some 50 million 

the past few years) implies 

that an increasing number of 

farmers see more benefits 

from planting these crops. 

Halos. “If provided credit, they will buy 

good seeds and, once they enjoy the 

benefits of assured higher yields, they 

would rather buy good seeds and reject 

seeds of dubious quality even if provided 

free.” 

The increasing hectarage of GM crops 

(from 1.6 million in 1996 to some 50 million 

the past few years) implies that an 

increasing number of farmers see more 

benefits from planting these crops. 

Reports from South Africa and China show 

that small farmers benefit more from the 

technology than corporate farmers. 

“I agree that biotechnology research in 

developing countries should focus on 

solving technical problems of each 

country’s agriculture,” says Halos. 

“In addition, research should also 

address biosafety issues including setting 

up the necessary infrastructure to comply 

with biosafety regulations. That is, when a 

country decides to invest in biotechnology 

research it should also establish biosafety 

regulations. In this manner, issues raised 

against biotechnology are scientifically 

addressed. Although this raises the cost of 

the technology, it does provide assurance 

to the public that proper measures are 

adopted to ensure that biotech products 

are safe.” 

According to Halos, the Philippines has 

adopted biosafety regulations covering 

biotechnology research since 1991 and 

has recently established regulations 

covering the import, commercialization and 

release into the environment of biotech 

plant and plant products. These regulations 

define the biosafety research agenda 

in developing a biotech crop. 

Halos also cites research on 

edible vaccines for humans as well as 

animals. “The development of edible 

vaccines is undertaken primarily by 

researchers in industrialized countries, 

supposedly for developing 

countries,” she explains. “To hasten 

this development, it is about time that 

we in the developing world actively 

participate in developing the effective 

edible vaccine for our own country 

needs.” 

Dependence on agricultural 

products makes Asian needs unique 

to the region when compared to the 

more developed countries in the western 

hemisphere. 

China is keen about adapting the use 

of Bt crops just as India is moving towards 

its utilization and other Asian countries are 

carefully watching and looking forward to 

its use. 

The continuing research and development 

of agricultural biotechnology is in 

preparation for the challenge of food 

security in the future. 

(Dr. Saturnina Halos provides advice to the 

Philippine Department of Agriculture on biotechnology 

for agricultural development. She 

was trained as a plant breeder and geneticist 

and has been doing research in biotechnology 

for years. Using public funds, Dr. 

Halos and her husband have invented and 

are developing the market for a microbial 

preparation—a seed inoculant—that improves 

plant growth and yield and reduces 

fertilizer requirements. She’s also doing research 

using DNA analysis.)


FOOD Biotechnology has played 

an important role in the history of 

mankind. Here’s a listing of highlights 

in Man’s in meeting the challenge of 

day-to-day living, particularly his 

attempts to improve food supply. 

These dates are benchmarks of both 

scientific and regulatory breakthroughs. 

8000 B.C 

People decided to live in one place 

and grow plants as crops. They saved 

the best of their crop to use as seed 

for the following year. 

2500 – 2000 B.C. 

The Egyptians domesticate geese, 

making them bigger and better tasting 

when cooked. They developed 

methods of fermentation, baking, 

brewing and cheese making. 

1800 B.C. 

Yeast is used to make wine, beer 

and leavened bread. This is the first 

time people use microorganisms to 

create new and different food. 

BIOTECH TRIVIA 

Man and Biotechnology 

through the years 

sealing it in an airtight container. 

1930 and 1985. 

1953 

James Watson and Francis Crick 

define the structure of DNA, which 

shows how cells in all living things 

store, duplicate and pass genetic 

information from generation to 

generation. 

1973 

Scientists Stanley Cohen and 

Herbert Boyer move a gene, a specific 

piece of DNA, from one organism to 

another. 

1990 

The first food products enhanced 

by biotechnology are approved for 

use: In the US, Chymosin, an enzyme 

used in cheese making, and in the 

UK, a yeast used in baking. 

1993 

FDA approves the use of bovine 

somatotropin (BST) to increase milk 

production in cows. 

500 B.C. 

Mediterranean people develop 

marinating. Europeans master the 

preservative technique of salting. 

1500s 

Acidic cooking techniques, like 

fermenting foods with spice and salt, 

come to the forefront. 

1694 

The ability of plants to sexually 

reproduce is discovered. 

1719 

First recorded plant hybrid (intraspecific 

hybridization) 

1861 

Louis Pasteur develops his technique 

of pasteurization, a process by 

which he protects food by heating it 

to kill dangerous microbes then 

1865 

From experiments on pea plants 

in a monastery garden, Gregor 

Mendel, an Austrian botanist and 

monk, concludes that certain unseen 

particles pass traits from generation 

to generation. 

1876 

Interspecific and intergeneric 

crossbreeding 

1900 

The science of genetics is born 

when Mendel’s work in 1865 is 

rediscovered. 

1922 

Farmers first purchase hybrid seed 

corn created by crossbreeding two 

corn plants. Hybrid corn helps 

account for a 600 percent increase in 

U.S. production of corn between 

1994 

The FlavSavr tomato, the first 

whole food product using modern 

biotechnology, receives FDA approval 

and enters the marketplace. 

1996 

Dolly, the first cloned mammal, is 

born after researchers in the U.K. 

clone a mammary gland cell of an 

adult sheep using nuclear transfer 

technology. 

1996 

Biotechnology-enhanced soy, corn 

and grain crops are sold commercially 

for the first time. 

2000 

Global area of biotechnology crops 

reaches 44.2 million hectares, up by 11 

percent from 39.9 million hectares in 

1999.


29 

and Crick opened up so many scientific discoveries 

that led to unlocking of recombinant 

Exhibit showcases biotech’s DNA technology. Some examples of modern 

biotechnology applications are presented 

support to development 

– health products, insect-protected corn and 

DNA fingerprinting in the forensic medicine. 

THE National Academy 

of Science and 

Technology (NAST) 

has launched the 

“Bioteknolohiya!” exhibit 

in the Philippine 

The NAST, the country’s highest advisory 

body on science and technology, has 

recognized the important role of modern biotechnology 

as a tool to enhance agricultural 

productivity to feed and improve the lives of 

the fast-growing population and to help address 

environmental degradation. 

It has supported the safe and responsible 

applications of modern biotechnology 

in science and technology, agriculture 

and food, health and medicine, environment, 

trade and industry. The Salinlahi of 

NAST is a leading government science 

culture in the country. Since 1998, it has 

been visited by more than half a million 

students of all levels of education. 

Dr. Emil Javier, NAST vice president, 

welcomed the guests during the launching. 

NATIONAL Academy of Science and Technology 

The guests of honor were Science Secretary 

Estrella Alabastro and Education Sec- 

(NAST) academician Dr. Evelyn Mae Mendoza 

speaks about the evolution of bitoechnology and its 

advantages in the country. Also in the photograph retary Florencio Abad. As the Project Leader 

are Science Undersecretary Dr. Rogelio Panlasigui of the Biotech Exhibit, academician Dr. 

and NAST vice president Dr. Emil Javier. 

Evelyn Mae Tecson Mendoza lead the viewing 

of the 

RODEL ROTONI/TODAY 

exhibit. 

Heritage Science 

Center (Salinlahi) at 

the Department of Science 

and Technology 

Complex in Bicutan, 

Taguig. 

“Bioteknolohiya!” 

aims to promote science-based 

information 

on the principles 

and the safe and responsible 

applications 

of modern biotechnology. 

The exhibit brings 

the viewers into the 

world of biotechnology, 

which connotes 

modern science and technology. It welcomes 

the viewers with centuries’ old biotech 

products the Filipino ancestors used – traditional 

wine, such as tapuy or rice wine, vinegar 

and patis 

From these, the viewers are led to biotechnology 

of plant and mammalian cell culture 

and recombinant DNA technology involving 

microorganisms, plants and animals. 

BIOTECHNOLOGY IN AGRICULTURE 

In many countries, the debate surrounding 

the use of biotechnology in agriculture 

is often solely associated with genetically 

modified (GM) crops. As a result, many believe 

that biotechnology is only about developing 

these products. What many do 

not realize is that there are many other 

important applications of biotechnology 

that have made (and will continue to make) 

a tremendous impact on agricultural productivity. 

Biotechnology encompasses a 

number of tools and elements of conventional 

breeding techniques, bioinformatics, 

microbiology, molecular genetics, biochemistry, 

plant physiology, and molecular 

biology. 

The present applications of biotechnol- 

“Bioteknolohiya!” aims to present the 

science of biotechnology in as simple terms 

as possible. It teaches the basis and basic 

principles of genetic engineering with 

Matsing and Pagong from the old master, 

Dr. Kuwago, and the like. 

The centerpiece of the exhibit is the 

double helical DNA structure itself, the discovery 

of which in 1952 by scientists Watson 

A lot more than just GM crops 

ogy that are important for agriculture and the 

environment include: 

• Conventional plant breeding 

• Tissue culture and micropropagation 

• Molecular breeding or marker assisted 

selection 

• Genetic engineering and GM crops 

• The ‘Omics’ - Genomics, Proteomics, 

Metabolomics 

• Plant disease diagnostics 

• Microbial fermentation 

• Biotechnology is defined as a set of 

tools that uses living organisms (or 

parts of organisms) to make or modify 

a product, improve plants, trees or 

animals, or develop microorganisms 

for specific uses. 

JOE ESCARTIN 

From page 15 

havoc to the environment. Other apprehensions 

may be based on ethical 

concerns which are mainly on the 

way genetically modified foods are 

produced and not on the characteristics 

of the product itself. 

One concern that should pre-occupy 

our scientists and policy makers 

to ensure that the applications 

of biotechnology particularly 

GMOs will be safe to humans and 

environment as well as cost-effective 

to those, particularly the farmers 

who will adopt them. 

The need to pursue research and 

development activities that are sensitive 

to a peculiarities of the Filipinos 

and the Philippine environment has 

become urgent. Thus, Pinoy biotech 

or Pinoy GMOs industries will have 

to be propagated as possible source 

of jobs. 

Mr. Joe Escartin is the president of Green 

Option and a consultant of the Biotechnology 

for Life Media and Advocacy Resource 

Center.


WHAT IS BIOTECHNOLOGY 

Biotechnology is any technique that uses a living organism 

(e.g., plants, animals, microorganisms) or parts of it to improve 

another living organism for a specific purpose. Mankind has been 

using biotechnology to, for instance, produce cheese, soy sauce, 

bread and beer, as well as lifesaving antibiotics and vaccines for 

rabies and hepatitis B. 

IS BIOTECHNOLOGY A NEW THING IN SCIENCE 

A big NO. While it may sound so sophisticated or mysterious—thus, 

something to be afraid of—biotechnology has been 

with mankind through the centuries, having been used, as the 

above cited information states, for both household (cheese and 

vinegar) and medicinal (antibiotics, vaccines) purposes, as well as 

for improving crops (interspecific 

and intergenetic crossbreeding). 

In recent years, the most 

significant and well-publicized strides in biotechnology have been 

made in agricultural applications. With the help of biotechnology, 

scientists seeking to find ways to feed people have come up with plant 

strains that are either more productive (and therefore can yield more on 

the same land area and the same inputs), or are pest- and diseaseresistant 

(and therefore substantially preserve yield and reduce crop 

losses while increasing the food on the table), or are even more 

enriched and thus boost health—or a combination or all of the above. 

No less than the United Nations Human Development Report 

2001 declares that biotechnology offers “the hope of crops with 

higher yields, pest- and drought-resistant properties and superior 

nutritional characteristics—especially for farmers in ecological 

zones left behind by the green revolution.” 

By the BIOTECH FOR LIFE MEDIA & ADVOCACY CENTER 

HOW CAN THE PHILIPPINES BENEFIT 

FROM BIOTECHNOLOGY 

The primary benefit of biotechnology is in agriculture, 

considering the Philippine situation: a fast-growing population, 

increasingly less land to cultivate, and the rising cost of farm 

inputs and of production risks. Such negative factors are being 

compounded by the steady liberalization of world trade, with 

tariff barriers for agricultural products being knocked down 

even as some developed countries continue to subsidize their 

farm sectors. 

As it is, developed countries are already growing biotech 

crops on an estimated land hectarage exceeding 40 million 

hectares. We can only keep up by applying biotechnology to 

complement the conventional methods. With biotechnology, the 

precarious level of forest cover 

will not be further jeopardized 

because there will be no need to 

clear forests to produce agricultural land. With biotechnology, 

plants grown on existing land area, as well as those on poor 

soils or stressful environments, can be made more productive. 

Savings can be attained from cutting down on agrochemical 

inputs such as pesticides. Nutritional deficiencies among 

Filipinos can be curbed because biotech allows staples like rice 

to be enriched with vitamins and minerals. 

IS BIOTECHNOLOGY SAFE TO HUMANS 

AND THE ENVIRONMENT 

Because it has been extensively researched and reviewed, 

especially as an agricultural development, the level of safety of 

biotechnology is repeatedly validated in thousands of field tests


31 

with biotech crops—for the past nearly 20 years—and the 

findings all show the benefits outweighing any potential (because 

none has been discovered) risk. The biotech crops that 

are more pest-resistant have in fact greatly reduced the risk of 

chemical poisoning that has occurred in some places where 

pesticides were not used prudently. 

In Western Europe, where the biotech protest movement is 

very strong, the European Commission concluded, after an 

analysis of scientific evidence from 81 research projects, that: 

“The use of more precise technology and the greater regulatory 

scrutiny probably make [biotech crops] even safer than conventional 

plants and foods.” 

WHAT IS A ‘GM’ CROP 

The biggest debate in biotechnology has centered the past 

few years on such terms as “GMO” and “GM crops,” or genetically 

modified organisms or crops. 

In reality, all crops are really “genetically modified” from their 

original wild state by various processes of domestication, 

selection and controlled breeding over long periods of time. 

A GM or transgenic crop is one where such natural modification 

is hastened by a deliberate scientific process. A GM crop 

contains a gene(s) that has been artificially inserted, instead of 

the plant acquiring it through pollination. The inserted gene 

(known as the transgene) may come from another unrelated 

plant, or from a completely different species. 

WHY ARE ‘GM’ CROPS MADE 

Plant breeders have been exchanging genes between plants 

to produce offspring with desired traits; but this crossbreeding 

has been limited to exchanges between closely related or the 

same species—which takes a long time to produce the desired 

results or changes in features. 

With GM technology, scientists can bring together in one 

plant the useful genes of a diverse range of living sources, not 

just within the crop species or closely related plants. This 

speeds up the work of producing superior plant varieties. 

The use of the so-called “first-generation” GM crops has 

yielded significant benefits thus far, primarily, as stated above, in 

terms of bigger produce, lower farm costs and higher farm profit, 

and an improvement in the environment. Now, the “secondgeneration” 

GM crops have the additional advantage of being 

infused with nutritive qualities that address the dietary deficiencies 

of people. Examples of such crops are potatoes with higher 

starch content; rice enriched with iron and vitamin A; and edible 

vaccines in maize and potatoes. 

AREN’T THERE RISKS IN USING ‘GM’ CROPS 

All emerging technologies and scientific developments carry 

risks, among them: (1) the possibility transgenes will escape 

from cultivated crops into wild relatives; or (2) the peril of 

unintentional introduction of allergens into food; or of (3) pests 

becoming resistant, through time, to the toxins produced by 

GM crops. 

However, legislation and regulatory institutions dictate 

processes that entail careful review of applications to precisely 

avoid or reduce these risks. The technology innovators (i.e., 

scientists), the producers and the government has the obligation 

to ensure the safety of novel food and drugs for people and their 

benign impact on the environment.


WHAT IS THE OFFICIAL PHILIPPINE POLICY 

ON BIOTECHNOLOGY 

Realizing the tremendous benefits from biotechnology, the 

government has determined that keeping an open mind to 

biotechnology is the best option because it will help farmers 

become more competitive, reduce damage to environment and 

produce foods with cutting-edge nutritive qualities. 

History shows that the most important—because they gave 

mankind far-reaching, continuing benefits—scientific discoveries 

and applications underwent years of study, testing and relentless 

review. Biotechnology is continually being subjected to such 

scrutiny here and around the world by responsible, competent 

scientists and other experts; all reviews so far have concluded 

that the benefits outweigh any potential risk. The alternative, i.e., 

to shut the door to biotech because of an invalidated fear—will 

produce a more certain outcome: massive hunger, agricultural 

trade imbalances, health and nutrition problems. 

WHO REGULATES BIOTECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS 

IN THE PHILIPPINES 

For researches under laboratory setting, there is the National 

Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines or NCBP. 

In field trials and the commercial use of GM crops, there is the 

Department of Agriculture and its four specialized regulatory 

agencies: (1) The Bureau of Plant Industry or BPI, working with 

the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, for 

environmental safety; (2) the Bureau of Animal Industry or BAI for 

feed safety; (3) the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product 

Standards for food safety; and (4) the Fertilizer and Pesticide 

Authority or FPA for safety induction of plants with pesticidal 

properties. 

For GM-derived drugs and processed foods, there is the Bureau 

of Food and Drugs in BFAD, under the Department of Health. 

REFERENCES: 

• Wambugu, Florence, “Africa needs biotech to fight malnutrition,” 

LA Times; World Report in Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 3, 2001. 

• International Service for the Acquisition of Agricultural-biotech 

Applications-Southeast Asia Center. 

• Philrice-Department of Agriculture. 

• United Nations Human Development Report 2001. 

• Communication Guidelines for a Better Understanding of 

Biotechnology Issues, 2002.


33 

Farmers shifting to new corn technologies 

Typical Bt corn harvest. 

From page 19 

the corn fields. He likened the corn borer to 

a “natural calamity” or typhoons. 

Jay Narciso of Arayat, Pampanga, considers 

himself adventurous and decisive. 

Narciso has spent almost half of his life 

working abroad. He has worked in Riyadh, 

Saudi Arabia, on the staff of the Saudi Arabian 

Interior Minister. After seven years, 

he moved to Switzerland and stayed in Europe 

for six years, after which he decided 

to return to his native Pampanga. 

Being a son of farmers, Narciso decided 

to invest his earnings in corn farming. He 

started purchasing two tractors and ventured 

into modern farming practices, initially by 

planting conventional hybrid seeds. 

“With these regular hybrids, I would yield 

an average of seven tons/hectare, which 

to regular standards is above average,” 

Narciso said. 

Eventually, he decided to upgrade into 

Bt corn and planted five hectares of 

YieldGard 818. With the new technology, his 

yield increased from 9mt/hectare to 10mt/ 

hectare, which improved his income by about 

30 percent. 

Farming is not new to another former 

overseas Filipino worker, Jesus Gavino, 52, 

from the hometown of President Arroyo in 

Santiago, Lubao, Pampanga. In his youth, 

he used to help his father in the farm during 

summer. 

Gavino spent 16 years as a heavy-lift 

driver in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Then, he 

decided to come home and venture into 

farming. Initially, with conventional hybrids, 

he would average 5mt/hectare. Switching to 

YieldGard 818 gave him a yield record from 

9mt/hectare to 10mt/ hectare. 

These farmers agreed that using modern 

technologies in corn farming, current 

farm yield and income levels could still be 

improved. 

In South Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and 

Isabela, a revolutionary backyard-farming 

venture has been changing the lives of 

farmers and farming communities since 

they ventured into Bt corn and hybrid corn 

farming. 

Farmers who used to get about an average 

of 6.5mt to 7mt of corn from a one-hectare 

farm may now be able to harvest 10 

metric tons or even more. 

Such is the case of Carmelito “Lito” G. 

Dinopol, from barangay Topland, Koronadal, 

South Cotabato, who has been planting conventional 

hybrid corn for the last two years, 

starting only with 5 hectares. 

Mang Lito used to apply insecticides to protect 

his fields from insect pests. But unfortunately, 

during the rainy season, the sprayed 

chemicals are washed off easily, thus, significantly 

decreasing yield, he observed. 

From a field tour of a Bt corn demonstration 

farm, Mang Lito was able to see for himself 

the added value of having corn plants with 

built-in protection against corn borer. Trying 

the new technology has improved his yield 

and, having been encouraged by the good 

market price of corn, he is now helping fellow 

farmers in his community avail themselves of 

the Bt corn technology. 

From Wao, Lanao del Sur, Francisco 

Piagola used to plant his four-hectare 

farm with open-pollinated corn 

varieties that yielded only 1.5mt/hectare. 

A simple switch to corn hybrids 

in the ‘90s dramatically increased his 

yield to 4mt/hectare to 6mt/hectare. 

As he adopts the latest corn hybrid 

introduced in the market, such as the 

NK hybrid of Syngenta, his yield level 

reached 8mt/hectare to 9mt/hectare. 

The prospect of good farm income 

enticed Manong Francisco to quit his 

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. job to become a fulltime 

corn farmer, thereby nurturing the 

farm with good farm management 

practices. 

“I was able to send my children to 

school and acquired several pieces of 

property,” he added. 

In Reina Mercedes, Isabela, in 

Northern Luzon, Peviano Soriano, a 

former seaman who shifted his career 

to farming, likes to try and compare 

new kinds of corn hybrids (like those 

produced by Cargil Asian, Pioneer, 

Cornworld, Syngenta) in his farm. With fertilizer 

application, the corn hybrids yield from 

6 metric tons/hectare to 8.5 metric tons/hectare. 

The experience has been helping 

Soriano select which variety is most suited 

to his farm. 

These farmers believe that with the help 

of modern corn farming technologies, such 

as improved seeds or planting materials, 

fertilization and other recommended cultural 

practices, yields of crops, such as corn, can 

be tremendously improved. 

They all received plaques of appreciation 

from the Department of Agriculture and 

CropLife Philippines Inc. for successfully 

using modern farming technologies that contribute 

to the attainment of the objectives of 

the National Corn Program. 

El Bill R. Madrigal/ SEARCA-BIC (Originally 

printed in TODAY, Earth and Science Page, 

August 31, 2004)


In Africa, biotech is 

a matter of survival 

By FLORENCE WAMBUGU 

NAIROBI—They can buy their food in supermarkets. 

They can eat fast food, 

home-cooked food, restaurant food. They can 

choose the more expensive organic foods, or 

even imported foods. They can eat fresh, frozen 

or canned produce. Then, from their world 

of plenty, they tell us what we can and cannot 

feed our children. 

The “they” I refer to are a variety of antibiotechnology 

protesters who would deny 

developing countries like my home, Kenya, 

the resources to develop a technology that 

can help alleviate hunger, malnutrition and 

poverty. Genetic engineering of plants has 

sparked a revolution in agriculture, one that 

can play an important role in feeding the 

world’s hungry. As an African, I know that 

biotech is not a panacea. It cannot solve problems 

of inept or corrupt governments, 

underfunded research, unsound agricultural 

policy or a lack of capital. But as a scientist, I 

also know that biotech is a powerful new tool 

that can help address some of the agricultural 

problems that plague Africa. 

The protesters have fanned the flames of 

mistrust of genetically modified foods through 

a campaign of misinformation. These people 

and organizations have become adept at playing 

on the media’s appetite for controversy to 

draw attention to their cause. But the real victim 

in this controversy is the truth, and African 

farmers and consumers are not far behind. 

I know of what I speak, because I grew 

up barefoot and hungry in Nyeri, Kenya, 

searching for solutions that would rid our crops 

of the pests that ravaged them year after year. 

We tried to smother the bugs by using ashes 

from burned wood and crafted various concoctions 

to spray the plants with. 

Most of the time our attempts failed, and 

so I learned early in life that to grow enough 

food we must somehow find a way to control 

the plant pests and viruses that routinely destroyed 

our crops and shank our harvests. 

Long before there were protesters, I was 

working on biotech solutions to the vexing local 

problems facing African farmers. Today, 

after years of research, we are well on our 

way to finding some of the answers. At home, 

I am engaged in field trials of sweet potatoes, 

an important staple in the African diet. These 

sweet potatoes have been modified to resist 

a plant virus that can decimate up to 80 percent 

of a farmer’s crops. 

We have completed only the first of four 

trials, but thus far the results are encouraging. 

Potential benefits from this research include 

increasing sweet potato yields enough 

to feed an additional 10 million hungry people, 

and giving the farmers bigger harvests without 

increasing their production costs, for a 

potential gain of $500 million per year in crop 

yields. 

American protesters talk about how the 

new methods will wipe out traditional varieties. 

But let me tell you how it worked with 

sweet potatoes in Kenya. Researchers 

worked closely with farmers, allowing them 

to select the local variety they thought had 

the best taste, color and texture. That was 

the sweet potato into which we inserted the 

virus-resistant gene. 

But, even as the science moves forward, 

the protesters try to push us back. 

I do believe they care, but they do not understand 

the hunger that grips millions of Africans 

and deprives malnourished children of the 

opportunity to grow up healthy and to achieve 

their full potential. For people in affluent countries, 

hunger is an abstract concept. 

There are those who say there is more than 

enough food in the world, and that the solution 

to ending hunger lies in redistributing surpluses 

to the people who need them. However wellmeaning 

their intentions, they are wrong. 

Food aid is a temporary solution at best 

and hardly a solution at all to the underlying 

causes of hunger and poverty. 

Biotechnology is a solution for Africa because, 

unlike some other technologies, it is 

packaged in the seed. Even small-scale farmers 

can learn how to handle it and can share 

in its benefits. Such farmers lack the resources 

for the machinery and chemicals that revolutionized 

agriculture in the West years ago. 

And biotechnology can help Africans conserve 

our beautiful natural resources and protect 

our biodiversity. Instead of local varieties 

being lost to disease, they are being protected 

and conserved both in the field and in the laboratory. 

This same opportunity can extend to 

other African crops. And by using biotechnology 

to make more productive the lands low in 

nutrients, affected by drought or hampered 

by other conditions, we can help slow the pressure 

to put remaining wilderness under cultivation, 

thereby protecting the plants and animals 

they house. 

I’m not alone in my belief that biotechnology 

offers a solution to agricultural and food 

problems. In Western Europe, birthplace of 

the biotech protest movement, after an analysis 

of the scientific evidence from 81 research 

projects, the European Commission concluded 

that, “The use of more precise technology 

and the greater regulatory scrutiny 

probably make biotech crops] even safer than 

conventional plants and foods.” 

And the United Nations Human Development 

Report 2001 unequivocally states that 

biotechnology offers “the hope of crops with 

higher yields, pest- and drought-resistant 

properties and superior nutritional characteristics—especially 

for farmers in ecological 

zones left behind by the green revolution.” As 

a scientist working in biotechnology, and as 

an African, I know this to be true. 

So, I say to the protesters: be careful what 

you attack because you might be harming that 

which you profess to care about. 

Florence Wambugu is a plant pathologist and, 

when she wrote this piece for the LA Times 

World Report special section in the Yomiurri 

Shimbun, was the regional director for International 

Service for the Acquisition of Agriculturalbiotech 

Applications. She joined A Harvest 

Biotech Foundation International in 2002


35 

“ 

We shall promote the safe and responsible use of 

modern biotechnology and its products as one of 

several means to achieve and sustain food security, 

equitable access to health services, sustainable 

and safe environment, and industry development. 

” 

– President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo 

“ 

We have long resolved to manage 

modern biotechnology to boost agricultural 

modernization of the Philippines. 

” 

– Dr. Patricio S. Faylon, executive director, Philippine 

Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources 

Research and Development (PCARRD)


“ 

The level of 

safety associated 

with (genetically 

modified) foods is 

at least as high as 

that of any other 

available foods 

because the 

safety assessment 

process 

undertaken for GM 

foods is far more 

thorough than that 

undertaken for any 

other food. The 

safety assessment 

process ensures 

that GM foods 

provide all the 

benefits of 

conventional food 

and no additional 

risks. 

” 

– Australia New 

Zealand Food 

Authority 

“ 

We have seen 

no evidence that 

the bioengineered 

foods now on the 

market pose any 

human health 

concerns or that 

they are in any 

way less safe than 

crops produced 

through traditional 

breeding. 

” 

– US Food and Drug 

Administration 

commissioner 

Jane E. Henney, MD

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