marker-assisted selection in wheat - ictsd

400Marker-assisted selection – Current status and future perspectives in crops, livestock, forestry and fishlarge. Developing countries are likely tohave difficulty obtaining the required laboratorymaterials including consumablesthat are manufactured mostly in the industrializedworld. Other factors such as localsupport for servicing and maintaining laboratoryequipment and reliable basic servicessuch as an uninterrupted power supply canalso be challenging. In the less advanceddeveloping countries, international researchorganizations and development assistanceagencies will have a more significant roleto play in ensuring the availability of thetechnology as well as the capacity to use iteffectively, though on a limited scale.Many developing countries are likely touse genetically modified cultivars with valueadded traits in the near future. Associatedwith transgenic technology are the complex,yet important, issues of biosafetyand management of intellectual property.Policy-makers should therefore also considerways of increasing the efficiency ofpublicly-funded research efforts, as wellas finding opportunities and providingincentives for formulating productivepublic–private sector partnerships. As mosttools of biotechnology that have potentialpractical applications are developed andpatented by private industry, policy-makershave the challenges of addressing the needto forge research partnerships that allowthe competitive private sector to maintainits interest in financial rewards while permittingtechnologies to be used by publicsector researchers in relevant areas to servefarmers in species of importance that haveso far been neglected. Coupled with thesepartnerships is the requirement to manageintellectual property issues.In many situations, international developmentagencies are able to play a rolein areas such as biotechnology prioritysetting,raising funds for establishing therequired biotechnology infrastructure andmaintenance capacity, supporting public–private sector partnerships, and assisting intechnology transfer and capacity building.International agricultural research institutes,which have had long-term involvement withnational programmes in a large numberof developing countries, should play arole in identifying key areas for contributingfurther in helping relevant nationalprogrammes identify, optimize and adoptMAS tools when it is feasible. Internationalresearch centres can also play an active rolein capacity building by identifying areaswhere it is needed and by providing necessarybackstopping.Novel marker systems based on SNPplatforms are likely to bring the costs associatedwith MAS applications to an affordablelevel by many breeding programmes andit will be challenging to establish thesetechnologies based on robotics and otherautomated, large-scale, screening platformsin many developing countries asthe technology development and associatedintellectual property rights remain in largeprivate sector enterprises. This is an areawhere developing country policy-makers,together with international aid bodies andresearch organizations, should ideally worktogether to find partnerships with the privatesector to devise ways of infusing thesetechnological breakthroughs and associatedbenefits to the developing countries, at leaston a limited scale.In conclusion, MAS technologies havematured to the extent that they can beused for making genetic gains in certaintraits and in some important crop species.National programmes in developingcountries should evaluate the feasibilityof applying MAS approaches for cropimprovement as, despite the considerablelimitations that exist in many developing