Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology - Asian Productivity ...

Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology Products
Pursuant to this constitutional mandate and also consistent with the Constitution’s incorporation
clause, the government has signed international treaties concerning agricultural biotechnology:
the Convention on Biological Diversity, signed on June 12, 1992 and ratified on October
8, 1993 (recently, the Philippine Congress passed into law the Wildlife Conservation Act which,
in effect, puts into law the provisions in the convention), and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety,
signed in May 2000 (not ratified to date).
In anticipation of the advent of modern biotechnology, the government issued Executive
Order No. 430 creating the National Committee on Biosafety, tasking it with evaluating applications
for testing biotechnology products.
In December 1994, the Philippines ratified the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), including the provision on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS). The Congress also ratified the country’s World Trade Organization (WTO) membership.
Subsequently, the Congress enacted the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines pursuant
to the TRIPS Agreement, which took effect on January 1, 1998.
To demonstrate the government’s resolve to modernize agriculture utilizing biotechnology,
the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act was enacted in 1997 mandating the use of biotechnology
as a tool in modernizing agriculture and increasing productivity.
Administrative Order No. 8 was issued by the Department of Agriculture in 2002, setting
forth for the rules on laboratory testing up to commercialization and even importation of products
of modern agricultural biotechnology (http://www.da.gov.ph). In the same year Congress
enacted the Plant Variety Protection Act, which provides protection to newly developed transgenic
plant varieties.
These and other laws, legislation, and rules provide the legal and institutional framework
for commercialization of agricultural biotechnology in the Philippines.
THE STATUS OF PUBLIC RICE R&D AND
COMMERCIALIZATION IN THE PHILIPPINES
Few public or private research institutions in the Philippines conduct modern agricultural
biotechnology research. Most modern agricultural biotechnology R&D is conducted by the
public sector. The private sector, mostly multinational companies, imports agricultural biotechnologies.
The major public institutions engaged in modern agricultural biotechnology R&D are the
Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB) and the National Institute of Microbiology and Molecular
Biology (BIOTECH) at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), the National
Institute of Molecular Biology (NIMB) of UP-Diliman, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA),
and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice). The International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI) is among the international public institutions engaged in modern agricultural biotechnology.
The Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) of the Department of Agriculture and the
Philippine Council for Agriculture Forestry and Fishery Research and Development (PCARRD)
of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) coordinate and fund R&D in modern
agricultural biotechnology conducted by these and other institutions.
The private sector, however, also dynamically takes part in the promotion of biotechnology.
The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), which has
its Southeast Asia Center based in the country, is a nonprofit international organization that
works for the delivery of biotechnology benefits to developing countries through the promotion
of technology transfer. One of the leading private companies conducting field trials and commercializing
agricultural biotechnology is Monsanto Philippines, through its Bt corn.
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