Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology - Asian Productivity ...

Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology Products
2004). Growers of soybean, cotton, maize, and canola in much of the world enjoy the benefits
brought by herbicide-tolerant traits. So far, adoption of herbicide-tolerant traits in the Asia–Pacific
region lags behind adoption in other areas of the world. Herbicide-tolerant cotton in Australia
is the only such crop being grown commercially in the region. This product has been swiftly
adopted since its introduction in Australia in 2000, and it exceeded 40% of the total cotton area
in the 2003–04 growing season (Crossan and Kennedy, 2004), with 0.18M ha projected plantings
in 2004–05, much of which will be combined with one or two insect-protected traits (James,
2004). Economic benefits result from increases in yield and reductions in costs associated with
the system and explain why the adoption rate is so high (Crossan and Kennedy, 2004; Taylor,
2003). Environmental benefits of the system come from the favorable environmental characteristics
of glyphosate (the active ingredient in the Roundup ® family of herbicides, used in Roundup
Ready ® cotton), fewer applications of residual herbicides, and the ability to use reduced tillage
practices (Crossan and Kennedy, 2004). Recently, the Philippines has approved the production
of Roundup Ready ® maize, and commercial plantings are expected in 2005. Other countries in
the region also are assessing herbicide-tolerant cotton and herbicide-tolerant maize.
WHY AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY FOR THE FUTURE?
Current agricultural biotechnology products are focused on improving agronomic properties
and production systems at the grower level. In the future, traits will be developed to continue
improvements in these areas but also to extend the impact into the food and feed sectors. Future
agronomic traits that are being actively pursued include providing stress tolerances as a means of
preserving yield under diverse environmental conditions (Cheikh et al., 2000; Kasuga et al.,
1999) such as cold (Gilmour, 2000; Thomashow, 2001), heat (Alia et al., 1998), or salinity (Xu
et al., 1996; Zhang et al., 2001). In the future, biotechnology will produce crops with improved
feed or food quality or nutritional enhancements. A number of such products are currently in development
(IFT, 2004; Cockburn, 2004; Falk et al., 2002; Fuchs, 2002; Mackey, 2002). Vitamin
and mineral enhancement are two areas of particular importance to the developing world. One
well-publicized effort is the initiative to produce rice with increased levels of beta-carotene to
address Vitamin A deficiency (Ye et al., 2000; Potrykus, 2001). Improvement of rice by enhancing
levels of minerals is also in development (Lucca, 2002; Grusak, 2002). Proteins (and their
constituent amino acids) are critical components of mammalian diets, so improvement of crop
plants to generate food and feed that meet the amino acid dietary requirements of humans and
animals is another area of active interest. Lysine and methionine levels are two such essential
amino acids whose levels have been increased using biotechnology (Day, 1996; Falco et al.,
1995; O’Quinn et al., 2000). Modification of oils is another area of active research in the public
and private sector. Plant biotechnology has successfully altered fatty acid compositions of major
oilseed crops to produce oils with improved processing characteristics or oils with enhanced nutritional
characteristics (Budziszewski et al., 1996; Kinney and Knowlton, 1998; Liu et al., 2002).
A number of traits of potential relevance to agriculture and the food and feed sector in Asia
and Oceania are in development. From a research and development perspective, China and India
have been among the most active in the region. In China, for example, 16 different crop plants
with biotechnology traits had been approved for commercialization or were in trials in 1999
(Huang et al., 2002), and in 2005 China intends to invest USD500 million in crop biotechnology,
making China the second-largest global investor in crop biotechnology after the U.S (James,
2004). India also has very active research efforts in plant biotechnology in both the public and
the private sectors. Multiple crops (e.g., chickpea, rice, cotton, mustard, and potato) and biotechnology
traits (e.g., insect, disease and virus resistance, herbicide tolerance, stress tolerance, and
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