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Biotech Crops Take Root Outside U.S.
(SRC:AP -- ATH:n/a)
A new report from the
biotechnology industry's Council for Biotechnology
Information (CBI) anticipates that the global area
under genetically
modified (GM) crops will greatly expand in the future,
particularly in Asia, Latin America, and parts of
Africa.
C. Ford Runge, director
of Minnesota's Center for International Food and
Agriculture Policy, wrote the report. Runge says,
"What I'm suggesting is
that we are probably at the threshold of a much larger
and more extensive adoption of plant
biotechnology." He says
in the report that cautious EU regulatory policies are
slowing the global spread of GM crops but will
not halt it. According
to the report, GM crops currently account for about
US$44 billion in five leading countries. Argentina,
the report says, has
planted US$8.9 billion worth of GM soy and corn. In
China, GM cotton is worth US$3.9 billion.
There are US$2 billion
in GM canola, corn and soybeans growing in Canada, and
Brazil has planted GM soybeans worth
US$1.6 billion. The
U.S. remains by far the largest GM crop producer, with
nearly US$28 billion in GM. Eight other countries, South
Africa, Mexico, Australia, India, Romania, Spain, the
Philippines, and Uruguay, are producing what the report
calls
significant amounts of
GM crops. It says that more than half the world's
soybeans are GM. Thirty percent of all cotton is GM,
as are 15 percent of all
cotton and canola plants. According to the report, many
more crops are in the development pipeline.
Many GM fruits and
vegetables, such as potatoes, tomatoes, squash, sweet
peppers, papaya, melon, banana, and apples, are in
various phases of research or approval. And researchers
in many countries are working on GM tobacco, coffee,
peanuts,
mustard, cocoa, and
other crops. The study found that greenhouse
experiments and other research and development efforts
have taken place in 63
countries. [According to a related article (Reuters;
December 9), the CBI report says that China,
the second largest
investor in plant biotechnology after the U.S., may be
growing GM crops on half of its agricultural land
by 2014.]The report is
available online at
http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=4787.
NEW TECHNIQUE TO GENERATE GM WHEAT
In A reverse genetic,
nontransgenic approach to wheat crop improvement by
TILLING,or targeting induced local
lesions in genomes, Ann
J Slade, and her colleagues of Anawah Inc., in Seattle,
Washington introduce a technique that can
identify new mutations
in a polyploid plant, such as wheat, as well as uncover
inherent variation within an organism's
genome and eliminate the
need to introduce a foreign DNA to get a new strain. The
paper is published in the latest issue of
Nature Biotechnology.
With TILLING, DNA from multiple individuals is pooled,
and the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
is used to amplify a
targeted region of the genome. The PCR product from the
pool is heated and reannealed, allowing DNA
strands from mutants and
wild types to base pair with each other. The individuals
composing the positive pools are
sequenced to determine
which individual carries the mutation, and further tests
may be undertaken to reveal the nature
of the mutation. Unlike
conventional mutation breeding, TILLING provides a
direct measure of mutations induced. Slade
identified 246 alleles
of the waxy genes of wheat and was able to produce a new
strain yielding large amounts of amylopectin
in its grains. This full
waxy wheat can be useful for making breads and pastas,
as well as enhancing the strength and
printing properties of
paper products.
Read the full article at
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/
DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt1043.html
Colombia Drug Barons Seen Making GM Cocaine
(SRC:Reuters -- ATH:n/a)
The U.K.'s Financial
Times has reported that Colombian drug lords have
developed a genetically modified (GM) "cocaine tree"
that yields eight times
more cocaine than the normal shrub, and due to its size
and sturdiness, is more resistant to herbicides.
Herbicides are one of Colombia's main weapons in the war
on drugs. The Financial Times cited a Colombian police
intelligence report that drug producers received help
from foreign scientists to develop the leafier strain of
the plant, which grows to 9 ft
(2.7 m), twice the
normal height of the shrub. "In their search for
greater profits, drug-traffickers appear to have entered
the
world of
genetically-modified crops," the police report was
quoted as saying. The article can be viewed online at
the link below.
http://www.agbios.com/main.php?action=ShowNewsItem&id=6071
IN-HOUSE FUNGUS CORNS NEW
DEFENSE
If endophytes are
organisms that live in another living organism without
harming or benefiting ther host, then Acremonium zeae
is the latest exception.
Once considered a benign fungus, Agricultural Research
Service microbiologist Don Wicklow and
University of Iowa
scientist Jim Gloer recently showed that A. zeae can
protect corn from Aspergillus flavus and Fusarium
verticillioides. Both A. flavus and F. verticillioides
infect ripening corn kernels: Aspergillus contaminates
corn crops with
aflatoxin, which is
harmful to both humans and livestock; while F.
verticilliodes causes stalk rot. A. zeae, Wicklow and
Gloer
found, produces
substances called pyrrocidines, which can disrupt
activity of either pest. Wicklow conducted field studies
to
make sure the lab-based
observations of A. zeae's antifungal activity are not
the result of a natural corn defense or the
byproduct of human
error. Further research may reveal another possible
approach: inoculating corn seed with the endophyte
as a living barrier
against A. flavus and F. verticillioides. Read more at
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/dec04/fungus1204.htm
Kenya Imports Bt Cotton for
Trials
(SRC:Crop Biotech Update -- ATH:n/a)
The Kenya Agricultural
Research Institute (KARI) plans to soon begin field
trials of Bt cotton obtained from the U.S.
The Kenya Plant Health
Inspectorate Project (KEPHIS) has inspected the field
trial sites, located at KARI farms in central
Kenya, and has given its
authorization for the project. Charles Waturu, director
of KARI's Thika Center, says that Bt cotton
can reduce the number of
insecticide sprayings needed each season from two to
five. Cotton is currently grown in Africa on
approximately 2.5 million hectares, most of which is
made up of small plots of less than five hectares. The
article says that the introduction of Bt cotton has the
potential to dramatically increase cotton crop yields
among smallholder farmers in Africa. According to the
article, Kenya's National Biotechnology Committee
"approved the application of Bt cotton only last year."
The article can be
viewed online at the link below.
http://www.isaaa.org/kc/
Biotech Events
April 13-15, 2005
New Frontiers in Grain Quality Technology and
Informatics: A National Roundtable.
For registration and program updates, please visit:
http://www.grainqualitytechnology.org
Hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
