African perspective on the role of biotechnology in sustainable development

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African perspective on the role of biotechnology
in sustainable development

• Aggrey Ambali
• Biotechnology-Ecology Research Outreach
  Consortium
• Box 403, Zomba, Malawi
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]-545
• Email aambali_at_sdnp.org.mw or bioeroc_at_sdnp.org.mw

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State of affairs

• It is estimated that some 24 of the total
  population in the developing world will be living
  below the officially defined poverty line by the
  year 2050. Over 180 million people from SSA live
  below the poverty line and the number is expected
  to exceed 300 million people by the year 2020.
• The World Bank estimates that one of every two
  Africans, roughly 250 million people, subsist on
  a per capita income of less than US1 per day.

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Food security situation in SSA

• About 200 million people in Africa are
  malnourished a number that may increase to over
  350 million in the next 25 years.
• Food insecurity in SSA affects health and
  nutrition, resulting in poor maternal health,
  high malnutrition in children and poor
  productivity. These conditions exacerbate the
  hunger problem.
• The root cause of slow development, poverty and
  hunger which are widespread in SSA is the decline
  in agriculture arising principally from high
  population levels, worsening land degradation and
  inadequate application of new and emerging
  agricultural technologies.

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Sustainable development in Africa

• Within the context of sustainable development,
  Africa needs to focus on
• provision of sufficient affordable nutrition.
• improving access to affordable and effective
  health care
• protection of the African environment
• creation of jobs and the reduction of poverty.

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Strategies

• Overcoming poverty in SSA clearly calls for the
  development of strategies that promote increasing
  food production and allow for its even
  distribution.
• Such measures should, at the same time, ensure
  the sustainability of the basic natural resources
  upon which agricultural production depends.
• Greater investment in biotechnology in Africa can
  help solve these problems.

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Are there research centres for biotechnology in
Africa?

• Africa has several centers with a long-standing
  history of applied agricultural research on crops
  important to Africa. These centers include the
  International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
  (IITA) in Nigeria, the Kenyan Agricultural
  Research Institute (KARI) in Kenya, and the
  Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in South
  Africa. More recently, the Agricultural Genetic
  Engineering Research Institute (AGERI) in Egypt
  was established.
• There are many other smaller research
  organizations and universities with well
  established biotechnology facilities.

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Sweet Potato

• Virus elimination techniques have been used for
  more than 20 years production of disease-free
  sweet potato planting material. This disease-free
  material is used for all the commercial planting
  of sweet potato in South Africa, and has been an
  efficient way of suppressing the level of disease
  present in the field.
• Transgenic approaches are being developed for
  sweet potato cultivars important to resource-poor
  farmers in Africa. Transgenic sweet potato
  resistant to sweet potato feathery mottle virus
  has been produced at KARI.

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Potato Biotechnology From the North to Africa

• Field trials of transgenic potatoes have been
  carried out since 1997 in Egypt and in South
  Africa. Field trials of potato engineered to
  express the Bacillus thuringiensis CryV protein,
  which is toxic to the potato tuber moth, were
  first carried out at AGERI in Egypt in 1997.
• At the same time, in South Africa at
  ARC-Roodeplaat local potato cultivars which had
  been engineered in-house with the coat protein of
  the potato leaf roll virus were planted in the
  first field trial of transformed potatoes in
  South Africa. Current research is focussing on
  transforming potato cultivars important for
  resource-poor farmers.

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Maize Genetic Engineering In Africa

• Genetic engineering of maize in South Africa was
  partly pioneered by the Food Science and
  Technology Division (Foodtek) of the CSIR, as
  well as the Department of Microbiology of the
  University of Cape Town (UCT).
• A collaborative project to engineer maize for
  fungal resistance was embarked upon in 1995 by
  the ARC-Roodeplaat and CSIR-Foodtek.

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Genetic engineering in maize

• The problem of Maize Streak Virus (MSV) in Africa
  is being addressed in a collaborative research
  program to produce engineered maize resistant to
  MSV.

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Applications Of Biotechnology To Vegetatively
Propagated Crops In Africa

• In vitro propagation of vegetative crops is a
  second-generation biotechnology activity that can
  be successfully applied in developing countries.
• Cassava, yam, bananas, and plantains are
  important crops in Africa, and biotechnology has
  made significant contributions to their
  improvement. At IITA, biotechnology has been used
  for more than ten years as a tool for improvement
  of these crops.

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Banana and Cassava

• In the case of banana, RAPD markers linked to
  genome sequences have been identified and tissue
  culture used for mass propagation. Several
  diagnostic tests have also been developed for
  detecting banana streak virus.
• Research on regeneration and transformation
  techniques in cassava are being carried out at
  ARC-Roodeplaat in South Africa and IITA in
  Nigeria.

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Field Trials Of Transgenic Crops and Commercial
Releases Of GMOs

• In the period between 1990 and 1995 there were 25
  field trials of transgenic crops in Africa.
  These involved a variety of crops and introduced
  traits. Of the field trials, 22 were performed
  in South Africa, 2 in Egypt and 1 in Zimbabwe.
• Africa has performed relatively few field trials
  of transgenic crops compared to the numbers of
  trials in the rest of the world for the time
  period 1986-1995. These are, North America (2,438
  trials), Western Europe (796 trials),
  Asia-industrialized (86 trials), Asia-developing
  (62 trials), Latin America (204 trials), and
  Eastern Europe and Russia (36 trials).

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Commercial releases

• In 1998 in South Africa, there were commercial
  releases of two insect resistant yellow maize
  varieties.
• Subsequent releases have been those of cotton,
  soya and white maize.

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Will biotech contribute to sustainable
development in Africa?

• In Africa, biotechnology promises to make a
  significant contribution to the development of
  better health care, enhanced food security,
  improved supplies of potable water, more
  efficient industrial development processes for
  transforming raw materials, support for
  sustainable methods of afforestation and
  reforestation, and detoxification of hazardous
  wastes.

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Challenge to the Use of Biotechnology
inSub-Saharan Africa

• The policy environment
• The goal of agricultural research in Africa is to
  address the immediate needs of reversing
  declining food security. Africa is very poor and
  challenges to the development and effective use
  of biotechnology are engrained not only in
  financial limitations but also in policy,
  national capacities, information access and the
  regulatory environment.
• The majority of countries in SSA do not have a
  clearly articulated policy and strategy for
  developing and integrating biotechnology into
  their national agricultural research systems, but
  rather operate fragmented and uncoordinated
  research activities which only lead to
  unnecessary duplication and waste.

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Biotechnology policies in SSA

• Only a few countries like Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda
  and Nigeria have formulated, or are at an
  advanced stage of developing, policies for
  defining priorities for biotechnology within the
  context of their national agricultural research
  objectives and investment portfolio.
• A biotechnology policy and strategy is needed to
  give direction to and determine priorities for
  promotion of biotechnology RD within national
  institutions and programmes.
• Without visible government commitment there is
  little hope for biotechnology development in SSA.
  An environment must be created in which RD can
  flourish by focusing resources, through policy
  and priority definition, and by providing
  incentives for the development of a successful
  biotechnology industry.

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Biotechnology for African problems

• Pests and diseases account for about 30 yield
  losses and, therefore, transgenic crops would
  offer an approach which developing countries
  cannot be excluded from.
• The introduction of transgenic crops, perhaps
  combined with a more conventional approach using
  traditional breeding, good management of soil
  fertility, and crop protection facilitated by
  participatory extension approaches, could go a
  long way to improving the yields obtained by
  African farmers.

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What is there for Africa?

• U.S. President Bush, speaking at a BIO luncheon,
  singled out Africa as a place that could benefit
  from more biotechnology research. The U.S. and
  other developed nations have a "special
  responsibility" to combat hunger and disease,
  Bush said. "We must help troubled nations to
  avert famine by sharing with them the most
  advanced methods of crop production," Bush added.
  
• Bush also called on several European nations to
  end their five-year unofficial moratorium on
  importing genetically engineered foods. The
  moratorium is based on "unfounded, unscientific
  fears," Bush said.

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Thank you