Food

April 9 2008 13:23Huib de Vriend, LIS Consult

I agree with most of what has been stated in the interviews. The challenges are enourmous and complex, technologies are evolving and getting more sophisticated. We should try to shift the focus of the debate from the present commercially available applications, which are contested for good reasons, to future needs, and the question which types of solutions are available / should be developed. GM is not the one, but certainly one of the options that should be assessed on a triple-P basis. That means mapping and weighting economic, social and ecological benefits and risks, and moral implications as compared to other solutions.

April 17 2008 13:52Moshe Bar-Joseph, Retired, ARO, Volcani Center

Sorry, the problem is not the food cost. Low food costs and increasing production costs would had anyway led to reduced production and shortage. What is needed is biofuel or any other alternative outlet for ag products that will allow growers to make some profit of their products.

April 17 2008 14:27Favereau pierre, indépendant !

les deux opinions ne sont pas aussi éloignées que ça en fait les biotechs ne sont pas “la” solution mais une des solutions qui devront étre utilisées pour prendre les problèmes agricoles à bras le corps , et aussi beaucoup de sagesse,d’intégrité et de bon sens !!!

April 18 2008 10:00Degenhardt, Heinz, Pioneer

Increasing food cost has multiple reasons. Biofuels is just one. Organic farming (lower yield per hectare and higher price) is another. This is a luxary idustrialized countries can still afford, but should rethink their strategy.
Focus (short and long term) should be to maximize the output per hectare and to use all types of products (including green biotechnology) that are available on the markets. If all countries would follow we should see an effect.

April 18 2008 13:59Shashidhar, Barwale Foundation

Productivity levels of almost all crops is very low and needs to be improved. Yield per unit area can be doubled with the cuttent level of technology in developing countries if only a wholistic and complete package of practices is adopted for crop growth. Imbalanced fertilizer application, overcrouding plants, excesive chemical sprays does not help in any way. “Leibigs’ law of minimum” has already set-in, at least in major crops like rice (intensive cultivated fields). If we use available land and resources judiciously, we can grow food and fuels and farmers can also get rich. why not?

April 19 2008 09:29Taek-ryoun KWON, The National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology

We have to imagine future plant form and function to meet great demand of foods of future global human beings. Biotechnology can work for the development of future plant form and function.

April 19 2008 10:22krishnan subramanian, agro irrigation and pump serv ltd

this is a very important topic on the world scenario.

April 19 2008 10:26krishnan subramanian, agro irrigation and pump serv ltd

food producton around the world is going down because of urbanisation and decrease in area under production..the only solution now is to embrace new teachnologies like GM etc and intensify production under the available land ..

April 19 2008 10:44Shashidhar, Barwale Foundation

I agree the Biotechnology can do wonders but please be aware that it is not a magic wand and/or a magic bullet.

April 19 2008 11:47Lakshman Reddy, ICAR, Directorate of oilseeds research

yes, it is wonderfull technology can be used in agriculture to produce designer food crops

April 20 2008 05:14Dr. Seetharam Annadana, Avesthagen Limited

Crop production historically started as a easier way of food production and avalability as compared to hunting and eating. Over the years as food was available in plenty we decided we need more farm power beyond humans, thus came domestication of farm anilamls and therefore we started to look at farm production beyond food for also feed.

With enough food and feed, we decided we use crop production also for our clothing requirments, hence crop production started to provide food-feed-fibre.

This new millenium is the fourth F millenium. We are now proposionjg a bioeconomy wherein our FUEL requirments will also be met by crop production.

As white biotechnology will grow the

April 23 2008 09:36Prof Evert Jacobsen, Wageningen University

I do agree that biotechnology can add a lot to solve crop production problems. I like to introduce to you cisgenesis as a way of speeding up classical breeding (see www.cisgenesis.com).

April 28 2008 12:22Shashidhar, Barwale Foundation

Thanks. I wisited the site and read some items there (white paper). I have a question. What about silencing?

April 28 2008 16:45marion zammit mangion, university of Malta

There will be the need to feed increased number of people displaced by climate change. Biotech will be needed to increase productivity (on less land?) to maintain soil fertility and possibly improve existing crops to withstand stressors such a drought and raised salinity.

May 8 2008 09:52Prem Bindraban, Wageningen UR

This is a shortsighted statement from a wealthy person in a rich country that spends probably less than 10% of his income on food. Yes, it is great to buy some of your food from a local producer and to maybe even know him or her. But these systems use our natural resources inefficiently and not ecologically nor economically sustainable. Organic and local oriented systems inherit an interesting social component of agriculture to keep people busy. In the Netherlands people will spend their weekends to relax by doing some weeding on an organic farm, and it is even used for health care. These components are important but have little to do with food production. However, with our standard of living in Western societies, it will not be feasible to depend solely on such locally produced idyllic/romantic systems. Our ecological footprint is far too big for that. Second, from a global perspective intensive integrated agricultural production systems is a must, and trade/transport of food will remain necessary, as some global regions cannot be self-sufficient, while others have a surplus production potential. Moreover, these systems use our scare global resources most efficiently and sustainably.

May 8 2008 11:43Alexander G. Haslberger, Dep. for Nutritional Sciences, Center for Ecology, University of Vienna

Global trading of mass- produced food may contribute to sustainable development if trading- e.g. WTO- regulations can be substantially changed in a way, that local diversity, resilience and sharing of benefits is possible. In any case we need to support local- sustainable production of quality-, may be organic food, with product prices affordable for all.

May 15 2008 10:04krishnan subramanian, agro irrigation and pump serv ltd

yes, i agree with what Hans says but again the rich people are the ones who take major food policy decisions and they have to keep in mind the small farmer while making a policy change.Please remember again that the small farmers form 70% of the agrarian population and he/she has a big role in sustaining the food security of the world!

May 21 2008 16:12griffioen, griffioen

a half century ago when there were 4 biljard people on this earth, peope were already discussing wether the earth could provide enough food for everyone. The conclusion then was, that it was not a problem of quantity, but the food was poorly divided, the rich get too much, the poor too little. Producing more and more food won’t help to attack this problem

May 22 2008 12:07Piet Schenkelaars, Schenkelaars Biotechnology Consultancy

Herewith I would like to thank the organisers of this initiative for the opportunity to provide some comments and remarks. Below I have summarised the findings of a 2005 study for the European Commission Directorate General, which I supervised. The aim of the study was to formulate strategic actions for EU support the development of pro-poor (red, green, white and blue) biotechnologies in the South. As you can see, there is a wide range of things that could and should be done. However, to my knowlegde, there has hardly been any concrete follow-up by the European Commission DG Development.

PREREQUISITES & NEEDS FOR PRO-POOR BIOTECHNOLOGY STRATEGIC ACTIONS

Human research capabilities • Strengthen education and training, nationally and internationally.
• Support integration into the international scientific community.
• Support exchange of scientists and engineers.
• Prevent brain-drain.
• Strengthen R&D management expertise.

Material research capabilities
• Improve IT infrastructure and computing power.
• Ensure access to the Internet, scientific literature, patent databases and databases with biological data central to bio-informatics.
• Support building and upgrading of laboratories, greenhouses, clinics, etc., incl. facilities for so-called ‘contained use’ of GMOs.
• Ensure availability of equipment, chemicals, tests, facilities, etc.

Public-private partnerships & technology platforms
• Gain knowledge and better understanding of ‘successful’ models for public-private partnerships (PPP).
• Test and implement models for PPP.
• Extend European technology platforms to include collaboration with
parties in developing countries.

Aligning biotechnology R&D priorities with National Poverty Reduction Strategy and Sector-Wide Approaches
• Strengthen social sciences research and policy evaluation.
• Provide aid to policy analysis, formulation and implementation.
• Support access to findings of international research on social, economic and environmental impacts.
• Support awareness rising and involvement of poor people, civil society organisations and small and medium-sized enterprises in the policy processes.
• Create an attractive financial environment for public-private partnerships and innovative (start-up) firms.
• Monitor regional and international developments in biotechnology R&D and policies and strategies of various actors from the public and private sectors and civil society.

Establishing benefit-sharing mechanisms for technology transfer and intellectual property rights
• Train public sector actors to deal with legal and material issues
surrounding proprietary technologies and genetic resources.
• Support public sector patenting and license-free usage of pro-poor biotechnologies.
• Stimulate initiatives for open source biotechnology tools.

Establishing regulatory oversight on biotechnology R&D activities
• Support building of administrative capacity for regulatory oversight on
experimental testing and commercial use of GMOs.
• Enhance scientific capacity for risk assessment and management of
• Strengthen capacity for enforcement of biosafety regulations.
• Ensure transparency of regulatory systems and public understanding of regulatory oversight practices.
• Address liability issues.
• Ensure freedom of choice for consumers, farmers and other operators in the agro-food chain between GM and non-GM products.
• Ensure that international regulatory requirements remain manageable in developing countries.

Implementing and influencing international conventions and trade agreements
• Provide support to building implementation expertise.
• Support participation of developing country delegates in negotiation of international conventions and trade agreements.
• Support legitimate interests of DCs in international forums for pro-poor biotechnology.
• Improve capacity for economic and policy research.
• Promote sui generis systems for intellectual protection of indigenous knowledge.

Establishing arrangements for adoption of biotechnology R&D results
• Support engagement of poor people (groups), civil society organisations, small and medium-sized enterprises and public-private partnerships in determining adoption arrangements.
• Create financial instruments to facilitate adoption.

Strengthening public mechanisms for social-ethical scrutiny of biotechnology
• Improve capacity for social sciences, philosophy and (bio)ethics.
• Foster public communication and public mechanisms for social-ethical
scrutiny, like ethical committees, stakeholder dialogues, citizens’ juries, public debates, etc.
• Provide information to media and journalists.

Disseminating biotechnology R&D results
• Support building and upgrading of infrastructures for storage, transport
and distribution/marketing of seeds, planting materials, harvest, etc.
• Support building and upgrading healthcare infrastructures.

The study, including the annexes, can be downloaded at www.sbcbiotech.nl