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The below mentioned article provides notes on plant biotechnology.
There are now a wide range of public, private and NGO organizations with differing objectives attempting to deliver appropriate products to different groups of farmers.
This has significant implications regarding the nature of the technology disseminating organizations that plant biotechnologists interact with in identifying what priority technologies are needed, what farmers are the resultant client groups and what types of farmers and consumers will ultimately reap the benefits of plant biotechnology research and development.
Agricultural extension is now in a process of reform and transition world-wide. Pressures towards cost-recovery and privatization have led to rapid slimming and of public sector extension services in Europe, the USA and Australasia over the last decade. In parallel, public sector agricultural extension services in developing countries are achieving only limited impact but face unsustainably high recurrent costs.
In many countries, governments are withdrawing NARs from extension services and now expects other institutions to provide and/or finance such activities.
Financial pressures have led to the search for ways of reducing public sector costs by e.g. privatizing parts of the extension service, having farmers pay government for some services, and cost-sharing arrangements between government and NGOs or farmers’ organizations.
The most efficient public sector extension services of the future are likely to focus on spheres inadequately serviced by the private commercial sector. As a result novel extension approaches are emerging which is approaches which are participatory, institutionally pluralistic and geared towards cost-sharing.
A range of approaches for farmer-led approaches to agricultural extension have been presented. It is unclear how plant biotechnology research could better interface with such changes, especially in relation to NGO or farmer-led approaches to agricultural research and extension.
It cannot be assumed that even useful agricultural biotechnologies which are wholly in the public domain will actually reach the fields of poorer farmers in the short term through existing state extension channels.
The Gatsby Charitable Foundation has recognized this in developing a ‘research-managed extension’ (RME) model for more effective transfer of agricultural biotechnologies to poorer farmers in developing countries. The RME model relies on a reward system based upon the intensity of contact between extensionists and farmers.
Also the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a Special Programme on Biotechnology and Development Cooperation which has been exploring pilot projects on ‘appropriate biotechnologies’ which might better meet the needs of small-scale farmers in developing countries.
A key feature of such approaches has been farmer participatory needs assessments to determine research priorities prior to initiation of research and development. However, most plant biotechnology research is conducted far ‘upstream’ of such ‘downstream’ structural changes in the agricultural extension and marketing sectors.
There has been a lack of biotechnology research which would enable key agricultural ‘processes’ at the on farm level which could improve or ’empower’ farmers livelihoods. Yet in theory at least plant biotechnology research could be applied towards such goals, especially if there were better linkages between farmer participatory researchers/extensionists and plant biotechnologists.
The CGIAR’s System-wide Programme on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (SWP-PRGA) is currently exploring whether some biotechnologies might have utility in ’empowerment’-oriented farmer participatory plant breeding.
The Centre for the Application of Molecular Biology to International Agriculture (CAMBIA) in Australia has for some years been trying to develop plant biotechnology tools which could empower low technology approaches to crop improvement in developing countries.
Some developing countries have had considerable success in establishing significant capacity in biotechnologies such as plant tissue culture and micro propagation and disease diagnostics, and in meeting farmers needs with such technologies.
However, the strengthening of capacity in the plant molecular biotechnology research has proved more difficult to achieve in the short term, especially in a manner which is targeted to meeting country specific needs.
In most instances, the existence of a conventional plant breeding programme which is operational is a necessary prerequisite for any rational application of advanced plant molecular biotechnology techniques such as marker assisted selection or transgenesis.
Despite some successes, there is a growing consensus that many international project based initiatives to transfer biotechnology capacity to developing countries have not been as successful as originally envisaged.
The majority of developing counties have limited practical access to the tools and germplasm necessary to apply high technology biotechnology research to their national needs. The barriers to such access are many and mainly include lack of financial, scientific and infrastructural resources.
There are major differences between countries in their agricultural biotechnology capacity which would preclude any generalizations regarding the appropriateness of some biotechnologies for developing countries as a generic group.
For instance, a number of developing countries in Asia and Latin America such as Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia have a relatively high level of plant biotechnology capacity, especially in early generation biotechnology areas such as plant micro propagation, transgenic, and marker assisted breeding.
In Africa, a significant number of countries have some limited biotechnology capacity in the areas of plant tissues culture and micro propagation. In some African countries, basic infrastructure and facilities for even the simplest plant tissue culture or micro propagation are not available.
However, other African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Zimbabwe have some additional but limited capacity in plant molecular biology. While countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt have the capacity to generate transgenic plants, mechanisms to ensure that the plants can reach the end user i.e. the farmer are in many instances lacking.
The OECD’s Development Centre has published an excellent study on the incentives, constraints and country experiences for integrating biotechnology in agriculture in different developing country situations.
ISNAR’s Intermediary Biotechnology Service has also produced a series of research reports which provide useful frameworks for decision making regarding national biotechnology priorities, planning and policies, based on the experience selected developing countries have had to date with the integration of biotechnologies into their agricultural research systems.
The OECD study concluded inter alia that biotechnology research has not been closely integrated with the problems and constraints confronting the agriculture sector, nor with the obstacles to widespread diffusion of useful new biotechnologies, particularly to low income farmers. A lack of clear priorities and focus was identified.
The OECD study called for reflection on the part of developing countries, scientists, NGOs, donors and the CGIAR on the development of innovative public/ private mechanisms for the transfer of “public good” biotechnologies in developing country agriculture.
A 1994 survey of 45 organizations involved in the transfer of agricultural biotechnology revealed that most initiatives concentrate on the few developing countries with relatively advanced scientific and technological capabilities, and that developing country scientists and administrators are not always directly involved in their planning and design.
Also, a ‘brain drain’ exists for many developing countries and regions whereby many of their scientists have moved to work/train in advanced biotechnology laboratories in the USA, Europe, Australia and Japan.
If such scientists return to situations where there is no/little conventional plant breeding activity or infrastructure, the comparative advantage that they have learnt in plant biotechnology cannot easily be applied to the improvement of agriculture in their own countries.
There are currently few financial or other incentives for such scientists to return to their countries of origin. In the absence of public sector funding for such scientists upon return, it is likely that many such scientists will become technology adapters, and/or marketing agents for imported proprietary products/germplasm developed by non-domestic companies.
In all countries, there is also a need to more actively involve end-users such as farmers and producers organizations in priority setting regarding the objectives of publicly funded agricultural biotechnology.
At the international level, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) – an organization which represents a large proportion of the world’s farmers – recently made a significant policy statement on ‘Farmers and Biotechnology’ at the 1998 World Farmers Congress.
The IFAP policy statement raised issues regarding:
(a) The potential benefits of GMOs to different stakeholders,
(b) Concerns of different stakeholders regarding GMOs;
(c) Promoting freedom of farmers to operate
(d) Promoting safety and accurate information
(e) Increasing public sector research investment
(f) Intellectual property rights
(g) Addressing the needs of developing countries and
(h) Maintaining biodiversity.