Biotechnology encompasses a huge range of activities, from the most ancient leavening of bread by micro-organisms to as yet un-dreamed of medical possibilities. Each has its own set of risks and opportunities. This paper is concerned with just one biotechnology: genetically modified organisms or GMOs. All GMOs require biotechnology, but not all biotechnology results in GMOs.

Genetically modified organisms (sometimes also called GEOs—genetically engineered organisms or LMOs—living modified organisms) are living things in which the inherited genetic recipe has been directly altered. At some stage in the genetically modified organism’s life or ancestry, scientists physically added one or more new genes. If those genes came from a different species the resulting GMO is called transgenic.

It is direct manipulation of the genes that defines a GMO. Plant breeders took 18 years of conventional breeding to produce an ornamental pink-flowered strawberry (Fragaria) by crossing with a different species, Potentilla. The pink-flowered variety is widely available, and even though it contains genes from a different species, it is not a GMO or a transgenic because it was produced by conventional breeding.

Genetic manipulation can make plant and animal breeding more efficient in several ways. For example, a breeder will make a cross between two parents in order to combine the good qualities of both parents into one, even better, offspring. A productive wheat variety may be susceptible to some disease while another variety, of generally poor quality, nevertheless has resistance to the disease. Crossing the two will add the resistance gene to some of the offspring, but inevitably other genes, which diminish overall quality, will also pass to the offspring. Many more generations of breeding will be needed to eliminate those bad qualities. If the genes that confer disease resistance can be isolated from one parent and introduced directly into the other it can eliminate several years of delay.

Another advantage of direct manipulation is that it gives the breeder access to a wider range of genes to work with. A desired characteristic—for example tolerance to drought or salinity—may not be available in the target species or its close relatives. If those genes are present in another species, they can be placed in the target species and thus improve its performance in a particular agricultural context.

Finally, direct manipulation may be the only option that avoids an indeterminate wait for nature to provide the improvements being sought. Banana and plantain are inherently extremely difficult to improve by conventional breeding techniques. Making GMOs offers the chance to enhance these crops, on which 400 million people, most of them poor smallholder farmers, depend.

GMOs in agriculture
Direct modification of genetic material thus holds out hope of several agricultural improvements. The Future Harvest Centres would be remiss not to consider the use of GMOs to boost food security and improve the living standards of the poorest people, especially in developing countries. However, GMOs pose several ethical challenges that must also be addressed. The Future Harvest Centres have adopted four principles to guide them when considering ethical issues that may arise in connection with their food and environmental research to benefit the developing world: equity, trusteeship of genetic resources, respect, responsibility and integrity in science, and social benefits. The Centres apply these principles in any consideration of the use of genetic manipulation for crop improvement.

Because the Future Harvest Centres work for the public good all scientists working with the Centres conform to the highest ethical and moral standards. For GMOs, as for other biotechnologies, this means constantly weighing short-term gains against long-term impacts. Short-term gains can help to alleviate poverty, but the Future Harvest Centres keep a cautious watch on the potential for positive and negative influences in the longer term. For example, some proponents say that GMOs will benefit environmental sustainability. The Future Harvest Centres point out that this cannot be at the expense of the poor and the hungry. And the search for higher productivity through GMOs must not be allowed to compromise the resources and diversity that future generations will need to meet their research needs.

Similar views inform the position of the Future Harvest Centres on aspects of biosafety, which is often of particular concern in the case of GMOs. In working with research partners the Centres ensure that the highest standards of biosafety are applied, and work only in those countries that have biosafety regulations in place. Building capacity is an important aspect of these partnerships.

Appropriate biotechnology
Agriculture is the dominant sector of the economy in most developing countries. People in the developed world, where the cost of raw ingredients is a minor element in the often over-processed, over-packaged, over-abundant food they eat, can afford to spurn the advantages of genetically modified organisms. People who go to bed hungry at night because they cannot grow or buy enough food may feel differently.

But if the opportunities for GMOs in the developing world are greater, so too are the costs. The infrastructure to assess and monitor the impacts of GMOs may not be in place, just as the instruments for establishing the conditions under which they may be used and for policing those conditions may be weak.

These are not, however, reasons to abandon GMOs. Rather they provide a strong argument for the Future Harvest Centres, with their commitment to partnership, capacity building, and ethical science, to assist developing countries to make their own decisions about the adoption and deployment of GMOs.

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