In item 2 an ardent biotech-supporter gives the "agchem/agbiotech industry" advice it hardly needs - that they have only one direction to go for growth: down South. According to Prof Gressel, they must either go "down market" or they go "down and out". The AgBioView bulletin in which Gressel's article was circulated was headed "Biotech must go South".

That the essentials of this message have been fully comprehended and are already being acted upon can be seen from the Wall Street Journal piece on what's happening in Thailand (item 1).

EXCERPTS: "Genetically modified crops have made little headway on farms in Europe and Japan... Big biotech companies that deal in GMOs are looking for growth opportunities in Asia to compensate for the problems they have encountered in European markets

"(the Thai) government commissioned a team of U.S. biotech experts to tailor a pro-GMO national-policy message that wouldn't alienate Thailand's biggest anti-GMO export markets, according to people involved with the public-relations drive.

"Monsanto of St. Louis has coached Thai government scientists in the processes used in certain genetic-engineering techniques, particularly for corn. The U.S. government also has provided indirect financial support to Thailand's biotech drive, particularly through aid earmarked to help the government develop the regulatory and legal framework to patent, protect and export genetically modified products.

1.Thais Chew Over Biotech Food
2.Two Choices for Agchem/Agbiotech Industries: The Only Way to Go is Down
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1.Thais Chew Over Biotech Food
Bangkok Policy Vacillates As Developing Nations
Grow More GMOs
By SHAWN W. CRISPIN
Staff Reporter
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, October 29, 2004

When Thailand first tinkered with the genetics of its locally grown papayas in 1995, the scientific debate over the safety of genetically modified organisms, dubbed "GMOs," barely had begun.

Now, almost a decade and millions of dollars of lab tests later, Thailand is embroiled in the GMO controversy. The reason: In July, papayas engineered to resist viral fungi somehow got out of a lab and sprouted in hundreds of nearby farms.

The leakage sparked a panic among local fruit farmers after environmental groups charged that doctored papayas had "contaminated" their fields. The uproar highlighted Thailand's ambivalent position on GMO technology, where confusing government policies simultaneously restrict and promote GMOs.

Now the country faces commercial pressure to clarify that mixed message. Last month, Germany announced bans on the import of Thai-produced canned fruits that contain papaya. Similar threats from Japanese diplomats in Bangkok forced Thai agriculture officials to ax the 1,000 or so papaya trees they had planted as part of an open-field trial.

Somkuan Siwongchasakoon, whose fields mysteriously gave rise to at least five genetically modified papaya trees, hands an official fruit for testing.

Thailand's jarring experience shows how the growing global debate on GMOs fast is fragmenting global food markets and putting political pressure on food exporters to choose between producing natural or genetically modified food.

Genetically modified crops have made little headway on farms in Europe and Japan amid a debate about the safety of the technology. The U.S., home to the world's largest biotechnology companies, including agribusiness giant Monsanto Co., is the world's chief advocate of spreading the technology into developing countries.

Big biotech companies that deal in GMOs are looking for growth opportunities in Asia to compensate for the problems they have encountered in European markets. For example, Monsanto recently put the world's first bioengineered wheat on hold amid concerns from food makers in Europe and Japan. Germany's Bayer AG and Switzerland's Syngenta AG, too, recently have scaled back their GMO operations in Europe.

Last year, almost one-third of the world's genetically modified crop area was in developing countries, up from one-quarter in 2002, according to statistics compiled by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, a not-for-profit GMO-advocacy group comprising industry, environmental (???????), governmental and nongovernmental members. (they're heavily backed by the biotech industry whose execs have served on their board)

Thailand's own GMO policies have zigzagged over the years. After embarking on government-backed experimentation in the 1990s, Bangkok clamped down on GMOs in 2001 in line with the European Union's de facto moratorium on bioengineered crops. The EU is one of Thailand's largest food-export markets.

But recently Thai officials, including Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have hinted at another possible policy U-turn. In January, Agriculture Minister Somsak Thepsuthin drew up a seven-year plan to position Thailand as a regional biotech hub, with the goal of promoting the emergence of more than 100 Thailand-based biotech companies. The plan calls for the creation of a "clear policy" toward GMOs by the end of 2004.

On Aug. 20, Mr. Thaksin, who serves as chairman of Thailand's National Biotechnology Committee, said he would overturn the country's current ban on commercial production and trade in GMOs, declaring that "the government won't let the country miss the biotechnology train."

At the same time, his government commissioned a team of U.S. biotech experts to tailor a pro-GMO national-policy message that wouldn't alienate Thailand's biggest anti-GMO export markets, according to people involved with the public-relations drive.

Thai scientists involved with the genetic experiments argue that developing and patenting GMOs will give Thailand a leg up on regional rivals and improve rural productivity. International advocates of the technology say tropical countries such as Thailand -- where yearlong hot weather allows pests and disease to thrive -- are well-disposed to using GMOs in lieu of chemical pesticides.

In the mid-1990s Thailand established Biotec, a state-funded biotech research and engineering outfit that focuses on GMO research, among other genetic pursuits. Biotec since has overseen a series of low-profile transgenic experiments, altering the DNA of a wide array of local crops.

[image caption: A Thai protester wearing a mask of Prime Minister Thaksin holds a papaya fitted with a doll's limbs during an August demonstration.]

Government scientists say they are ready to patent various Thai-specific genetically modified grains, fruits and vegetables. Officials contend that this head start puts Thailand in a strong position to profit from possible GMO exports, particularly to less-developed, climatically similar countries.

Monsanto of St. Louis has coached Thai government scientists in the processes used in certain genetic-engineering techniques, particularly for corn. The U.S. government also has provided indirect financial support to Thailand's biotech drive, particularly through aid earmarked to help the government develop the regulatory and legal framework to patent, protect and export genetically modified products.

But critics warn that a full embrace of GMO technology could shut down important export markets for Thailand, and might have a negative impact on the environment and human health.

Janet Cotter, a scientist at Britain's Exeter University who works with environmental group Greenpeace, notes that many GMO experiments have had unintended consequences. In particular, she points to an experiment conducted by Syngenta that aimed to enrich rice with more Vitamin A, but also mysteriously changed the grain's natural red color to yellow. "When these unexpected effects occur, it shows how big the knowledge gap really is," Ms. Cotter says. "That raises big questions about GM food safety."

Thailand earns a premium on its organically grown crops: British supermarket chain Tesco PLC pays extra for its chicken raised without GMO-based feed. Some agriculture groups here fear that opening Thai food markets to GMOs eventually will make farmers dependent on multinationals for seeds and supplies.

"To us, it's a matter of economic sovereignty," says Ubon Yuwaa, head of policy at the Alternative Agricultural Network in Khon Kaen, a nongovernmental organization opposed to GMOs. In Thailand, where about 50% of the work force is involved in agriculture-related activities, those homegrown concerns historically have had political weight.

Government officials, scientists and food-industry executives are waiting to see exactly how big food exporters such as Thailand, the world's largest rice producer and exporter, reconcile the potential risks and rewards of GMOs.

Monsanto long has lobbied, so far without success, for GMO access to the country's fertile fields.

"Farmers in India, China and the Philippines are experiencing higher yields and greater incomes," said a Monsanto spokesman in Bangkok. "We look forward to the day when Thai farmers are able to enjoy the same benefits."

Write to Shawn W. Crispin at [email protected]
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2.Two Choices for Agchem/Agbiotech Industries: The Only Way to Go is Down
Jonathan Gressel, Outlooks on Pest Management, October 2004

In a recent article entitled: "Profit and the Poor - consumer-goods makers are realizing they have only one direction to go for growth: down market" (M. Margolis, Newsweek Atlantic Edition, July 19, 2004, p.42), the author describes the paradigm shift many marketers have made in the developing world from luxury items for the ultra-rich to designing products such as cheap and durable bikes, washing machines, refrigerators, and cell phone systems specifically for the poor with credit systems amenable to buyer and seller. "Reaching them isn't charity - it's business" a multi-national marketer is quoted as saying.

Despite the vast majority of the poor described in the article as being rural, the authors provide no examples from ag related industries. The sales in ag-chem worldwide are going down - but the thought of going down market seems to elude many companies. If they had offices in Africa or south East Asia, or poorer Latin American countries, they have been closed or constricted. This write-off of the developing world is not new.

This opinionated author is old enough to remember the 1970s with ag-chem industry leaders all deriding the green revolution as non-workable, as "the Indians will never have the resources to buy the needed pesticides and fertilizers". India uses precisely what is needed for their green revolution crops, to the profit of the farmers, who are now far less poor, and the chemical manufacturers, who have not lost money on their huge sales. The development of the products also came primarily from India, with sample pesticides initially purchased or just reluctantly provided.

The movers of the ag-chem industry have mainly forgotten this story and still write off much of the developing world. Only when an existing product fits a need, will it be "sold" (often without
reformulation) - the word "developed" would be perhaps an exaggeration. Thus, if there is not a "hand me down" product that meets a need, the need will not be met by industry. This includes the ag-biotech industry - Bt cotton was "developed" for Africa and India by back-crossing the developed world transgenic event into local varieties.

Bt is more needed in edible crops, where it would increase yields and reduce mycotoxins, but such work is left to the public CGIAR to be done, years after it could have been done to the profit of industry and farmers alike. Some companies argue against developing Bt maize, because non-Bt maize has been an insect refuge, purportedly delaying the evolution of resistance in cotton insects. They claim it would hurt their cotton market if this refuge were removed by growing Bt cotton. The proper thing would be to develop cotton for the developing world with genes encoding proteins such as the highly insect specific scorpion genes, and leave Bt for edible crops, where it most needed, and the market is much larger.

In a recent UNIDO sponsored workshop in Africa discussing unmet needs on a large scale, needs were delineated by local agricultural scientists (see their report in "Major heretofore intractable biotic constraints to African food security that may be amenable to novel biotechnological solutions," Crop Protection 23:661-689, 2004).

Solutions were desired for Bemisia, herbicide-resistant grass weeds of wheat, and parasitic weeds in northern Africa. The intractable problems in sub-Sahara Africa included grain weevils in storage, and stem borers and parasitic weeds (the latter two being addressed in maize by CIMMYT, but not in other crops), as well as the insidious mycotoxins that probably decrease life expectancy as much as HIV.

The problems in wheat could have been solved with the discontinued glyphosate-resistant wheat. All major Bt engineering companies were asked if they had screened their vast libraries of natural and synthetic Bts against grain weevils, or would they be willing to provide these libraries to labs in Africa for screening. The answer was negative in both cases. A senior representative of one of these companies said that as soon as the patents expire, they will autoclave their Bt collection rather than even screen for grain weevils. Where is the innovative desire to profit for their stockholders that the consumer goods companies have discovered? It is clear why sales are down.

The rice growing areas of the world are crying for answers to herbicide-resistant weeds, especially Echinochloa. As countries develop and go to direct seeding, weedy (red) rice becomes a major intractable issue. Biotechnological solutions are possible, but most of the market is poor farmers, and the ag industries have not learnt the lessons that they are a market.

It is interesting how long it took the ag industry to small package hand me down pesticides and seed, and how quickly their markets grew after that. How many lives would have been saved if they had done this earlier with organophosphate insecticides - where farmers would together buy large containers, which they then divided into soda bottles?

Interestingly, the genes and the chemicals are there or could be found that the developing world needs. What seems to be lacking is the realization of the ag chem/bio industry that there is a vast market if their raw materials (genes and chemicals) would be truly developed into the needed down-market products, just as the consumer manufacturing industries have realized. Novel products that increase food production are needed more than cell-phones and shampoos. The rural poor would be more likely to pay for products leading to a full stomach than a full ear or clean head.

There are two choices to go: down or down. It is hoped industry quickly takes the choice to go down-market, down south, instead of down and out.

Professor Gressel is at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel; Email: [email protected]

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