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Asia may resort

to genetic engg

to boost rice yield

LOS BANOS (Philippines): Asia may well have to resort to genetic engineering to boost rice yields and feed its impoverished millions, scientists say amid a raging debate over so-called "Frankenstein" foods.

Experts at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), based in this town south of Manila, say governments should balance the concerns over genetically altered rice against the need to feed the region, home to the majority of the world's poor.

The scientists noted that opposition to genetically modified foods had come mostly from rich Western countries whose people had more than enough to eat.

"I think we should be allowed to evaluate technologies", said IRRI director-general Ronald Cantrell.

"I think we should always insist that the world's poor have the best available technology that science can offer", he told a gathering of more than 200 scientists at the institute's headquarters over the weekend.

Speaking to reporters later, Cantrell said that biotechnology was an "extremely powerful" tool to boost rice production in the future.

"And for the (developed) countries to say 'no' to biotechnology is I think criminal. I think it's irresponsible, it needs to be taken into context".

Gurdev Khush, head of IRRI's plant breeding, genetics and biochemistry division, said the world's current population of six billion is to expand by about 30-40 percent in the next 30 years, with more than half to be born in Asia.

The current world rice output of 590 million tonnes will have to be increased by 50 percent in order to meet their needs, he said.

However, the task is daunting because it has to be achieved with less land and water and with yield thresholds at their peak, said Khush, whose team was credited with developing high-yield rice varieties that sparked the green revolution in the 1970s.

Cantrell urged scientists to make sure that "extremely rigid and safe protocols" were in place to "allow the evaluation of the safety of these tools and the products that come from them".

But scientists say they do not have the time to engage in public relation campaigns to dispel allegations that GM foods are harmful.

Cantrell said that IRRI was also planning to use genetic engineering to boost the nutritional value of the "indica" tropical rice plants grown in South and Southeast Asia, by introducing vitamin A taken from daffodil genes.

"IRRI is to finalise an accord with a university in Switzerland which developed the technology and agreed to share it with developing countries", he said.

The university's researchers identified genes involved in the production of vitamin A-rich betacarotene in plants and then transferred them into rice, giving the grain a golden color.

Maurice Ku, crop physiologist at the Washington State University in Pullman, unveiled at the IRRI conference the results of his research in which genetically altered rice yields rose by 35 percent after maize genes were injected to aid in photosynthesis.

He said it may take up to five years before such high-yielding rice seeds can be distributed to farmers.

Research using conventional breeding methods is still continuing at IRRI to develop the so-called "super rice" variety which could boost output by up to 50 percent, but completion was still four years away, said Khush.ÑAFP