Farming Systems:

Potential for Added Value:

There have been a number of potato related RNNRSS projects. One groups emphases sustainable potato seed tuber management (R8435, R8104 and R7856). One aspect of biosafe deployment of biotechnology is assuring that growers are supplied with high quality seed able to take advantage of the new traits. It is also necessary to ensure that growers obtain the requested beneficial trait. A formal or semi-formal potato planting material distribution is beneficial. In addition in R6830, we developed distinctive phenotypic markers (leaf shape or less favoured flower colour) to ensure illiterate growers can confirm they have the new cultivar (Green J., Atkinson H.J. et al. (2005) Molecular Breeding 16: 285-293). This will also allow social scientists to monitor uptake and secondary distribution through informal systems. 

The approach developed in R6380 R7548 and R8031 has high potential to control Meloidogyne on potato and importantly, many other crops. There is advantage in deploying the approach within an IPM approach. We have shown that the technology we have developed is compatible with biocontrol. Therefore it could be integrated with Meloidogyne control (R8296) plus control of insect pests.

Much of the initial work on potato (R6380) was carried out in interaction with Dr J. Franco (PROINPA, Bolivia) and other work-funded was EU involved CIP. There is therefore the opportunity to link to outputs of R8443, R8044 (PROINPA) and R8485, R8182 (CIP) to ensure polices and practises associated with biosafety are compatible with all other advances. Nematode control in banana and rice (R6453 R6948 R7294 R8031) and banana (R6743 and R3081) would provide a basis for broadening the policy development issues to other crops of particular importance in S. Asia and Africa.

The work explored for rice the use of clean gene technology to remove selectable markers such as those based on antibiotic resitstance from the plants prior to their trials or deployment.

Validation

How the outputs were validated:

Methods of Evaluation

The biosafety and efficacy of the approach were examined thoroughly and much of this work has been published in peer review journals including Nature and leading international journals for particular research fields. They include field trials in the UK and further work of this type is envisaged with further funding from BBSRC Agrifood committee plus its Crop Science initiative. This underpins research into use opportunities.

Who was involved?

Scientific evaluation: This varied to involve the most appropriate scientists to help validate the issue being studied. They included International scientists from PROINPA, CIP, Wageningen University, Lancaster U. and CSL plus a leading toxicology company (BIBRA). A list of main publications is given below.

Involvement of NARS: The next stage in evaluating the benefits beyond scientific publications involved NARS. Potato plants were provided to Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Beijing for containment trial evaluation. It was also planned to trial potato in Argentina and also National Agricultural Research India. Ending of RNRRS curtailed these developments but a relationship with India is still being developed (see later). Biosafety issues have been developed further in Uganda using funding from Rothamsted Intentional Africa fellowship awards and from USAID PSP funding for training of a Ugandan scientists in food safety methodology here. Banana plants have been offered for trial in Uganda. Our constructs have also been donated and used in further transformation in Uganda. This is producing "home grown technology" which Uganda prefers. Consequently, trials may concentrate on these plants.

Evidence of demand:

Groups in target countries with interest in uptake within RiUP:  A number of NARS and others active in target countries have expressed interest in involvement in reducing this research to use. They include NARO and IITA Uganda, Agbio, Zimbabwe, NARI, India and CAAS, China. There would also be high interest in PROINPA, Bolivia. Wider interest could be identified but it is inappropriate to do this until there is a real prospect of further funding for work of this type.

Demand for the approach:

The views of villagers were obtained via meeting and farmers Schools in Bolivia. They revealed that plant breeding provides them with real benefits. They welcome the new power of biotechnology and would like to judge the benefits. This pro-science and practical approach is likely to prevail among many developing world growers. 

Publications organised by aspect of the technology

A, Gene flow in the environment, B, biosafety for non-target organisms, C, food safety and restricting unwanted plant expression, D, Efficacy of the approach, E, policy development.

A: Celis C., Atkinson H.J. et al. (2004) Nature 432, 222-225

A: Green J.,  Atkinson H.J. et al. (2005) Molecular Breeding 16: 285-293.

B: Cowgill, S. E. and Atkinson, H. J. (2003) Transgenic Research 12, 439-449.

B: Cowgill, Atkinson H.J. et al. (2002) Journal of Applied Ecology 39, 915-923.

B: Cowgill, S. E., Atkinson H.J. et al.. (2004) Molecular Ecology 13, 639-647.

B: Cowgill, Atkinson H.J. et al. (2002) Molecular Ecology 11, 821-827.

C: Atkinson H.J. et al. (2004). Journal of Nutrition 134, 431-434.

C: Lilley, C. J., Atkinson H.J. et al.. (2004). Plant Biotechnology Journal 2, 3-12.

D: Urwin, P. E., Atkinson H.J. et al. (2003). Molecular Breeding 12, 263-269.

D: Urwin, P. E., Atkinson H.J. et al. (2001). Molecular Breeding 8, 95-101.

E: Atkinson H.J. et al. 2005) Aspects of Applied Biology 75: 109-114.

E: Atkinson H.J. et al. (2001). Trends in Biotechnology 19, 91-96.

Where the Outputs were Validated:

The biosafety issues have been validated for Bolivia (PROINPA), Peru (CIP) and are being extended to India (NARI), and China (CAS, CAAS). Progress in some of the countries has been halted by funding constraints. The approaches have been adapted to East African Highland Banana with USAID funding. The Ugandan National Biosafety Committee has moved forward rapidly partly due to the quantity of information supplied by an international team. It has granted containment field trial for banana biotechnology in less than 12 months. Crucial to this has been the lead taken by local scientists delivering comprehensive biosafety data collected by them and the international team. Dr Coyne (IITA Uganda) has expressed an interest in carrying out the necessary research into use for potato in Uganda and elsewhere in East Africa.

Current funding for collaboration in India (see response 16b for further details) and a developing relationship with The Indian biotechnology ministry may prove valuable. A visit is planned to India (23-30/10/06) part of which will explore the trial and deployment of the potatoes in India. India has a strong science base and a commitment to exploring biotechnology to enhance its future food security. It provides a source of information, which other developing countries trust. Following initial encouragement from Dr Rao from that Ministry in a brief visit to Leeds, this visit will also investigate the potential of collaboration with the Indian Biotechnology Ministry to ensure safe uptake of nematode resistant crops and other beneficial traits into Indian subsistence agriculture.

Current Situation

Who are the Users?

Plant biotechnology is being widely used for insect control on cotton in India and China. The aim of the work in this cluster would be to underpin safe transition of other global and regional public goods already available in international research Institutes. This raises a number of issues not addressed by use of cry genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to control insects. Such work is often distrusted because of the involvement of biotechnology companies in promoting the approach. There is also a narrowness of scope. For instance USAID BBI programme is not mandated to look beyond the macrofauna which there has been concern in relation to non-target Lepidoptera and Bt. Their mandate does not allow them to examine soil quality issues (H Quemada, manager BBI, personal communication).

UK is will placed to make this important contribution to public global goods rather than the biotechnology company influenced approaches of USA. The opportunity is to ensure a whole trench of benefits not achievable by other means can be adopted safety. Examples beyond insect and nematode control, involve other fungal diseases and tolerances to both drought and acid soils. The enormity of the potential gains justifies investment in ensuing a biosafe basis for uptake.

India has realised that biotechnology has an important role in its future food security. African countries (e.g. Uganda) are already actively pursuing the lessons learnt there. The UK can use its research and policy development strength to support these efforts and ensure the global public goods are biosafe. India could proof crucial to such effort. The UK's influence is at risk of being marginalized if it does contribute to the momentum now in India and China for plant biotechnology if that does lead to widespread uptakeof new traits.  

Where the Outputs have been Used:

As indicated above, validation has occurred but uptake at the level of the individual farmers awaits the biosafety issue and polices envisaged in this profoma.

Scale of current use:

The ending of RNRRS has halted the process. Some biosafety activities have continued and plants have been provided to NARS (China for potato, Uganda for banana) with other requests (e.g. from Uganda, Zimbabwe, India, Argentina and Brazil) frozen without the funds to generate the initial planting material and other supporting resources and biosafety material. A key need is to set up research into use via formal seed systems.

Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success:

Key factors

1. A clear need has been identified. Demand exists but is limited in some area e.g. Africa by a lack of thought definition of the intensity of nematode induced loses on many subsistence crops (D. Coyne, IITA pers communication).
2. The biotechnology to be deployed should be shown to be fit for purpose and fully biosafe when expressed in potato or other target crop
3. Benefits and future potential the technology should be clearly detailed to various stakeholders before uptake is progressed.
4. Benefits must meet the needs of the resource poor with minimised negative impact on others. This requires careful and thorough analysis of the benefits as well as the apprehensions surrounding deployment of biotechnology.
5. A government that has a pro-biotechnology attitude is essential and a concern to facilitate substantial rather than incremental approaches to enhancing food production  (e.g. India, Uganda, China)
6. A segment of the media willing to promote benefits when real as well as concerns amongst the opinion makers in the society.
7. A national biosafety committee/system seeking to be progressive while offering rigorous scrutiny of all relevant biosafety issues
8. A NARS willing to take on the translation research and having the appropriate resources and knowledge to assess benefits and identify substantial hazards not revealed  by work elsewhere
9. An extension service/farmer school system able to explain the potential of biotechnology in fair balance with the concerns of some that surround its uptake.
10. A formal seed system able to multiply and deliver high quality planting material (e.g. potato).
11. Social scientists willing to support the process, assess uptake and determine safe dispersal to the informal seed system so extending to the poorer sections of the grower community
12. Lead growers eager to support scientific improvements whose successes favour diffusion to further growers.
13. Promotion of public goods within the country with its scientists leading the initiative ("home grown technology for home use") independent of overseas  commercial interests. 

Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways

Promotion of Outputs:

Potential Barriers Preventing Adoption of Outputs:

1. A demonstration is needed in different agro-ecological situations that the plants do prevent nematode losses and enhance yields when in the hands of the resource poor grower.
2. A range of biosafety issues must be addressed to lower apprehension over uptake. Resources are required to ensure benefits can be obtained safely.
3. The necessary emphasis on the biosafety of biotechnology is not being balanced with emphasis on the benefits that it can provide in much of Africa
4. The initial need is to concentrate on countries with fully enacted and functional biosafety regulations. They should be supported with all scientific resources required for translational research. They also require all biosafety issues appropriate for that country and region to be addressed. The demonstration of benefits without risk will ensure dissemination later from counties like Uganda and India to others in the region.

How to Overcome Barriers to Adoption of Outputs:

1. Demonstration that the approach has benefits in target countries using current local agricultural practises. This will provide the impetus to ensure all biosafety issues are addressed.
2. Establishment of partnerships with those willing to progress nematode resistant into other subsistence crops.
3. Complete resolution of outstanding issues relating to biosafety of the nematode traits so establishing a template for other traits to follow.
4. A full biosafety dossier addressing all hazards so that national biosafety committee can make informed consent and progress where this is a national priority.
5. Demonstration of successful uptake to encourage countries with less progressive biosafety policies. The aim is for them to progress and advance to capture full advantages from the opportunities. 

Lessons Learned:

1. Demonstration of efficacy of the trait under the farming conditions of the poor
2. Biosafety legislation enacted and committed at the national levels to evaluate new opportunities rapidly
3. Scientists in NARS committed to the opportunity and well resourced to complete the translational research and so develop "home grown" technology
4. Effective farmers' schools or other approaches to engage with growers on the benefits and to allay apprehensions etc.
5. Local ownership of the biotechnology so the "home grown" approach can be developed
6. A positive environment for biotechnology from a range of stakeholders including politicians and media

Impacts On Poverty

Poverty Impact Studies:

A main aspect of this cluster deals with establishing a biosafety and policy environment to widen the range of approaches taken up beyond the current range.

There have been both general considerations. Examples include:

• Cohen JI (2005) Poorer nations turn to publicly developed GM crops, Nature Biotechnology, 23, 27-33.
• De Groote H., Mugi, S., Bergvinson, D and Odhiambo, B (2004) Debunking the myths of GM crops for Africa: The case of Bt maize in Kenya. http://www.biw.kuleuven.be/aee/clo/euwab_files/degroote2004.pdf
• Thirtle, C, Beyers, L., Ismael, Y Piesse, J (2003) Can GM-Technologies Help the Poor? The Impact of Bt Cotton in Makhathini Flats, KwaZulu-Natal World Development, 31, 717-732
• Lipton M. (2001), Reviving Global poverty reduction, what role for genetically modified plants, Journal of International Development, 13, 823-846.

How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups):

Benefits from nematode resistant potato

1. Increases in yield can exceed 50% for individual growers and are likely to be a miniimum of 12% for potato growing areas of the developing world.
2. Were potato is the main subsistence crop, it is possible to reduce the share of holding down to the crop annually. This provides opportunity to enhance nutrition with a fuller range of crops and to market surplus produce. This is well established for Bolivia (see Atkinson et al., 2001, reference above).
3. Reduction in use of hazardous of pesticides for nematode control in peri-urban situations. Extreme examples occur in South America (e.g. Ecuador and around Lima).
4. Beneficial trait around which to promote improved tuber distribution or true potato seed where ware tuber storage is a limiting factor.
5. Reduction of follow-on damage by Meloidogyne of other crops grown in close rotation with potato
6. Reduced risk of wilderness loss to slash and burn agriculture or important habitats e.g. rare indigenous forest in the Chapare area of Bolivia (see Atkinson et al., 2001, reference above)
7. Increase growth in potato production where that crop can out perform currently used stable crops.

Benefits from nematode resistant crops

1. The above benefits can be multiplued many fold if the technology can be used in other crops soon. 
2. The impact of Meloidogyne control in Africa and S. Asia would be considerable.
3. The rate that these benefits being achieved depends on the investment levels to distribute constructs and resources to a range of NARS etc.
4. It could also be dependent on an appropriate biosafe environment (see below).

Benefits from resolution of biosafety issues and policy development

1. Enhancement of the rate of adoption in countries such as India, China and Uganda willing deploy plants depends.
2. A resource for use by other countries following the example of the biotechnology pioneering countries above.
3. Allaying all scientifically based concerns about the approach will create an environment in which rapid uptake is favoured
4. Establishing a base for national scientists to adopt the technology underpinned by all necessary information and resources promote to "home grown for home use" deployment of public global goods such as nematode resistance.
5. Establishing favourable biosafety environment for policy development will enable uptake of further traits for food security (e.g. drought and acid soil tolerances, disease resistance, biofortified crops) that cannot be delivered in other ways to meet the longer-term global challenge of food security for all.

Environmental Impact

Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits:

1. There is a clear risk of loss of wilderness to agriculture through slash and burn approaches with nematodes being a known cause of crop failure supporting this erosion of biodiversity. The case has been made that intensive agriculture with land sparring is a better option for much wildlife than extensive production, as much of biodiversity cannot survive in a farmed landscape.
2. Some growers deploy nematicides in periurban situations. These pesticides are all WHO class 1a or 1b compounds. They all pose severe risks to agricultural workers. If misused, carbamates and organophosphate nematicides can be a health risk to the consumer.
3. All nematodes pose risk to the environment but the risk varies with the chemical compound. Many contaminate waterways, harm aquatic systems including, in extreme cases, inshore marine environments (e.g. coral reefs).
4. The risk from use nematicide is currently not substantial among the very poor as the cost of the compounds is usually beyond their means. The scale of nematode losses is often not fully appreciated. Studies establish that as development occurs, growers gain the resources to turn to pesticides to raise their yields further. International society need to provide them with alternatives to avoid this or severe outcomes may arise. These are already evident in some countries e.g. potato and banana cropping in Ecuador. 
5. The environmental benefits from adoption of Bt cotton in China have been defined. The incidence of toxic episodes for agricultural workers from pesticides fell from 22% for those using conventional cultivars to just 4.7% of those cropping with Bt -expressing cultivars that required less frequent pesticide use (Huang, J. et al., (2002) Science, 295, 674-677). The benefits from reduced use of other crop protection chemicals should be sought.

Adverse Environmental Impacts:

A primary aim for the proposed development of biosafe biotechnology and policies for their adoption is to ensure that there are no harmful impacts. An apriori case has made that is the case in our outputs from the RNRRS programme (see earlier).

Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters:

The outputs will enhance the ability of poor people to cope with droughts associated with climate change. The principal, direct consequence of nematode damage is to stunt root systems. This ensures plants are less able to obtain water and nutrients from soil. Common symptoms of attack are wilting and mineral deficiencies. This issue is very apparent for potato. It requires water to bulk its tubers. The effect is evident for other crops to which the plant technology could be applied later once biosafety is assured

Relevant Research Projects, with links to the
Research for Development (R4D) web site
and Technical Reports:

R4D	Project Title	Technical Report
R6380	Laos: Addressing technical, social and economic constraints to rice fish culture in Laos, emphasising women's involvement.
R6453	Transgenic crop resistance in upland and lowland rice to nematodes.
R6743	The Development and Testing of Transgenic Cultivars of Banana Resistant to Nematodes
R6948	The development and application of transformation systems in rice
R7294	Full and durable crop resistance in rice and potato plants to nematodes
R7458	Opportunities for more secure livelihoods for the poor developed through promotion of knowledge for enhanced integrated nutrient management in intensifying rain-fed farming systems.
R7548	Development of clean gene technology for rice transformation, and mapping of natural resistance to rice yellow mottle virus and nematodes in rice interspecific crosses.
R7556	A study to strengthen knowledge and information systems required by the poor to improve their livelihoods
R8031	Genetic transformation of rice, potato and cooking bananas for nematode resistance
R8044	Integrated management of major insect pests of potatoes in hillside systems in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia. Main Report. Annex 1 to 7, Annex 8 to 14.
R8104	Promoting potato seed-tuber management for increased ware yields in Kapchorwa District, Easten Uganda. Main Report. Annex.
R8296	Promotion of sustainable approaches for the management of root-knot nematodes on vegetables in Kenya. Main Report. Annex 1, Annex 2, Annex 4, Annex 5, Annex 6, Annex 7a, Annex 7c.
R8435	Sustainable Potato Seed – Tuber Management and Marketing Through Commercialization (SPOMMAC). Main Report. Annex 3, Annex 4, Annex 5, Annex 7 to 11, Annex 12.
R8443	IPM of potato pests in Bolivia
R8485	INNOVA: Strengthening technical innovation systems in potato based agriculture in Bolivia