Brazil genomists see GMOs protecting world forests
Date: 19-Sep-02
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Reese Ewing
Fernando Reinach, director of Votorantim Ventures, a private equity fund that invests in Brazil's booming biotechnology sector, said genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could protect biodiversity at a moment when the world's growing population is stressing the food supply.
"We have two choices - either we embrace bioengineered crops, which allow us to produce more on the same hectares, or we expand the world's arable land by cutting down more rain forest and plowing under more savanna," said Reinach.
He noted that growth in the food that conventional agriculture could squeeze from the world's farm land had plateaued since 1980 and was unlikely to grow again with only the skilled use of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation.
But the World Bank estimates that the Earth will have to feed 8 to 12 billion people by 2050. The world's current population is seen near 6 billion people.
"GMO crops are a medium-term investment that could lighten the impact the demand for greater agricultural production puts on the surrounding environment," said Paulo Arruda, director at the applied genomics company, Alellyx.
Arruda, who oversaw the genetic mapping of the sugar cane plant in Brazil, was one of the scientists to speak at the seminar sponsored by Brazil's Council on Biotechnological Information.
Local consumer groups and environmentalists, however, actively oppose what they call "Frankenstein Foods".
Greenpeace in Brazil said a study published by Britain's Soil Association showed that the planting of GMO soy, corn and canola was an "economic disaster" in North America.
Brazil, the world's largest producer and exporters of coffee, sugar and orange juice, as well as the No. 2 producer of soy after the United States, currently bans GMO sales.
"The sharp growth in Brazilian soy exports in the last year is threatened by transgenics (GMOs)," said Greenpeace's Simone Corinn Czech. "This report is one more indication that the coexistence of transgenics and non-transgenics is impossible."
MISCONCEPTIONS
Although Brazil remains the last agricultural producer of its size in the world to ban the commercial use of GMOs, its university system has mushroomed in just half a decade into a hotbed for biogenetic research projects.
"There is a misconception that only well industrialized nations have the resources and intellectual ability required to remain on the cutting edge of scientific development," said Jose Perez, a scientific director at the Sao Paulo Agricultural Research Fund (Fapesp).
Perez said Brazil could make biotechnology an exportable commodity, crucial to the country's technological development.
"The public is not ill-informed as much as little informed about the benefits, risks and importance of this knowledge for the economy," said Perez, one of the University of Sao Paulo professors who conceptualized Brazil's 1997 genome project.
Since then Brazilian scientists have collaborated with their peers from other country's such as the United States to blueprint the gene code of crops such as sugar cane and coffee, crop diseases, human cancer cells and other organisms.
"Agriculture is the worst thing for the environment - whether conventional or otherwise," said Reinach. "Are there risks in the use of GMOs? Of course there are. But we need to weigh these risks against their benefits."
"It's nothing new for us. We overcome the risks in developing new airplanes. There are risks for humans in flying - planes can crash, but we still manage to move people through the air around the world relatively safely."
