YEARENDER: GMOs place Phl on global research map in 2013

MANILA, Philippines - Like in previous years, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) placed the Philippines in both bad and good light on the global research map in 2013.

“The anti-GMO fever still rages brightly, fanned by electronic gossip and well-organized fear-mongering that profits some individuals and organizations,” said 11 internationally known scientists as they slammed the destruction of an experimental farm of golden rice (GR) in Pili, Camarines Sur last Aug. 8.

On that day, anti-GMO militants barged into a GR research farm of the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and destroyed maturing GM rice research plants there. Damage was estimated at P1.3 million.

The incident did not go unnoticed in the science world, according to Dr. George Parrott of the University of Georgia in the United States.

Speaking at a science forum at the Philippine government-hosted, Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), Parrott reported that the attack on the GR farm was published in more than a hundred major newspapers and science journals across the world, including the famous New York Times.

Protest statement

In one case, Parrott said in his SEARCA-sponsored lecture, the Science journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science published a “Statement of Protest” pieced together by 11 scientists, two of them Nobel laureates, namely Dr. Phillip Sharp, current AAAS president, and Dr. Gunnter Blobel of the Rockefeller University in New York.

Other signatories to the protest statement included Dr. Bruce Alberts, president emeritus of the US National Academy of Science; professor Nina Federoff of the Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia; Australia’s former chief scientist Dr. Jim Peacock; and Swappan Datta, deputy director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

The scientists said, “The global science community has condemned the wanton destruction of these field trials... If ever there was a clear-cut cause for outrage, it is the concerted campaign by Greenpeace and the non-government organizations, as well as individuals against golden rice.”

They added: “We, and the thousands of other scientists who have signed the statement of protest, stand together in staunch opposition to the violent destruction of required tests on valuable advances such as golden rice that have the potential to save millions of impoverished fellow humans from needless suffering and death.”

GR is a genetically modified rice strain that can produce beta-carotene, a rich source of vitamin A. It aims to tackle the problem of vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which results in blindness. Across the world, millions of children are suffering from VAD and, as estimated, 6,000 of them die every day.

Greenpeace is a Europe-based anti-GMO activist group that has been leading the global campaign to counter the “biotechnology revolution” now taking place in about 30 countries, including “biotech mega-countries” such as the US, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, India, China, South Africa, and Pakistan.

In 2012, the Philippines ranked 12th among the world’s “biotech mega-countries,” or those planting GM crops in 50,000 hectares or more. Biotech or Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) corn has considerably helped the country become sufficient in corn.

Greenpeace allegedly has a $350-million annual fund to finance its anti-GMO campaigns, said Mark Lynas, visiting research associate of Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

The British book author, researcher, and journalist was in the Philippines in the third quarter of 2013 for a series of lectures centered on “The Struggle for Truth: Mark Lynas Story” at SEARCA in Los Baños and in Metro Manila.

Lynas knows whereof he speaks, having been an anti-GMO campaigner himself for about two decades ago.

“I helped to start the anti-GMO movement back in the mid-1990s, and that I hereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment,” he told Filipino journalists in a lecture in Makati City.

In January 2013, Lynas surprised the world by declaring at the Oxford (UK) Farming Conference that he was now supporting biotechnology.

Apologizing “for having spent several years ripping GM crops,” he said, “Most of the anti-GMO case is mythology, and does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.”

Another winning point for the pro-GMO sector came in late 2013 when an international publication retracted an article written by an anti-biotechnology French professor, Gilles Eric Seralini, who alleged that the presence of long-term toxicity in GM corn varieties caused tumor among laboratory mice.

The retracted material was extensively quoted in a Court of Appeals (CA) decision permanently stopping field trials on GM or Bt eggplant because these allegedly posed risks to human health and the environment.

The CA decision was refuted by science groups, among them the National Academy of Science and Technology and the UP League of Agricultural Biotechnology Students.

For almost a decade now, the UP Los Baños’ Institute of Plant Breeding has been conducting field trials on Bt eggplant, a GM crop that can produce a protein that defends it against fruit and stem borer, the most destructive eggplant pest.

The variety has been described as “pro-people” and “pro-environment” as it can increase yield, considerably reduce dependence on pesticide, improve income, and enhance consumer choice in the marketplace.

SC petition

In April 2012, a Greenpeace-led group petitioned the Supreme Court (SC) for a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) and writs of kalikasan and continuing mandamus to stop the Bt eggplant field trials. A writ of kalikasan is a legal remedy designed for the protection of one’s constitutional right to a healthy environment.

In May 2012, the CA granted the writ of kalikasan and ordered those involved in the Bt eggplant research project to permanently stop further confined field trials allegedly because Bt eggplant poses risks to human health and the environment. The case has been elevated to the SC.

Related to this issue, the Food and Chemical Toxicity (FCT) journal has retracted an article written by Seralini, saying his findings were “inconclusive.” The article was published in FCT in November 2012.

The journal disavowed the allegations contained in Seralini’s paper, which was reportedly quoted in the CA decision.

“The results presented are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicity,” the journal said.

In another front, the BT eggplant issue continues to rage, as 11 people, some of them Greenpeace campaigners, have been charged with malicious mischief before the Municipal Trial Court-Fourth Judicial Region in Bay, Laguna for allegedly destroying UPLB’s Bt eggplant experimental farm on Feb. 17, 2011.

On that day, the intruders forced their way into the fenced, “off-limit” UPLB research farm and uprooted the Bt eggplants. UPLB estimated damage to the project at P25 million.

The incident, which was reportedly participated in by some foreigners, was covered by foreign and local media.

Of the 11 respondents, three are being tried while the eight others are at large, having failed to post the bail recommended by the court.

Started in 2006, the Bt eggplant project is developing a variety resistant to the highly destructive fruit and stem borer. Done in partnership with Mahyco in India and Cornell University in New York, it is supported by the Department of Agriculture, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, SEARCA-Biotechnology Information Center, US Agency for International Development, and Agricultural Biotechnology Support Program.

The raids on the golden rice and UPLB Bt eggplant projects were among those committed against GM crops over the past decade that have placed the country on the world’s research map in a negative light.

In December 2012, a Bt eggplant research project of UP Mindanao in Davao City was attacked. A decade ago, militants swooped down on a Bt corn research farm in Cotabato and uprooted the experimental plants there.

The “GMO war” in the country goes on.