Making the Most of Banana January 2009
The role of biotechnology in fighting banana disease
Professor Frank Shotkoski: Biotechnology Project Director
Summary:
Frank Shotkoski, Director of a Biotechnology Project, explains how transferring genes from one plant to another can increase resistance to certain diseases and viruses. Researchers in Uganda, for example, are trying to introduce resistance to Black Sigatoka, while others are looking at making bananas resistant to nematodes. He responds to some common criticisms of biotechnology - that it is too expensive for African countries and that it could have disastrous side-effects.
Suggested introduction:
For banana farmers there are many challenges. Diseases and pests are some of the most serious. Whilst there are cultural methods which try to reduce the problem, such as the use of ash to tackle nematodes and cross-breeding to develop disease-resistant varieties, most have proved ineffective, forcing scientists to look for new innovations.
One such innovation is biotechnology. This is a new scientific tool which has been the subject of a lot of debate recently as it involves modification of living things either to increase their resistance to disease and pests or to improve their productivity. So can biotechnology help fight disease in banana and plantain, the staple foods for over a hundred million people in sub-Saharan Africa?
Professor Frank Shotkoski is Director of the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project, supported by USAID. For twenty years he has been at the forefront of introducing biotechnology for Africa's major crops, including banana. George Kalungwe met him to find out why he has high hopes for biotechechnology in Africa, but first George wanted to get a clear definition of biotechnology.
Tape in:
Biotechnology is just a movement of genetic...
Tape out:
...product. So it's just a matter of time.
Closing Announcement:
Professor Frank Shotkoski, Director of the Agriculture Biotechnology Support Project.
Making the most of it:
Invite a guest speaker to describe other potential uses of biotechnology in African agriculture.
Further information:
Frank A. Shotkoski, PhD
Director, Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II,
Cornell University,
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, International Programmes,
213 Rice Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853,
Email: fas23@cornell.edu
Transcript
Shotkoski
Biotechnology is just a movement of genetic material that allows living things to be the way they are. This can happen through natural means, the conventional breeding. When you cross two different parents, the siblings are going to be different than those. Some are going to be better some are going to be less.
Kalungwe
Can you simplify the scientific laboratory modification part of it? Because what you have said is somehow natural.
Shotkoski
With the increase in scientific knowledge we've learned very specifically how these changes happen naturally. So now what we can do is, we can go into a laboratory with our very special tools that we have and pick out the pieces that are very important: the genes that confer resistance to disease for example, resistance to insects, drought tolerance, genes that will allow a plant to be more nutritious; take those very specific things out and put them where we want them. And that's what we call genetic modification or genetic engineering.
Kalungwe
How can biotechnology help fight diseases?
Shotkoski
In the context of the East African highland banana, there are genes out there that we know confer resistance to certain fungal diseases, certain viruses that we can genetically move into the East African highland banana using our special tools that I was talking about. And then we can grow those bananas and see if they actually do confer resistance to these diseases. And we can do this very specifically without having to spend years trying to develop conventional breeding techniques.
Kalungwe
Are you just looking at from banana to banana? Because it is even from animal to banana, that's what we hear.
Shotkoski
Basically people take a gene from wherever they can find it. Most of the genes that we are working with come from other plants. From sweet peppers, they've come from maize, they've come from rice, they are from other plants for the most part.
Kalungwe
What, can you give me the examples of diseases which biotechnology can help fight?
Shotkoski
Well Black Sigatoka is one of the projects we are working on in Uganda. Another one of our projects is to develop nematode resistant bananas. A nematode is a small microscopic worm that feeds on roots and can cause some serious problems in banana. The one single most severe problem is in Central Africa, but it's also a serious problem in West Africa. And it's not only a problem there, it's a problem in Asia. So this is a technology that if developed in East Central Africa could be moved to West Africa, it could be moved to India and other parts of Asia as well.
Kalungwe
Do you regard biotechnology as the only or the best solution to diseases affecting banana?
Shotkoski
It's part of a tool box. In order to increase the yields and quality of bananas in Africa it's going to be a holistic system that's going to have to occur. Soil fertility is going to have to be taken into consideration. And the cultural practices, irrigation, put together with genetic engineering will result in a very, very strong, highly productive banana. But by itself, no I don't see it being the end-all.
Kalungwe
About capacity, I don't think African governments can afford biotechnology, it's too expensive.
Shotkoski
I disagree with that. I see right now in Uganda for example, the National Agriculture Research Laboratory Institute, they have one of the best gene transformation banana laboratories in the entire world. It's capable of doing almost anything that any other lab in the rest of the developed world can do. It takes persistence and government support to keep these people. Africa is educating a large number of national students. Many Africans that are trained in Africa, either go to Europe, Australia, US, even Asia because they have better opportunities. That has to change. The solution is going to be developing the capacity in those countries to make laboratories that are attractive for those people to stay in Africa.
Kalungwe
As much as biotechnology has been justified in several aspects, there are still growing fears that one day it might turn wrong and we are creating a monster.
Shotkoski
My comment on that is that the GM-technologies that have been on the market now for over 10, 12 years, there's not a single incidence of, even to my knowledge, an allergic reaction. GM-type crops are probably the most highly regulated and scientifically scrutinised technology there is. Even the pharmaceutical industry doesn't go through the rigours that a GM crop does. So the likelihood of something being introduced that's going to go wrong is so minimal. The risk is very minimal.
Kalungwe
Now this is for Africa. The other problem is that if you fight diseases in banana through biotechnology, the crop, the product itself is going to be expensive, so much so that a local farmer cannot afford.
Shotkoski
It's not going to be for free, but what I will say is that I believe in the next 10 to 15 years most countries in Africa will have adopted some type of biotechnology applications. You already see in Kenya with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation the drought-tolerant maize projects; many different traits in rice, many of which will have strong applications in Africa; matooke banana projects coming along. Transgenic cotton is already in South Africa, it's in Burkina Faso now, and Malawi, Uganda and several other countries are already in the process of introducing the product. So it's just a matter of time. End of track.
