Biotech crops can help fight climate change: ISAAA
Biotech crops could help to offset climate change’s effects on the environment whilst also increasing food production, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has said. Biotech crops, otherwise referred to as genetically modified (GM) crops, can be engineered to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, as well as improve yields and productivity. Biotechnology can reduce the time it takes to naturally create crops that have lower emissions, helping to slow climate change more rapidly. The ISAAA reports that biotech crop planting stood at 185.1m hectares worldwide in 2016, with the number increasing yearly.
“The ill effects of global warming are being reversed by the increasing area for genetically modified crops which have been contributing to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission.” – Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR).

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Biotechnology can help offset the effects of climate change and help increase food production, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

“Biotech crops have become a vital agricultural resource for farmers around the world because of the immense benefits for improved productivity and profitability, as well as conservation efforts,” pointed out Prof. Paul S. Teng, ISAAA Chair of the Board, during the launching of the latest report, Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2016.

Biotech crops – also known as genetically modified (GM) crops – are modified through genetic engineering. “(Genetic engineering),” explained Dr. Saturnina C. Halos, who used to be with the Biotechnology Technical Advisory Team of the Department of Agriculture, “is a procedure that produces a genetically modified organism.

“It comprises a set of techniques that transfers desired genes by splicing the genes to a DNA vector and forcing the entry of the vectors with the genes into cells and the stable integration of the genes into the genetic machinery of the host cell,” she added.

For the last 21 years of commercialization, biotech crops have been contributing to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

In 2015, genetically-modified (GM) crops helped reduce 26.7 billion kilograms to carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere. “That’s equivalent to taking 11.9 million cars off the road for one year,” Prof. Teng said.

Carbon dioxide, which plays a major role in controlling the earth’s surface temperature, is one of greenhouse gases, which also include chlorofluorocarbons, methane gas, and the nitrogen compound. They are important in what science called as “greenhouse effect.”

“When radiant energy from the sun reaches the earth’s atmosphere, it passes through the greenhouse gases, heating the earth’s surface,” wrote H. Steven Dashefsky, author of Environmental Literacy: Everything You Need to Know about Saving Our Planet.

“The heat (infrared radiation) is then reradiated (released) from the earth back up into the atmosphere,” Dashefsky further wrote. “The greenhouse gases, however, absorb infrared radiation, trapping it and heating up the lower portion of the atmosphere.”

As long as the amount of greenhouse gases remains constant, along with other climatic factors, the temperature on the planet remains steady. Increased amount of greenhouse gases due to human activities increase the greenhouse effect and are believed to lead to climate change.

“Climate change is more disastrous to the agricultural industry of the Philippines and its neighboring countries than in other parts of the world,” warned Dr. David Street of the US Argonne National Laboratory.

The Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) reported that climate change could reduce rice yields. Although its study showed that rice could benefit from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, an increase in temperature would “nullify any yield increase.”

As such, the ISAAA bats for green biotechnology that offers a solution to decrease greenhouse gases which, in turn, mitigates climate change. “Crops can be modified faster through biotechnology than conventional crops, thus hastening implementation of strategies to meet rapid and severe climatic changes,” the ISAAA briefing paper explains.

The 2016 ISAAA report said that biotech crop planting resumes high adoption at 185.1 million hectares around the world.

“A year after the second decade of commercialization of biotech/GM crops in 2016, 26 countries grew 185.1 million hectares of biotech crops – an increase of 5.4 million hectares or 3% from 179.7 million hectares in 2015,” the report explained. “Except for the 2015 adoption, this is the 20th series of increases every single year; and notably 12 of the 20 years were double-digit growth rates.”

The 185.1 million hectares of biotech crops were grown by 26 countries, of which 19 were developing and 7 industrial countries, the report said. Developing countries grew 54% (99.6 million hectares) of the global biotech crop area compared to 46% (85.5 million hectares) for industrial countries.

The Philippines now ranks as the 12th biggest producer of biotech crops, particularly corn, in the world. It remains to be the top grower of biotech crops in Southeast Asia, according to the report.

“About 812,000 hectares of biotech corn was planted in the Philippines in 2016, a remarkable 16% increase from the 702,000 hectares planted in 2015 which is equivalent to 110,000 hectares,” the report said.

The increase was due to favorable weather conditions and high local demand for livestock and feed stocks.

“Adoption rates of biotech corn also increased from 63% in 2015 to 65% in 2016, when the number of small, resource-poor farmers, growing on average, 2 hectares of biotech corn in the Philippines was estimated to be over 406,000,” the report said.

The report added that the farm level economic benefit of planting biotech corn in the country from 2003 to 2015 was estimated to have reached US$642 million, and for 2015 alone, the net national impact of biotech crop on farm income was estimated at US$82 million.

Biotech corn, approved for commercial planting in 2002, is the only biotech crop planted in the Philippines today. The report said that “only 13 biotech corn events” have been approved for cultivation, the last of which was given in 2014. All in all, about 88 biotech crop events are approved for food, feed and processing, including: alfalfa (2 events), rapeseed (2), cotton (8), corn (52), potato (8), rice (1), soybean (14), and sugar beet (1).

The acceptance of biotech crops in the country has been demonstrated by key stakeholders including the general public, such that a Joint Department Circular (JDC) was quickly put together in record time of three months in 2016 after the Supreme Court nullified and invalidated the Department of Agriculture Administrative Order 8 which served as the government policy for biotech crops for more than 20 years.

Aside from DA, other government agencies that are involved in the implementation JDC – “Rules and Regulations for the Research and Development, Handling and Use, Transboundary Movement, Release into the Environment, and Management of Genetically-Modified Plant and Plant Products Derive from the Use of Modern Biotechnology” – are the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

As per Republic Act 10611, the five aforementioned agencies “shall be responsible in the enforcement of food safety and sanitary rules and regulations, including inspection and compliance.”

One of the priority research areas of DOST is modern biotechnology. As such, the department is given the task for “evaluating applications for contained use and confined test of regulated articles.”

The DENR, which is responsible for the conservation, management, development and proper use of the country’s environment and natural resources, will “lead in evaluating environmental risks and impacts of regulated articles for field trial, commercial propagation and direct use of living modified organisms in accordance with the circular.”

For its part, the DOH shall “lead in the evaluation of health impacts of regulated articles for field trial, commercial propagation, and direct use of living modified organisms” as stated in the circular.

The DA is given a bulk of work. It does not only “evaluate applications for field trial, commercial propagation and transboundary movement of regulated articles,” but also “evaluate the independent reports as well as socio-economic, ethical and cultural considerations.”

The DILG will conduct public consultation through public hearing.

“All the results of the risk assessment and public hearing and consultation will be used as decision tools before approving a transformation event,” said Dr. Vivencio R. Mamaril, officer-in-charge as director of the Bureau of Plant Industry and director of the Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Biotechnology Program of the Department of Agriculture.

Future commercialization of Bt eggplant, ring spot virus resistance papaya, Bt cotton and golden rice will be regulated under the new JDC.