NGO, farmer group back biotech corn

A leading non-governmental organization and the country’s largest organization of corn farmers recently expressed support for the country’s adoption of a biotechnology-processed corn variety.

Filipino scientist Leonardo Gonzales, chairman and president of Sikap Foundation, told a large gathering of agricultural researchers and experts that Bt corn "is relatively superior over non-Bt corn in terms of yield, costs, profit and nutritional food security".

Bt corn is a hybrid corn variety that has been genetically engineered to become more resistant to the Asiatic Corn Borer, the primary plague hounding the local corn sector.

Gonzales said multilocation field tests in the Philippines showed that Bt corn yields in the trial farms were higher by 41 percent than non-Bt corn. Tests done in actual corn farmers’ fields showed the advantage to be higher at an average of 60 percent superior yield.

Gonzales also said using Bt corn may be cheaper to local corn farmers. He said tests showed that it costs P2.81 to produce a kilo of Bt corn, while it costs P3.71 to produce a kilo of the non-Bt variety.

"Bt corn also outperformed non-Bt terms of profitability within the trial sites," Gonzales disclosed. He said the profitability advantage of Bt corn over non-Bt ranged form 25 percent to 86 percent.

Gonzales also reported that nearly nine out of 10 corn farmers said they are aware of and are willing to buy Bt corn seeds once these are available in the market. "The major reasons cited were high yields and less use of pesticide," Gonzales explained.

The natural insect resistance of Bt corn, commercially labeled as YieldGard in the international market, accounts for the significantly reduced requirement for chemical pesticide application.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Maize Federation, Inc. (PMFI) recently expressed its support for President Arroyo’s policy statement adopting biotech-nology as a strategy for improving agricultural productivity and attaining global competitiveness.

The PMFI, the country’s largest organization of corn farmers, said Mrs. Arroyo’s move has set the stage for the acceleration of agricultural development in the country. PMFI secretary Antonio Intong said its members believe "biotechnology offers the country a potent tool for addressing food security and environmental concerns in the face of declining farm productivity, dwindling agricultural area, deteriorating land quality and rising poverty".

The group also hailed the development of biotech corn with natural high resistance to pests, saying, "the reduced application of insecticides will ensure higher farmer earnings while preserving the environment". They also cited the hazards posed by insecticides on the health of corn farmers.

Biotechnology is now predominantly used in some 14 countries, including Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and the US, which now grows 68 percent of the world’s total biotechnology processed crop acres. Biotech crops now account for 52 percent of the corn, soy, cotton and canola acreage in the US. Several Asian countries like China, Thailand and India have already stepped up the application of biotechnology to their respective agricultural sectors.