EDITORIAL - Science and the environment

If certain environmental warriors were active several decades ago, the so-called miracle rice might never have been developed at the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Laguna. Instead in 1969, the IRRI received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding for seven years of interdisciplinary collaboration among Asian and Western scientists to achieve “radical, rapid advances in rice culture” and consequently easing global hunger.

Specifically cited was a super rice variety designed for the tropics, which is non-photosensitive and can be planted at any season. At the time of the conferment of the award, breeders were seeking to make the new rice varieties more resistant to pests and disease.

Such improved varieties do not materialize with the wave of a magic wand or by drowning them in chemicals. The plants need tinkering at a molecular level. This was what scientists were working on in developing a more pest-resistant eggplant, until the Supreme Court, responding to a petition, stepped in last month and stopped field-testing of the genetically modified vegetable.

As agricultural biotechnologists and other members of the scientific and academic communities have pointed out, the SC ruling on Bacillus thuringienesis or bt talong not only stopped field-testing of the eggplant but also field trials, propagation, commercialization and importation of all genetically modified or GM crops.

The second part of the SC decision last month invalidated a 2002 order of the Department of Agriculture governing GM crops. National Scientist Ricardo Lantican, a member of the Agricultural Sciences Division of the National Academy of Science and Technology, pointed out that this was not even sought by environmental groups in the petition filed with the Court of Appeals and later reviewed by the SC.

The DA can issue a new administrative order governing GM crops, but it will have to take into consideration the concerns raised in the SC ruling about the certainty of full safety in the development and field-testing of bt talong. But isn’t crop safety precisely among the factors being established in scientific research and development?

This issue will likely return to the SC. When it does, the parties involved must see to it that the high tribunal gets a broader perspective on the ways of scientific research and its goal of serving humanity. That goal is not incompatible with protecting the environment.