www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

This past year featured some ?significant milestones? regarding worldwide
biotech acceptance ? and that trend will continue, March 2006 by Tom C.
Doran .

Thomas West, vice president of biotech affairs and business support at
Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., called the trend ?the most rapid
adoption of technology in agriculture?s history. It doesn?t always feel that
way because we?re living on a day-to-day basis, but if you look back, steady
progress has been made and take note because 2005 had some pretty
significant milestones.?

West made his remarks to media representatives at Pioneer?s ?The Science of
Solution? event Feb. 22. His presentation was entitled ?Managing Worldwide
Biotech Regulatory Acceptance.?

?We have a spectacular technology that is just beginning to apply, and
stewardship is really going to give us the right to use this technology ?
stewardship by the industry, including ourselves, stewardship by all of the
growers throughout the world who take advantage of it,? he noted.

Critical milestones in biotech acceptance this past year included the
adoption of a new biosafety law and regulations in Brazil, and the adoption
of a biosafety law in Mexico where regulations for maize are currently being
drafted.

?Mexico already had biosafety legislation for cotton and soy, but they did
not have safety legislation maize until this year. That is critical to U.S.
growers. It?s critical because they are major exporters and importers.

?Brazil obviously is the number two exporter. They are going to be growing,
even around corn. What they do and what we do in the United States will have
a large impact on how open the import markets are around the world, because
it?s critical that Brazil makes this change and that they move from the
situation they had of illegal brown bag soybeans and the potential for the
same in other crops, to a government instituted safe protocol that is
science/risk based and enforced.

?Mexico is important because it?s white corn, not yellow corn. That?s going
to, in turn, allow the white seed corn market in the United States, a large
portion of which is exported to Mexico, to switch to biotech,? he explained.
?Mexico is kind of the first domino that has to change, and it will be
changed in the next couple of years.?

In the United States, the FDA?s adventitious presence (AP) regulation was
delayed when commissioner Lester Crawford resigned. ?In talks to government
officials around the world, it?s pretty difficult to talk to them about an
AP policy in their country when we don?t have one. It?s absolutely critical
that the FDA get this policy out. It was originally promised about a year
ago. It?s still being promised. It?s an important U.S. policy that we hope
will guide and help us talk to governments around the world.

?Europe clearly is beginning to lift the moratorium. A lot has happened. We
have a number of products that are approved for import, but we have yet to
have the first approval for cultivation. In fact, our Herculex 1 dossier
will be the first one to come up for cultivation. I think that?s going to be
a very significant step. That will be a telling tale.?

Another biotech milestone was with rice, West continued. Iran has approved
and commercialized biotech rice. China has a least four dossiers for GMO
rice waiting final approval.

?Rice is important because it?s the largest food grain. It?s important
because traits are coming from China, not from the United States. That?s
going to be important for acceptance in Asia, and once China moves, India
will move very quickly. That opens up for biotechnology in food crops
because today, with the exception of corn and soybeans, cotton, a non-food
crop, is really the only thing that?s approved for cultivation. So within
the next year or two most of that would expect that tipping point to occur,?
West said.

He stressed the importance of stewardship in achieving greater biotech
acceptance, as there have been reports of an accidental release by a U.S.
source of a non-registered maize product by one company. It was also
reported that Bt rice was found at grain wholesalers in certain areas of
China.

?There?s a lot going on that?s challenging the industry?s stewardship. It?s
not a safety issue, but it is a quality issue that reflects on the industry
and it simply has to be controlled. That?s where stewardship comes in. It
demands world-class stewardship by the industry and everyone involved. We
need that to be able to have the confidence in consumers around the world.

Several other challenges also remain along the path toward worldwide biotech
acceptance.

?We had some crop trials destroyed in France this year. We?ve had it in
prior years. I put it down here because there?s been a significant shift
from prior years. The response to field crop destruction this year by the
local media, local elected officials, by French legislators have been
entirely different than in past years, and it?s a very positive thing. It?s
a good sign, not that the trials were destroyed, but that the response has
been gratifying and quite different than the past.?

West added that the ?regulations on stacks, with our cultivation dossier for
Herculex I coming up in Europe, is really going to be a critical milestone.?
Biotech challenges also include the potential impact of local referendums.
Swiss voters approved a five-year moratorium. Sonoma, Calif., voters and
Prince Edwards Island, Canada, voters both rejected moratoriums.

Overall, there has been ten years of double-digit growth in the amount of
acreage where biotech crops are planted.

?Twenty-one countries are now planting biotech crops for cultivation ? eight
and a half million farmers. More than 90 percent of the farmers that plant
biotech are in developing countries. They are subsistence farmers. They have
a plot that?s smaller than this room.

?The most powerful thing that that tells us is that this is perhaps the
first technology in the history of agriculture that?s size-neutral. Almost
every other technology that has come along, from mechanical harvesting to
larger tractors to GPS units, even the chemical application because of the
capital required to spray, almost every other advance required for rewards
larger farms, more capital. To put that technology into a seed, that seed
acts the exactly the same whether it?s a subsistence farmer in South Africa
that literally has a plot the size of this table or in (a large field)
Iowa.?

West predicts that in a couple of years, biotech use by developing countries
will surpass use by industrial countries because of Brazil with corn and
soybeans and China for rice production due to the size neutrality. ?That?s a
good thing for the U.S. farmer, because in the end we really won?t get
complete adoption for our export markets until it?s grown in that country.

?We?ve proven time after time in markets if you really want consumer
confidence, you?re really going to have to have that available in that
country, as well,? he stated. ?That will open up more export markets for
U.S. farmers.?

In terms of what is in the biotechnology pipeline, West said the ?next three
to five years will generally look different than the last three to five
years ? the kinds of products that are out and the range of products that
are out.?

Biotech products are now in the second generation of pest and weed control
with multiple pest/weed control traits. Other agronomic traits will include
stress reduction and yield increases, and there will also be improvements in
feed quality and food quality and taste.

West noted the global regulatory status of various Herculex products. ?I
might add that in the European Food Safety Website, we at Pioneer/DuPont now
have the largest number of dossiers of any company in the world. That?s all
crops, all species. All of ours happen to be corn.?

Among the recent developments by DuPont is a bio-based method that uses
corn, rather than conventional petroleum-based process, to produce polymer
for use in clothing, carpets and other materials.

[www.agrinewspubs.com]

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