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

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center here has developed a strain of
genetically engineered cassava plant it wants to give away to African
nations. But it's having trouble finding interest in the crop, December
2006.

The engineered cassava plant is immune to a virus that has wiped out the
crucial crop in several African nations. But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
reports that many African nations refuse to test the plant because of
long-standing doubts about biotechnology.

The Danforth Center is one of just a few public-sector research centers that
freely licenses genetically altered plants for humanitarian purposes.

The center works with crops that are largely ignored by corporations like
St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. because they are grown in poor countries
without wealthy farmers to pay licensing fees for the biotech crops.

But African countries aren't clamoring for biotech solutions. The Danforth
center has tried unsuccessfully for years to test the cassava plant in
countries that could most use it.

Only South Africa allows biotech crops to be grown and sold. A handful of
countries, such as Algeria, Benin and Zambia, have an outright ban on
biotech plants.

Other African nations don't have a strong position on the debate. The
Danforth Center is trying to persuade them to accept the plant.

Much of that work falls on the shoulders of Lawrence Kent, a Danforth Center
representative who went last summer to Uganda, Malawi and Kenya to make his
pitch to officials.

"There hasn't been a public-sector success story for developing countries,
and we'd all like to create one," he says. "There is pressure on us to
succeed."

Kent has met with mixed success. Nigeria was interested early on in the
biotech cassava. The Danforth Center flew Nigeria's national biosafety
committee to St. Louis. But the committee postponed approval meetings.

In 2004, Malawi nearly approved a field trial, but it was held up
indefinitely by one official. Kenya is the furthest along. It allowed a
limited test in 2004 in which resistant cassava plants were tested in a
closed greenhouse.

Still, many feel the crop isn't being rolled out quickly enough. The mosaic
virus continues to ravage crops. The consequences are severe for farmers
like Christopher Mukiibi in Uganda.

Mukiibi's cassava patch is sickly. Sitting outside in a yellow foam chair by
a pile of rotting mangoes, the 75-year-old recently ate a breakfast of corn
porridge and boiled cassava.

"It's the main crop that has sustained my family," he says through a
translator. His palsied hands tremble. He asks for food and sugar. "I need
assistance."

Resistance to biotech crops is stoked by fears that the relatively new
technology is not safe.

"There's just a lack of knowledge," said Patrick Rubaihayo, a plant
scientist at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. "It's a subject, a
monster they can't understand."

While Kent and others at the Danforth Center hit roadblocks in their quest
to introduce biotech crops, they also have help from high places.

Last year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $7.5 million to a
consortium of centers, including the Danforth Center.

The Gates Foundation is trying to promote research on so-called "orphaned"
crops like rice, banana, sorghum and cassava that are often ignored by the
private sector.

Scientists who develop biotech crops say the costs are considerable and they
are constrained by limited funding.

Monsanto estimates it can cost up to $100 million to bring a biotech product
to market. The Danforth Center's endowment isn't even that big.

[www.montereyherald.com]

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