Genetically Modified Crops in Asia Pacific

G T. Gujar, Y Andi Trisyono, Mao Chen, G T. Gujar, Y Andi Trisyono, Mao Chen, G Gujar

• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781486310906
• eBook ISBN: 9781486310920
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agribusiness
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Meeting future food needs without compromising environmental integrity is a central challenge for agriculture globally but especially for the Asia Pacific region – where 60% of the global population, including some of the world's poorest, live on only 30% of the land mass. To guarantee the food security of this and other regions, growers worldwide are rapidly adopting genetically modified (GM) crops as the forerunner to protect against many biotic and abiotic stresses. Asia Pacific countries play an important role in this, with India, China and Pakistan appearing in the top 10 countries with acreage of GM crops, primarily devoted to Bt cotton.

Genetically Modified Crops in Asia Pacific discusses the progress of GM crop adoption across the Asia Pacific region over the past two decades, including research, development, adoption and sustainability, as well as the cultivation of insect resistant Bt brinjal, drought-tolerant sugarcane, late blight resistant potato and biotech rice more specific to this region. Regulatory efforts of the Asia Pacific member nations to ensure the safety of GM crops to both humans and the environment are also outlined to provide impetus in other countries initiating biotech crops. The authors also probe into some aspects of gene editing and nanobiotechnology to expand the scope into next generation GM crops, including the potential to grow crops in acidic soil, reduce methane production, remove poisonous elements from plants and improve overall nutritional quality.

Genetically Modified Crops in Asia Pacific provides a comprehensive reference not only for academics, researchers and private sectors in crop systems but also policy makers in the Asia Pacific region. Beyond this region, readers will benefit from understanding how GM crops have been integrated into many different countries and, in particular, the effects of the take-up of GM cropping systems by farmers with different socioeconomic backgrounds.

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Biotech/genetically modified crops in Asia Pacific: a way forward

GT Gujar, Y Andi Trisyono and Mao Chen

Introduction

Asia Pacific is generally considered a region in or near the western Pacific Ocean, and includes much of East, South and South-East Asia and Oceania. It has temperate to tropical climates, mountainous to plateau geography, and landlocked to island localities. Asia Pacific has 41 sovereign countries. It occupies ~29.23 million sq km area (22.5% of the world’s land area of 130 million sq km), supports 3.86 billion people (more than 50% of the world’s population) and had about $25.3 trillion gross domestic product (GDP) (~36% of the world’s wealth) in 2017. It also presents a large variation in agriculture. About 20–50% of land in the region is devoted to farming. More than 40% of farm area is cultivated by small farmers owning less than 2 ha. Yet, these farmers have a much larger share in production of staple crops. Asia Pacific produces ~50% of the world’s cereals, 45% of roots and tubers, 48% of pulses, 49% of fruits and 66% of vegetables (FAO-RAP 2012). It is the largest producer of rice and spices in the world. Besides crops, it has more vibrant capture and inland fish farming than any other region of the world. Asia Pacific consumes 10–30% or even more of its animal proteins from fish, while most of the developed world uses less than 10% of fish-derived animal proteins. Asia Pacific thus utilises its abundance of natural resources to supplement its nutritional needs.

Agriculture contributes ~18% of the overall GDP in South Asia, 8% in East Asia and 12% each in the South-East Asia and Oceania regions.¹ Agricultural production has increased significantly in the last five decades in this region, contributing to food and nutritional security for its people.

Asia Pacific also represents numerically a large number of hungry people (~491 million, more than 50% of the world’s hungry in 2016) as well as stunted, wasted and obese children (136 million, ~56.7% of the world’s children in 2017). Changes in dietary habits in recent years have led to obesity in children and more specifically in adults of South Asia. Unfortunately, the rising population of hungry people since 2015 has suffered from malnutrition and consequently poor health. Even deficiency of macronutrients like protein abounds, including in some countries where vegetarians largely depend upon pulses for their needs.

The world population is projected to increase from 7.5 billion in 2018 to ~9.7 billion in 2050, with the greatest increase being in Asia. The region’s limited land and other natural resources will act as constraints to achieving higher production. At present, per capita availability of arable land has shrunken from 0.16 ha to 0.09 ha over the last 50 years in the East Asia Pacific region (excluding high-income countries).² Similarly, water availability has declined with increasing cropping intensity despite a deepening water table. Untreated waste water is polluting the environment. According to Asian Development Bank (2016), Asia Pacific is fast becoming a hotspot for water insecurity.³ Furthermore, most of its population is migrating to cities and large townships. Changes in food habits, a rising middle class, and awareness of hygiene and health are increasingly pressing for alternatives to the current food needs. The diversification of food basket to meet nutritional security is slowly taking place, with many countries increasing their fruit and vegetable production; China and India together are the largest producers of fruits and vegetables in the world. Despite increases in agricultural production, the challenge of feeding the ever-increasing population is formidable. China regularly imports food products and is predicted to continue to do so in the range of 3–5% of its domestic production up to 2025 (Huang et al. 2017). India imports a huge quantity of edible oil (~15–16 million tons annually) as it faces huge shortfall of edible oilseeds. A survey conducted by Rabobank showed that Asia imports 11% more food products than it exports.⁴ It is estimated that as India becomes the most populous nation by 2030, it may be able to meet its food grain production needs but not its fruit, vegetable, edible oil, poultry and bovine meat needs, if productivity and post-harvest constraints are not more effectively addressed (Kumar et al. 2016). Similarly, ~60% of India’s population may face severe shortfall in terms of three macronutrients like calories (especially from carbohydrates), digestible protein and fat, during 2030–2050 (Ritchie et al. 2018). Thus, this region represents a challenge wherein developmental goals of eradication of hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 need to be achieved with the available land and other non-renewable resources in a sustainable manner.

Unfortunately, most countries of the region spend less than 1% of their GDP on agricultural research and development, although it is well known that returns on agricultural research and development are much more than investments. Agriculture will have to be more technology-oriented in the context of socio-economics and the environment.⁵

GM crops in Asia Pacific

Traditionally, crop improvement involves selection of best varieties based on the traits of high productivity and adaptability in the local environment, followed by breeding to combine the traits to the furthest extent possible. However, these efforts often meet with the limited success as traits are not well quantifiable and often linked with other less desirable traits from the donor parents. Moreover, the breeding is restricted to a great extent within a genus as interspecific breeding poses incompatibility. However, genetic modification (GM) makes it possible to introgress traits from any biota with precision and express its full potential, within a reasonable timeframe. GM offers traits like disease resistance (DR), insect resistance (IR), herbicide tolerance (HT), abiotic stress tolerance (AST) especially drought tolerance, pollination control, modified product quality (MPQ) and overall yield improvement.

The first large-scale planting of insect-resistant GM crops was started in 1996 in the USA. It included Bt cotton, Bt corn and Bt potato with IR trait derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to control key pests. Australia too commercialised Bt cotton in 1996 thus leading a group in the Asia Pacific region, followed by China in 1997. After the Americas (both North and South), the Asia Pacific region has major stakes in GM crops, involving ~10.5% (~19.5 million ha) of its area. However, the development of GM crops varied a lot in this region. China developed GM tobacco as early as 1992 to control viral infection and cultivated it until 1996. India and the Philippines approved their first GM crops (Bt cotton and Bt corn, respectively) as late as 2002. Indonesia planted Bt cotton from 2000–2003. At present, the Asia Pacific region has many events approved for food, feed and cultivation purposes (Table 1.1). Most of these traits are related to soybean, maize, canola and cotton.

As many as 14 countries of Asia Pacific have approved various traits for 19 GM crops including alfalfa, argentine canola, carnation, cotton, eggplant, maize, papaya, petunia, poplar, potato, rice, rose, safflower, soybean, sugar beet, sugarcane, sweet pepper, tomato and wheat, totalling 1125.⁶ Most of these approvals of various events are however in the developed countries such as Australia (135), Japan (317), New Zealand (108), South Korea (166) and Taiwan (141). Only few countries like Australia, China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam are growing GM crops on a large scale. India, China and Pakistan cultivate mostly GM cotton with IR trait to control bollworms, while Australia has GM cotton for IR and HT traits. With Bt cotton, India has emerged as the largest producer (6.2 million tons of lint cotton, 24.8% of the world’s production) of cotton and is a significant exporter along with Pakistan and Australia. Australia has also developed GM canola (improved version of rapeseed, Brassica napus) which is tolerant to herbicides like glyphosate and glufosinate. The GM canola was first commercialised in 2008 and since then has been planted annually over 440 000 ha (~17.7% of canola area), contributing significantly to the production of ~3.3 million tons of oilseeds. The Philippines first planted GM maize in 2003. GM maize (predominantly with IR and HT traits, constituting ~95% of GM maize area) was planted over ~642 000 ha (46% of total maize area) by ~470 500 farmers in 2017, helping to increase productivity to ~3.31 ton/ha and achieve self-sufficiency. Studies on the impact of these GM crops have shown increased productivity and farm income (Brookes and Barfoot 2018a), decline in pesticide use, reduction in land and environmental footprints, and increase in environmental quality (Brookes and Barfoot 2018b; Zilberman et al. 2018). Chapter 2 in this book specifically discusses the impact of GM crops in Asia Pacific.

Rice is the most important crop of this region. It is grown over ~144 million ha in Asia (~88% of the world’s 163.3 million ha of rice area). China grows over 30.6 million ha and India 43.4 million ha, and together produce ~358 million tons annually. Asia produces ~87% of the world production of rice. It is predicted that Asia will have to increase its production of rice by 39% by 2050 to meet its current consumption pattern in view of projected population increase (Milovanovic and Smutka 2017). Being a staple crop of the region, rice meets most of the calorie needs and can also supply essential micronutrients if it is fortified. More than 200 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) and a large number of them (2.5–3.0 million) die due to compromised immune systems, succumbing to various infectious diseases arising out of VAD. This deficiency can be met by eating green vegetables, carrots, milk, butter and other dietary sources. However, VAD continues to plague children and adults particularly in South-East Asia, as people ignore the need for or cannot access a balanced nutritious diet. Professors Ingo Portrykus and Peter Beyer envisaged an approach to counter VAD through expressing carotenoid pathway to produce β-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in rice seed in 1999.⁷ As a result, the first GM event producing 1.6 µg/g of β-carotene in rice grains (golden rice) was developed in 2002. The new experimental lines (GR2) of Asiatic/Japonica GM rice expressed as much as 36–37 µg/g of β-carotene in their grains. Golden rice has proven to be an efficient way of meeting the vitamin A requirement, as a bowl of 100–150 g of cooked rice is enough to meet 60% of a child’s vitamin A needs. Golden rice is being bred in to local cultivars in the Philippines, Bangladesh, India and many other countries to adapt them to the local conditions, yield as much as other rice cultivars do, and suit the local taste. In 2018, the US Environment Protection Authority, Health Canada and Food Standards Australia and New Zealand approved golden rice for human consumption in their respective countries.⁸ In 2019, the Philippines approved it for human consumption.

Iron deficiency affects nearly 30% of the region’s population, leading to anaemia. Johnson and colleagues from the Australian universities of Adelaide and Melbourne have overexpressed OsNAS1, OsNAS2 and OsNAS3 genes and reported significant increase in iron and zinc content of rice grains with OsNAS2 to meet da...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Contents
• Preface
• About the editors
• Contributors
• 1 Biotech/genetically modified crops in Asia Pacific: a way forward
• 2 Economic and environmental impact of genetically modified crops in Asia Pacific
• 3 Development and commercialisation of Bt cotton in India
• 4 Insect resistance management for Bt cotton in India
• 5 Twenty years of successful Bt cotton production in Australia
• 6 Advances in managing insect resistance to Bt cotton in China
• 7 Bt cotton in Pakistan
• 8 Transgenic maize and its potential commercialisation in China
• 9 Bringing Bt eggplant to resource-poor farmers in Bangladesh and the Philippines
• 10 Adoption and advances in genetically modified oilseed crops in Australia
• 11 Bioefficacy testing of Bt corn against Asian corn borer in the Philippines
• 12 Insect resistance management of Bt corn in the Philippines
• 13 Socioeconomic and environmental impacts of GM corn in the ASEAN: the case of the Philippines
• 14 Biosafety management for genetically modified crops in Vietnam: from policy to practice
• 15 Biotechnology and its regulatory system in Japan
• Colour plates
• 16 Development of yellow stem borer resistant rice varieties in Indonesia
• 17 Experience in developing genetically engineered potato resistant to late blight disease
• 18 Genetic modifications for disease resistance in crops
• 19 Nanobiotechnology for plant genome engineering and crop protection
• Index