By PAOLO CAPINO

IMAGINE this is the year 2030. The Philippines has increased its population by
150 per cent. On top of that, poverty has widened rapidly and virtually all the resources generated in the past century have been used up.

Hunger reaches epidemic proportions, and the starving masses scavenge for anything that they can eat. Economic development has hurtled in the opposite direction, plunging toward an economic crisis. The basic sustaining means for a society to expand productively have already expired and we see an era where food is scarce.

The government, however, is ill-equipped in providing for its citizens, resulting in various problems which the country is also incapable of managing.

Exaggerated and over-analyzed as the scenario seems to be, it is not impossible nor even improbable. The setting would appear like it came straight out of a novel, but if people continually look at it as just a fictional dilemma, then 26 years from now it may well become reality.

With the Philippines teetering on the brink of a potential fiscal crisis, the odds remain high that the demands of food security cannot be adequately met, or met in a timely fashion.

In November this year, biotechnology advocates from the private and government sectors held a round-table dialog with local mayors to build a partnership in promoting the use of biotechnology as a means of improving agricultural production in order to promote the welfare of the local population.

Key players were leaders of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) and a panel from the Department of Agriculture. They tackled the issues which can be deemed crucial to the food sufficiency and security program of the government.
Dr. Saturnina Halos, Ph.D., the Chairperson for the Biotechnology Advisory Team of the Department of Agriculture (BAT-DA), asserted: “Biotechnology plays a vital role in innovations on medicine, fuel production, health services and even in food preparations.”

“Biotechnology is the wave of the future and it would help agricultural communities increase their production, improve their incomes and provide consumers with nutritious and disease resistant food products,” she told the mayors.

Halos lamented the “resistance in some quarters to biotechnology,” saying that the fears raised by critics have been adequately addressed by the scientific community and the government.

To address their concerns, Halos said the government, through the Department of Agriculture, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and National Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) and the Southeast Asian Center for Graduate Study and Media Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), joined hands with the private sector led by the Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines to set up a Biotechnology Media and Advocacy Resource Center as its research and advocacy arm.

In her discussion, Halos noted that “scientific rigor has attended biotechnology research in the country, with only Biotechnology corn (Bt corn) securing accreditation for commercial cultivation.”

She told mayors that “experiments with Bt corn have yielded a wealth of information on promoting disease-resistant crops and higher-yielding varieties.”
Contrary to the fears raised by critics, she assured the mayors, “Biotechnology research has revealed that no ailments related to biotechnology crops specifically Bt corn cultivation have been confirmed and that charges about super weeds arising from Bt corn have proven to be false.”

Meanwhile Dr. Alice Ilaga, the Director of the Biotech Implementation Unit, noted that“when it comes to GMO’s however, there are those who oppose and those who support it.”

Few may realize it, but “GMO yields are already utilized in everyday life”, she said
Earlier, Dr. Halos already published her report confirming that “more than 1,000 canned goods already stored in grocery shelves may already contain GMO’s.”
It is this ‘pro-anti’ stance which became the concern of the local government units. Catanauan Mayor Sebastian Serrano observed that there was open resistance of religious groups in their areas.

Serrano described the peasant farmers as “very religious” and said that “it cannot be avoided that priests who sternly oppose the use of GMOs dissuade them from employing GMO technology” Mayor Serrano expressed disappointment over the church’s releasing a pastoral letter against the utilization of biotechnology.
With the separation of Church and State in mind, the Secretary General of the LMP, Gerardo Calderon wants to establish a concrete organization to support biotechnology. “In my last term of office, I want to create a Mayor’s Development Academy so that we can include educational programs for Biotechnology.” said Calderon.

The government has the power to initiate a program to decrease hunger, if not totally dissolve it, so that it can protect future generations from this problem, the biotechnology advocates told the mayors.

As an official policy, and realizing the tremendous benefits from biotechnology, the government is urging LGUs to keep an open mind to the option of biotechnology, as it will help farmers become more competitive, reduce damage to the environment and produce foods with cutting-edge nutrition qualities.

A research regarding Bt corn growth, for instance, showed it can actually induce an additional P10,000 per hectare in income. Having larger crop yields with productive monetary growth, biotechnology surely creates an environment for agricultural profit.

The law is on the side of biotechnology, mandating that agriculture must rely increasingly on more modern technologies. President Arroyo in an official statement stated that “the country must promote safe and sustainable biotechnology”.

Shutting the door to biotech because of invalidated fears, the experts have stressed time and time again, will produce a more certain and certifiable outcome: massive hunger, agricultural trade imbalances and nutritional lapses.