By Allen V. Estabillo, Sun Star General Santos via Checkbiotech

Seed giant Monsanto Philippines will begin over the commercial distribution here of a genetically-engineered corn variety that could resist both the destructive Asiatic corn borer and herbicides used to eliminate field weeds.

Francisco Camacho, Monsanto's technology development executive here, said the "dekalb-stacked hybrid" has been approved for planting in the country by the Bureau of Plant Industry.

"This hybrid essentially solves the problem of our farmers here about the potential damage from the corn borer and weeds," Camacho said Thursday in a Monsanto-sponsored radio program.

According to a report from the University of the Philippines Los Baños-based Biotechnology Information Center (BIC), the new hybrid corn seed is practically a combination of the controversial Bacillus thuringiesis (Bt) corn and the Roundup-Ready corn, which underwent several field tests here and the neighboring areas.

Bt corn was approved for planting in the country in late 2002 while Roundup Ready corn was introduced in the markets earlier this year.

"So called stacked-trait corn, the plant bears two introduced genes in its genetic make-up. The first one called Bt gene (cry1ab) comes from a common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis.

"The second one, the EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) gene, isolated from CP4 strain of Agrobacterium tumefaciens, is a naturally-occurring bacteria in the soils which enables the corn plant to continuously produce essential aromatic amino acids even in the presence of glyphosate, a non-selective herbicide," the BIC report said.

Camacho said the availability of the new product in the local markets is very essential in combating the infestation of the corn borers and the weeds that could potentially destroy 60 to 80 percent of a normal cropping.

"As we have also experienced here in Socsksargen (South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos) area, the infestation of the corn borers and weeds reduces the quality of the corn as it encourages the presence of fungus," he said.

He added that the use of the new corn variety would reduce the cost of production, especially in terms of spraying pesticides and herbicides and the payment for the laborious manual weeding.

Camacho said that with the opening of the product for commercial distribution, he said they expect more farmers to adopt the various biotechnology corn varieties.

Local Monsanto personnel earlier said that over 8,000 hectares of farmlands have been planted with Bt corn in the Socsksargen area, considered as the second biggest corn-producing region in the country.

© Copyright 2005 Sun.Star Publishing, Inc.