Rome, Italy
December 20, 2007
The Summary Document of the
FAO e-mail conference entitled
"Coping with water scarcity in developing countries: What
role for agricultural biotechnologies?" that took place
between 5 March and 1 April 2007 is now finalised and available
on the web, at
http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/C14/summary.htm.
The aim of the document is to provide a summary of the main
issues discussed during the moderated e-mail conference, based
on the messages posted by the participants. Three major topics
were discussed. The first, and biggest one, was about
applications of biotechnology to develop crops with improved
drought resistance or water use efficiency. Most discussion here
was dedicated to marker-assisted selection and genetic
modification, with a few messages also dedicated to other crop
biotechnologies. The issue of how to deliver real solutions to
farmers was also discussed, as well as the role of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR). The second was about the use of mycorrhizal fungi and
bacteria in water-limited conditions. The third was about the
use of biotechnology in treating wastewater (that can then be
re-used for agriculture).
During the 4-week long conference, around 430 people subscribed
to the conference and 78 e-mail contributions were posted from
50 people living in 24 different countries; 75% of messages were
from developing countries.
Roughly 70% of messages came from people working in universities
and in national or international research organisations, while
the remainder came from people working as private consultants or
in private companies, non-governmental organisations, government
ministries or UN organisations/projects.
Executive Summary
The availability of water
is a challenge for all countries, but especially for those
with scarce water resources and where the livelihoods of its
people depend heavily on agriculture. The term
'biotechnology' includes a broad suite of tools that present
varying degrees of technical sophistication and require
different levels of capital input. A number of them can be
used to mitigate water scarcity in agriculture, including a
variety of plant biotechnologies, e.g.
marker-assisted
selection (MAS), and microbial biotechnologies, e.g. use of
mycorrhizal fungi as a biofertiliser. Many examples of
applications of biotechnology in developing countries were
cited during this FAO e-mail conference. There was a general
consensus that biotechnology has a valuable role to play in
addressing the challenge of water scarcity in developing
countries, although opinions differed on the relevance of
different biotechnology tools. Despite much promising
research and significant possibilities, the conference also
indicated that many applications of biotechnology in this
area have not yet met their full potential to deliver
practical solutions to the end-user in developing countries.
Among the different plant biotechnologies, MAS and genetic
modification elicited most discussion. Although the general
opinion of participants was that MAS had significant
potential, some underlined the obstacles to its practical
application in developing countries, such as the relatively
high costs of breeding using molecular markers and the
complexity of traits involved in drought resistance and
water use efficiency in plants. For genetic modification,
promising research results were reported but many
participants expressed doubts about the role of genetically
modified crops in helping developing countries to cope with
water scarcity, referring to the kinds of obstacles also
relevant to MAS (costs, complexity of the traits to be
improved etc.) as well as to a number of additional
concerns, such as intellectual property rights issues and
potential environmental impacts.
To ensure that research initiatives to develop drought
resistant crops are successful and that the resulting
products actually reach the farmers, participants called for
increased collaboration between researchers in different
disciplines and for all relevant stakeholders to be involved
in the design of solutions to the problems of water scarcity
in agriculture.
Research should not neglect dryland (non-irrigated)
agriculture. The role of the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a strategic
partnership supporting the work of 15 international centres,
in developing drought resistance crops was emphasised.
A positive outlook was foreseen for microbial
biotechnologies in managing water scarcity. Participants
described the potential of applying mycorrhizal fungi and
certain bacteria as a biofertiliser to assist plants to cope
with water stress, calling for greater research in this
area. Several applications of biotechnology were reported as
playing a useful role in treating wastewater, mainly on a
small scale, involving the use of plants and microbes, so
that it could be re-used for agricultural purposes.
Participants also discussed the potential to design
biotechnology-based wastewater treatment systems in such a
way that they yield co-products (e.g. biogas) that could be
used to generate income locally.
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