La misión de Asana

Globally, the biotechnology sector or sectors can for the most part be divided into ‘developed’ or ‘First World’ countries, and the rest. As in many other fi elds, however, the so-called newly industrialised countries (NICs) of the Far East are diffi cult to fi t into the haves/ have-nots schema which is all too sadly appropriate for the rest of the world. Singapore, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea and to a lesser extent other Far Eastern Pacifi c Rim countries have experienced rapid and (with a few well-documented hiccups) sustained economic growth which has elevated signifi cant sections of their urban populations to ‘Northern’ living standards. They have done so, moreover, to a great extent on the basis of ‘knowledge-based’ industries which have required them to develop effi cient systems of education. These conditions have made them conducive to the development of biotechnology industries over which indigenous forces – government agencies and local political and economic elites – have a degree of control.

Singapore

Singapore, for example, at the end of 2003 established what it hopes will become a major centre of biotechnology research. ‘Biopolis’ is intended to house the fi ve publicly funded biotechnology research institutes, but also hopes to attract foreign private sector operations in an attempt to maximise use of resources and create an environment conducive to intellectual cross-fertilisation. The Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases plans to move there, and others will no doubt follow.81

Biopolis built on the Singapore Economic Development Board’s decision in 2001 to allocate a signifi cant sum to projects related to biotechnology, including the work of the institutes, other academic research, training and tax-incentives. This in itself was no radical break with the past. Singapore began promoting biotech in the early 1980s, with Glaxo conducting biotechnological research in the country as long ago as 1982. In 2000, the sector was declared to be the ‘fourth pillar’ of its economy, and $570 million was spent in establishing new research institutes.82

Singapore’s efforts tend to be concentrated on medical biotechnology, a tendency further encouraged by the effects of the SARS crisis, which cost 33 Singaporean lives. Merck, Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline are all established in the country. ES Cell International, a smaller but signifi cant company, exports human embryonic stem cell lines and is just the best known of a number of independent biotech fi rms running operations in the city-state. For those wishing to work with stem cells, Singapore has what the New York Times describes as ‘one of the world’s most liberal legal atmospheres. It allows stem cells to be taken from aborted fetuses, and human embryos to be cloned and kept for up to 14 days to produce stem cells.’ However, it has banned human reproductive cloning and placed some restrictions on therapeutic cloning. The latter requires the informed consent of donors, while commercial trading in donated materials, including supernumerary embryos, is forbidden. Moreover, researchers are by law allowed, ostensibly at least, to refuse to work with human ESCs on the grounds of ‘conscientious objection’.83

Singapore’s authoritarian political system does not encourage dissent, which has, in any case, rarely anywhere in the world focused on research projects confi ned to the laboratory. Such criticism as has been heard in Singapore has been on the grounds of the economic advisability of committing major public investment to an industry whose actual returns have so far been disappointing. As the New

York Times reported in 2003, although foreign fi rms have found

Singapore in many ways conducive, ‘local start-ups are struggling, and economists say the biotechnology investment is unlikely to yield jobs on the scale that electronics once did’. Moreover, investors ‘are shying away from an industry in which products take at least a decade to develop. Increased competition is coming from less developed countries like China, India and Malaysia, which are building biotechnology industries of their own.’84

One of Singapore’s major weaknesses is a paucity of home-produced scientists capable of working in the fi eld. One attempt to tackle this has been the establishment of a major fund offering bursaries for students to pursue doctorates in biomedical sciences. This can be done in Singapore or at a foreign university, but recipients must promise to work in Singapore for up to eight years after qualifying.85

Malaysia

Singapore’s neighbours are attempting to follow her example. Malaysia recently unveiled its answer to Biopolis, an 800-acre ‘BioValley’ on which, by 2006, will be based three new institutes dedicated to agricultural biotech, pharmaceuticals and ‘nutraceuticals’, and genomics and molecular biology. Both countries point the way to a likely future of lightly regulated biotechnology sectors attracting foreign involvement and foreign investment. This to some extent repeats the experience of these middle-income NICs with other advanced technologies. Biotechnology, however, differs from information technology (IT) in the degree of uncertainty surrounding its future development. Even in the most optimistic of scenarios it can never replace IT as a generator of large numbers of jobs at all sorts of levels.86

South Korea

In other parts of the Pacifi c Rim, similar developments are taking place, aided by similarly sympathetic governments and the resulting weak regulatory frameworks. South Korea began to take an interest in biotechnology in the early 1980s, when the establishment of the Korea Biotechnology Research Association was swiftly followed by the enactment of a Biotechnology Promotion Law. By 1994, South Korea was fully committed to biotechnology as a possible engine of growth, the year being declared ‘The Year of Biotechnology’. Regulation was and remains minimal, directed more at ensuring Korea remains an attractive place for MNCs to invest than it was at protecting Korean consumers or the environment. The main event of the ‘Year’ was the inauguration of ‘Biotech 2000’ , a strand of HAN, ‘the Highly Advanced National project’. Biotech 2000 committed a total of US$15 billion over a 14-year period, with the money being spread around public bodies (Research Institutes), the university sector (including academic ‘Research Centres’) and private industry. Little of this effort, however, has been directed towards agriculture. Instead, Korea has concentrated on developing ‘fermentation technology, antibiotics,

diagnostics, and hepatitis B vaccines’ each of which has now reached the stage of commercialisation ‘at the internationally competitive level’.87 _{In 2004, South Korean scientists were the fi rst to demonstrate}

that the two essential steps required if therapeutic cloning is to become a practicality – the production of cloned blastocysts (early embryos) and the development from these of a stable line of pluripotent stem cells – could be achieved.88

The People’s Republic of China

One country which appears fully committed to developing a major biotechnology sector is China. According to one enthusiast, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is seeking, as rapidly as possible, ‘to create a modern, market-responsive and internationally competitive biotechnology research and development system’. The strategy is to use public funds ‘to improve the innovative capacity of national biotechnology R&D, reform the current research system by providing better support to key institutions and incentive mechanisms, and promot[e] development and commercialization of biotechnology, thereby increasing investment in research’. In order to achieve this it has committed itself to generating ‘a scale of investment not common in developing countries, as China positions itself to become one of the world leaders in biotechnology’.89

This strategy, not surprisingly, rests partly on a weak regulatory environment, though this weakness is uneven and regulation, as in most areas of life in the PRC, can be capricious. Although China became, in 2003, the fi rst country to approve a gene therapy- based treatment after clinical trials, this seems to have been done according to norms which would have been accepted in the west and has certainly not provoked widespread condemnation.90 _As

for agricultural biotech, field tests, environmental releases and commercialisation of transgenic plants were fi rst subject to systematic regulation in November, 1993 when the State Science and Technology Commission issued the Safety Administration Regulation on Genetic Engineering. On the basis of this Regulation’s requirements, the Safety Administration Implementation Regulation on Agricultural Biological Genetic Engineering entered into effect late in 1996. Earlier in the year, the Ministry of Agriculture had established the Offi ce of Genetic Engineering Safety Administration (OGESA) to regulate fi eld tests, environment releases and commercialisation of transgenic organisms.91

In 2001, the government adopted the Guidelines for Biosafety Management of Agricultural GMOs, a document supplemented the following year by specifi c rules on, respectively, Biosafety Evaluation Regulation for Agricultural GMOs, Import Regulation for Agricultural GMOs and Labelling Regulation for Agricultural GMOs. Despite the various legislative acts, these measures, which became effective in 2002, appear to be the fi rst really effective legal regulations of the use of biotechnology in agriculture. Offi cially, at least, farms growing GMOs must now undergo regular inspections to reduce harm to the environment and GM foods are subject to risk evaluations. Imports, including species alien to China and transgenic seeds, are inspected for possible problems.92

Though not particularly hard-hitting, these rules have already upset the United States, as GMO importers must apply for certifi cates declaring that their products are harmless to humans, animals or the environment. US offi cials have claimed the import rules were based more on trade protectionism than on scientifi c concerns. When import controls were introduced, new orders of US cargoes of soybeans dwindled to almost nothing, though this seems to have been a temporary effect as confusion accompanying the new system’s introduction was cleared up. Under pressure from the US, China announced temporary measures for GMO imports that required less paperwork and shorter approvals. It was not immediately clear whether the proposed law might be linked to the rules on GMO certifi cates. China had supported the development of biotechnology to enhance food production, pharmaceuticals and environmental conservation, the China Daily said, without elaborating. China’s Ministry of Agriculture had drafted regulations earlier this year requiring all imported GMO products to be clearly labelled, the paper added.93

Foreign MNCs eager to open China to biotech’s otherwise largely unmarketable products seem inadvertently to have provoked fears that foreigners may start to patent genetic material obtained from native Chinese products. This may be one impulse behind attempts to create some kind of regulatory system. The same MNCs complain that ‘protectionism’ is deterring investors and undermining export opportunities. At the same time, the government is quite open about its intention to draw up a ‘secret list’ that the Wall Street Journal describes as intended to ‘try to keep the genetic makeup of certain goods out of foreign hands. Culled from thousands of medicinal herbs, plants and vegetables, the list will seek to isolate agricultural

products deemed quintessentially Chinese, and safeguard their genetic material in a government-run repository’. The list will divide ‘gene matter’ into three groups: one ‘that can be freely exchanged between Chinese and foreign scientists; material that can be exchanged under certain conditions; and material off-limits to the outside world’. The need for such a list was highlighted when Monsanto tried to patent a DNA sequence from a soya bean which had been grown in China for thousands of years, just as another US company has fi led a patent for Basmati rice. The Wall Street Journal seems genuinely puzzled by China’s reaction to this, but few others will share its baffl ement. China is big, powerful and getting richer. It is thus no easy target for this sort of bio-piracy, though others are less equipped to deal with what has become a major aspect of the worldwide property grab that is biotechnology.94

Chinese agricultural biotechnology remains for the most part at the experimental stage, though cultivation is widespread and there is one major exception – Monsanto’s Bt cotton. From 1986, the government has given fi nancial support to research and development projects involving more than 100 laboratories and extensive fi eld trials. Research has concentrated on resistance to pests and disease, salt-tolerance, drought-resistance, nutrition enrichment, quality improvement, and pharming projects such as the production of edible oral vaccines. All major projects have, however, been directed at developing pest-resistant grain, cotton and oil seeds. In 2000, the government stepped up its investment, pledging $600 million over a fi ve-year period that ends in 2005. Commercial growth is another matter, and while the economy is in general opening up to outside investors, the government has actually introduced new curbs on investment in agricultural biotech, curbs which appear designed to prevent bio-piracy. There are a number of instances of commercial cultivation, with six licences having been issued during 1997 and 1998, though, interestingly, none has been granted since. Of the six, two are for Bt cotton, two for tomatoes, one for capsicum and one for petunias. Only one, to Monsanto for Bt cotton, has gone to either a private sector or foreign enterprise. This is, however, by far the most signifi cant commercial growth, covering a massive 600,000 hectares. The licences together cover 35 different locations and involve over 4 million small farmers, with the area under cultivation growing from 100,000 hectares in 1998 to 1.6 million hectares in 2001. The tomatoes and capsicum have yet to be marketed and are grown on a small scale. In fact, no GM food has as yet been grown for the Chinese

domestic market. Monsanto, Syngenta and others have submitted applications for commercial development of food crops including maize, soya and rice. Aside from GMOs, however, permission has been given for the marketing of a number of recombinant vaccines for animals.95

China is clearly hesitating about committing its agriculture lock, stock and barrel to the way of genetic modifi cation. Growing international reluctance to embrace the technology and its products has worried the Chinese government to a point where it is showing less and less enthusiasm for the large-scale commercial cultivation of GM food crops. The problem, moreover, is not confi ned to export markets. Awareness of the possible problems is reportedly increasing in China itself, with several newspapers having published – and, one must generally assume, with offi cial approval – articles on the issue. Research work, however, continues apace. In 2003 Chinese scientists were reported to be ‘developing wheat and potato plants resistant to several bacterial diseases prevalent in domestic fi elds’ while ‘many other plant and even animal varieties are in the pipeline’. In 1999 China spent $112 million on crop biotech research, hardly a General Secretary’s ransom but, to put it into an international context, almost ten times the expenditure of Brazil or India. The sum, moreover, was offi cially set to rise fi vefold by 2005.96

Nevertheless, recent developments demonstrate that those who attempt to portray China as a no-holds-barred enthusiast for agricultural biotechnology are being rather selective with the truth. Better off or more powerful developing countries such as China, as well as those such as Singapore and South Korea which enjoy standards of living comparable to those found in most western countries, have seen biotechnology as a potential new motor of growth. Whether this will turn out to be the case, and what the environmental and social price of success might be, remain to be seen. We may disapprove, we may criticise, but countries such as China, Korea and Singapore, whatever pressures may be brought to bear upon them by foreign MNCs and governments, are to a large extent deciding for themselves that biotechnology should be part of their future.

This is not the case for most of the Third World. In relation to global biotechnology, as in so many other sectors, developing countries have great diffi culty in determining their own course, in even taking into account what may be the needs, aspirations, feelings and beliefs of their own citizens. Instead, they are expected to dance to the tune of those who would use the problems of poverty,

hunger and disease to undermine any possibility these countries may have to exercise their supposed right to self-determination. In the full range of political, economic and military methods the ‘West’ employs to maintain its ascendancy, few have been more transparent and shocking than this. Quite simply, biotechnology, and especially agricultural biotech, is being used as an instrument of western hegemony every bit as deadly as the missiles and bombs which have rained down on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. In this chapter, I have included some countries normally considered as part of the Third World, because these countries are, to an extent, ‘doers’ in the development of biotechnologies. In Chapter 4, we will see how most poorer countries have ended up in a more familiar role: not doers, but done to.

FURTHER READING

Devlin Kuyek, The Real Board of Directors: The construction of

biotechnology policy in Canada, 1980–2002 (Sorrento, BC: The Ram’s

Horn, 2002) available online at <www.ramshorn.bc.ca>

Council for Biotechnology Information Centre for Safe Food Plant

Biotechnology in Canada <www.whybiotech.com/html/pdf/plant_

bt_in_canada.pdf>

Darryll Macer and Mary An Chen Ng Changing Attitudes to Biotechnology

in Japan (2000), www.agbios.com/docroot/articles/2000253-b.

pdf>

New Zealand Biotechnology Association website <www.biotech.org. nz/>

OECD Regulatory Developments in Biotechnology in Canada (2000) <www.oecd.org/document/57/0,2340,en_2649_34393_2370169_ 1_1_1_1,00.html>

OECD Regulatory Developments in Biotechnology in Australia (2002) <www.oecd.org/document/33/0,2340,en_2649_34393_1889569_ 1_1_1_1,00.html>

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