NOTE: "Only GM can save the banana" is a recurring pro-GM myth that first appeared in 2001 and has been doing the rounds of the media every couple of years since.
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-myths

The Guardian recently published an article in this time-honored tradition:

"Ugandan scientists grow GM banana as disease threatens country's staple food - Ban on GM crops waived after bacterial disease causes annual banana crop losses of $500m".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/gm-banana-crop-disease-uganda

The article reported on trials in Uganda on a GM banana engineered for resistance to BXW wilt disease. The results aren't in yet, and it's unclear how much of the development of the experimental variety was actually due to GM, but those small facts haven't stopped GM proponents from hyping this story as a triumph for GM.

The Soil Association's Emma Hockridge replied in a second article for The Guardian, "Uganda's disease-hit banana crops will not be saved by GM science: The only protection is crop diversity and proven natural farming methods".

Emma's article attracted the usual slew of aggressive pro-GM comments.

But other readers pointed out (e.g. item 1) that most crops that are touted as triumphs of GM are in fact nothing of the sort, as an article on a new drought-tolerant corn shows (item 2). And the experimental GM banana engineered for resistance to BXW wilt disease that's being prematurely touted as the saviour of Ugandan banana farmers (item 3) may fall into the same category.

Evidence backing this theory comes from a reader comment to the effect that scientists have identified naturally BXW wilt disease resistant varieties of banana for East Africa and have concluded that resistant cultivars could be bred from them:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j601v016565252j1/

The lead author of this paper is the very same scientist that is quoted in the Guardian article hyping GM as the only solution.
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1. Reader comment on article, "Uganda's disease-hit banana crops will not be saved by GM science"
Guardian, 15 Mar 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/15/banana-disease-gm-natural-farming-uganda?commentpage=all#start-of-comments

GrapeofWrath

Lots of the "GM drought-tolerant crops" in the pipeline have in fact been developed using conventional or Marker Assisted Breeding (MAB), and then the GM gene parachuted in so that the companies can patent them. The GM technology in fact has very little, if anything, to do with the trait being advertised.

Fascinating that the scientists who found the BXW-resistant banana variety are now claiming that they need GM... No coincidence of course. They're clearly using the naturally-existing banana variety and then putting the GM genes on top of that.
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2. Drought-tough corn seed races to the finish line
BY DAVID RANII - Staff Writer
NewsObserver.com
Tue, Dec 21, 2010
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/21/873577/drought-tough-corn-seed-races.html

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- Agribusiness Syngenta is leading the charge on a new generation of corn designed by its scientists to withstand drought.
Rivals such as DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred and Monsanto are poised to introduce competing products, but Syngenta is the first to market with a new breed of corn that significantly ups the ante when it comes to surviving bone-dry weather. Syngenta's Agrisure Artesian hybrid corn seeds - sold by the company's Garst, Golden Harvest and NK brands - have been bred to reduce by 15 percent the amount of crop lost to drought. That has the potential to improve yields by 20 bushels of corn per acre.

"It's always an advantage if you can address your growers' needs, your customers' needs, first," said Tracy Mader, head of product marketing for Syngenta Seeds. "Growers are really anxious for the new technology."

The introduction of Agrisure Artesian comes as the agricultural sector is faring better than the overall economy.

"Population hasn't stopped because of the recession," said Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, president of Syngenta Biotechnology, which is headquartered in RTP. "The underlying demand for agricultural products is absolutely there to stay."

Seed sales by the Swiss company rose 5 percent to $2.56 billion last year. In the latest quarter, seed sales rose 12 percent.

Syngenta isn't sharing its estimates of how big the global market might be for the next generation of drought-tolerant corn, but Bloomberg News has reported that it could top $2.7 billion a year.

"All players expect blockbuster potential," analyst Patrick Rafaisz of Bank Vontobel in Switzerland told Bloomberg this year.

Farmers would eagerly shift to the next generation of corn produced by Syngenta and others if they perform as advertised, said agricultural extension specialist Ron Heiniger of N.C. State University.

"Water is a scarce resource and getting scarcer," he said. He added that a common refrain among the state's corn farmers is that "we're never more than two weeks from a drought."

Corn, Heiniger said, is especially susceptible to drought because it requires more water than the typical crop.

Years of research

Scientists at Syngenta Biotechnology, which has 400 employees in RTP, spent nearly a decade developing Agrisure Artesian in conjunction with the company's breeders in the Midwest and California, who tested the hybrids in the field. Total investment: tens of millions of dollars, van Lookeren Campagne said.

Syngenta, the No. 3 supplier of corn seed, introduced Agrisure Artesian in July and is marketing it for planting during next year's growing season in states that are most susceptible to droughts: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. It could be available in North Carolina and South Carolina as soon as 2012.

Coming quickly, however, is Pioneer, which has not launched its new-generation, drought-tolerant corn but expects to do so in time for planting next year, spokeswoman Bridget Anderson said. Monsanto's entry, meanwhile, could come as soon as 2012, spokesman Ben Kampelman said.

Biotech and breeding

The development of Agrisure Artesian combined the latest biotechnology and traditional breeding techniques used to create novel hybrids.

The first stage involved a small team of RTP scientists who, using genome mapping, identified 100 naturally occurring corn genes with the potential for optimizing the plant's use of water.

"I think that way of working was the first of its kind," van Lookeren Campagne said. "That's also why we are now first to market."

By using genetic markers, the scientific equivalent of a landmark, the scientists bred these genes into new hybrids. In the industry, that's known as molecular breeding.

When they tested the hybrids, they found that 13 of the genes had a measurable, positive effect on water-optimization. Equally important, these 13 genes didn't produce negative side effects in the absence of a drought.
"The challenge is to have a highly productive plant under normal conditions that doesn't shut down [its growth] under drought conditions," van Lookeren Campagne said.

Hybrid corn

Further cross-breeding led to the development of Agrisure Artesian. That product actually is a series of hybrids with between six and 13 of the beneficial genes, tailored to suit specific regions.

Agrisure Artesian's water-optimization was achieved without genetic modifications, so federal regulatory approval wasn't required.

However, the final product incorporates previously approved genetically modified traits that protect it from insects and herbicides.

"Nobody in the U.S. wants to buy a corn hybrid anymore that doesn't have a herbicide tolerance," van Lookeren Campagne said of farmers. "And nobody wants to buy a corn hybrid anymore that doesn't have [pest] control."

Always on the hunt

Syngenta has started work on a new breed of genetically modified corn that would produce another leap forward in drought tolerance, but that product is years away.

Van Lookeren Campagne said the pursuit of ever-increasing production per acre requires using all the tools that technology offers.

"If you only have a hammer, you can only go so far," he said. "But if you have an electric saw and rivet guns ... you can build a house much faster."
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3. Ugandan scientists grow GM banana as disease threatens country's staple food
Ban on GM crops waived after bacterial disease causes annual banana crop losses of $500m
Xan Rice
The Guardian, Wednesday 9 March 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/gm-banana-crop-disease-uganda

Most countries would resent being called a banana republic. Uganda prides itself on it. A typical adult here eats at least three times his or her body weight in bananas each year, more than anywhere else on Earth. Different varieties are steamed, boiled, roasted, turned into gin and beer, or simply peeled and eaten raw, such as the tiny sukali ndizi, considered by some experts to be finest banana in the world.

"Breakfast, lunch and dinner, 365 days a year," said Arthur Kamenya, whose taste for the fruit is so strong he quit his job as a graphic designer to grow it commercially. "And people still crave more."

But it is a craving under threat. In recent years a devastating bacterial disease has swept across Uganda and, to a lesser extent, neighbouring countries, causing annual banana crop losses to the region of more than $500m (£310m). The rapid spread of banana Xanthomonas wilt, or BXW, which destroys the entire plant and contaminates the soil, "has endangered the livelihoods of millions of farmers who rely on banana for staple food and income", according to an article in the journal Molecular Plant Pathology last year.

With no resistant varieties or chemical cures available, growers such as Kamenya have been forced to destroy large sections of their plantations. For smaller farmers the damage has been so severe many have given up on the fruit.

But local scientists have not. On a sprawling campus outside Kampala, Wilberforce Tushemereirwe and his colleagues at the National Banana Research Programme have been on a quest to defeat the disease by building a better banana. This has involved adding to the fruit a sweet pepper gene that has already improved disease resistance in several vegetables.

Laboratory tests on the genetically modified bananas have been highly promising, with six out of eight strains proving 100% resistant to BXW. Field tests have now started in a fenced-off, guarded plot on the edge of the campus.

Results from the trials, expected later this year, could have a strong bearing on the country's future food security and indeed its entire policy on agriculture. GM crops are still banned in Uganda, and the scientists had to get special permission just to conduct their tests. While acknowledging that it is a highly controversial topic, Tushemereirwe says the risk of doing nothing is too great.

"If we just leave this, bananas will slowly disappear from Uganda," he said.

BXW was first reported in Ethiopia in the 1960s, but was only identified further south in 2001, initially in Uganda and then Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Burundi and Tanzania. Uganda was particularly vulnerable because of the scale of its banana production, second only to India which has a population 35 times larger.

With a single plant lasting for many years and providing a large bunch of fruit every few months, bananas are a key crop for small farmers. They are also a crucial source of sustenance, accounting for more than 30% of Ugandans' daily calorie intake. According to Tushemereirwe, the average adult eats 200-250kg (440lb-550lb) of bananas a year and twice that in some areas.

Most of that is matooke, a long green banana, which is usually steamed and mashed and eaten with beans, peanut sauce or meat. That's what Kamenya planted six years ago on his farm in Galamba, about an hour's drive from the Ugandan capital. But soon he realised some of the plants were sick, with yellowing leaves and the fruit ripening prematurely.

Kamenya, a powerfully built 37-year-old, was forced to dig up 1,500 of his 4,500 plants, destroy them, and allow the soil to lie fallow for at least six months. He also had to sterilise his farm tools. This eventually helped control the disease, though he still has problems. "Look how this plant has rotted," he said, slicing through the trunk of a banana plant with a knife to reveal yellow ooze.

Few areas of Uganda have escaped the disease, which is transported by insects such as bees and wasps. But traditional farming practices also ensured its rapid spread. Infected "suckers" young shoots of banana plants are shared with neighbours, while the use of banana leaves to cover bunches of fruit headed to market quickly transferred the disease to new areas.

In central Uganda, one of the main banana-growing regions, BXW hit up to 80% of farms, sometimes wiping out entire fields. Small-scale farmers, who could not afford to let their gardens lie empty for months before replanting, switched to other crops.

Tushemereirwe, with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), decided a GM solution was the best way forward. Academia Sinica, the Taiwanese research institute that pioneered the sweet pepper gene technology, agreed to issue them with a royalty-free licence. The sweet pepper gene successfully transplanted into the other vegetables, but never before a banana produces a protein that kills cells infected by disease-spreading bacteria.

Leena Tripathi, a plant biotechnologist at IITA who helped steer the project, said introducing the gene did not affect the quality of the banana and presented no health risks. "The beauty of the genetic engineering is that you can be very precise," she said.

Other GM banana experiments are under way in Uganda, including one to fortify the fruit with iron and vitamin A. But concern about GM foods in Uganda means they could face a long battle before any of the transgenic bananas find their way on to the market.

A study by Enoch Kikulwe, assistant professor of international food economics at the University of Göttingen, Germany, revealed more opposition to GM crops among the elite than those in poorer villages. Most studies show that better education led to more acceptance of GM foods, he said.

But for Kamenya the farmer, who falls into the elite category the anti-GM stance was hypocritical. "Most of the people against this have choices," he said, a pot of matooke steaming nearby. "Somebody who is hungry does not have a choice. GM, organic or whatever you have to feed the people."

How to eat them, Uganda style

The super-sweet dessert bananas are the easy option. The home-brewed banana gin is a choice for only the highly adventurous. For authenticity, however, matooke, the national staple that looks like buttery mashed potato on the plate, is the only way to go.

Also known as east African highland bananas, the green matooke fruits are for cooking only ideally steamed on an open fire. To start, water is poured into a large pot and covered with banana stalks. The peeled bananas are wrapped in the plant leaves, with the bundle lowered into the pot, resting on the stalks, above the water.

The fruit is then steamed for a few hours, going from hard to soft, white to yellow. Still wrapped in the leaves, the bananas are then mashed.

The dish can then be served on a new leaf, together with beans, other vegetables or peanut sauce.

It is an acquired taste, and to the uninitiated it can seem heavy and bland. But once you've got it, Ugandans say, there's no going back to rice and potatoes.