Johan A. Brink Barbara R. Woodward Edgar J. DaSilva* *Corresponding author
Keywords: Africa,
Development, Plant biotechnology
Africa is, paradoxically, a continent rich in resources, and yet, lacking and lagging in overall development. When the wealth of Africa's people is compared with that of other continents a contrasting picture of poverty, stunted growth and famine resulting from inadequate food production is revealed. Applying plant biotechnology alone cannot solve the agricultural and food security problems in Africa. Five key factors seem to be necessary for the improvement of crop production: they are the use of agrochemicals, irrigation, plant breeding, farm management, and, of course, plant biotechnology. In this context, biotechnology can play a role in commercializing crops, creating new jobs and earning foreign exchange. The goals of national and regional development in Africa are attainable through proper planning and active participation in technical networks involving regional and international scientific cooperation that emphasize the use of plant and microbial genetic resources for economic development and progress.
The current world population, approximately 5.8 billion, is expected to double by the year 2050 (James, 1997). The population increase in developing countries constitutes 97% of the global increase (Swaminathan, 1995), and it is estimated that by 2050, 90% of the planet’s population will reside in the developing countries of the southern hemisphere. The challenge for the future, therefore, lies in global food security that necessitates a doubling of food production in the next 50 years to meet the needs of the population (James, 1997). Africa, a continent yet to fulfil its food production potential, is especially vulnerable in terms of food security. The continent’s wealth of natural resources and indigenous technologies have not been used either for endogenous technical development nor economic advancement (Michaelis, 1993). During mid-1995, the population of Africa, with the fastest growth rate in the world, was 720 million, which constituted 13% of the world population. At the present rate of growth this number will double over the next 25 years (Nyira, 1995). This population expansion which puts a burden on economic growth, also decreases food security, and environmental sustainability. To meet Africa’s food requirements, it is therefore necessary to increase the efficiency of food production. Africa has lagged behind in reaping the benefits of the "Green Revolution" of the 1970s and 1980s on account of the limited use of high-yielding varieties of maize, wheat and rice on the continent. Furthermore, five key factors are required for improved crop production viz., use of appropriate agrochemicals, sustainable irrigation, efficient high-yielding (adapted) varieties, crop management, and plant biotechnology. Notwithstanding public concerns, it is felt that the major increase in agricultural productivity will be achieved through the direct use of genetic improvement and biotechnology (Villalabos, 1995). World-wide, the beneficial impact of plant biotechnology has been almost exclusively on crops of high economic importance such as maize, wheat, soybean, sunflower, rice and potato. Other species, important to the developing countries of Africa, however has not attracted the interest of the well-known multinational seed- and biotechnology companies due to their low socio-economic status and contribution to the national exchequer. The result is that genetic and biotechnological improvement of these "neglected" food species is confined to local and specialized research at specific crop centres within these countries. There are serious limiting factors to research
activities and the use of biotechnology in African countries. These
include inadequate infrastructure, lack of skilled human resources and
availability of research equipment and facilities (Villalobos, 1995).
In this context, Africa, therefore, also risks missing the opportunity
to benefit from the "gene revolution". Status
of plant biotechnology in Africa Despite the frustrating
problems of communication across the African continent, and poor exchange
of scientific information and research results, Massola
(1992) attempted a review of plant biotechnologies practiced in
French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa. Though substantial research only
was being carried out in Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Congo, Gabon
Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Zaire, very few of these countries had reached
the take-off stage in using large-scale micropropagation for the development
of local and regional market-products. Development of plant biotechnology
in these countries, nevertheless, is underpinned by established biotechnological
centres, either of a regional or international character, that specialize
in in vitro cultivation of cash crops e.g. banana, coffee,
cocoa, palm-oil, vanilla, and food crops such as maize, millet, cassava
and cowpea. A literature-scan shows that there is a growing emergence of African biotechnological expertise that has been nurtured by several initiatives pioneered by ORSTOM1, CIRAD2, and the UNESCO-based BETCEN3 and MIRCENs4 in the Republic of South Africa, Senegal, Kenya and Egypt.
The outputs of such initiatives are:
Table
1 summarizes the current status and trends in plant biotechnology
in English and French-speaking Africa. Table
1. Current African status and trends in plant biotechnology in Africa
Biotechnology is normally be defined as "any technique that uses living organisms, or substances from these organisms, to make or modify a product, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific uses" (Persley, 1992). In plant biotechnology, three applications of broad fields of study such as plant tissue culture, genetic engineering and plant molecular markers can be identified. These applications range from the simple to the sophisticated, and in many cases are appropriate for use in Africa. Investments in, and development of plant
biotechnological research capacity in Africa is best accomplished in
phases (Lynam, 1995). The first phase involves the
use of plant tissue culture, which is appropriate for Africa as many
of the important food crops such as cassava, sweet potato, yam and banana
are vegetatively propagated. Specific techniques include in vitro
mass propagation, the production of disease-free plants as well as regeneration
systems for plant transformation. By focusing on tissue culture, the
skills necessary to maintain and to manage a biotechnology laboratory
can be developed. The second phase is the application of biotechnological
tools, which can improve the efficiency of selection and breeding of
varieties/cultivars. Techniques include more advanced tissue culture
techniques (e.g. anther culture and embryo rescue) as well as molecular
marker applications (diagnostics, fingerprinting and marker-assisted
breeding). A prerequisite for this phase is to have an operational breeding
programme in place. The third phase is the development of capacity to
produce transgenic plants, which could include gene isolation and cloning,
gene insertion/transformation, regeneration of transgenic plants as
well as verification of successful transformation and gene function. Constraints to the application of plant
biotechnology in African countries are many. These are listed below:
A serious deficit
of skilled human resources in the plant sciences and biotechnology
is evident in Africa. The building up of such knowledge and development
of human resource capacity, is necessary to produce improved varieties
through use of biotechnology as well as to handle imported engineered
varieties that also demand changes in agricultural management. Another
serious constraint is the loss of skilled personnel who have received
training in developed countries and have added to the brain drain.
Working opportunities in Africa are often inadequate. Funds to pay
salaries and absorb running costs of projects are either limiting
or inadequate thus contributing to reduced availability of personnel.
Even specific focal research points that were created in Africa at
high donor expense, lack the critical mass of skilled personnel. Furthermore,
training gained abroad is often not attuned to local needs because
of the different research and infrastructural environments in many
African countries. As a result the demands and opportunities present
in the home country are often not met or remain unanswered. Selection
of crops for research Crops utilized in
Africa are often not important enough to attract foreign investment
in research. Nevertheless, some important African crops such as cassava
and sweet potatoes attract only extrabudgetary funding. On the other
hand, indigenous neglected crops attract funding only for exploitation
outside Africa. Finally, there is a telling lack of basic research
on neglected or underutilized crops which includes aspects of crop
grow, and plant protection. Information and communication
technology in Africa is neither not available nor up to standard.
Funding to run electronic communicative networks is limited. Finally,
to overcome these constraints, networks should also include researchers
from other continents other than Africa. Commercialized
world crops are not so important in Africa Most of these crops
are not well adapted to Africa, since imported lines or cultivars
are inappropriate for local conditions. Furthermore, their cultivation
is too expensive (premium to be paid), and have high energy input
requirements. And again, these crops may be susceptible to local diseases
and insects. Political
/ Legislature component A lack of (national/regional)
priority setting in agricultural research is evident in many African
countries which is reflected in a lack of awareness and commitment
by the national governments. As a result, no specific policy or strategy
can be formulated by the National Agricultural Research Centers in
each country on the application of plant biotechnology. Research &
development programmes currently in place in Africa are often isolated,
are not need-driven and have no definite objectives to develop specific
products. Biosafety regulations and legislation are in place only
in a few countries of Africa, and such limitation constitutes a serious
constraint that impairs the use, evaluation and release of genetically
modified organisms. Another concomitant issue is the lack of protection
of intellectual property rights in Africa that hampers the development
of new technologies, profitable inventions and investments, and initiatives
by entrepreneurial African biotechnologists. Networking,
associations and training opportunities in Africa Networking is an
effective means for enhancing scientific co-operation and maximizing
information exchange at the regional and continental level. Major networks
dealing with plant biotechnology in sub-Saharan Africa are the African
Association for Biological Nitrogen Fixation (AABNF), the International
Society for Tropical Root Crops (ISTRC), the African Plant Biotechnology
Network (APBnet), the African Biosciences Network (ABN) the MIRCENS
in East and West Africa, the Cassava Biotechnology Network (CBN) and
several other initiatives all of which encourage dialogue between farmers,
scientists and decision-makers to benefit from biotechnology or biotechnological
activities of relevance to national and regional needs. As a means of building up reserves of skilled human resources in Africa, short-term fellowships of 3-months duration were awarded in the field of plant and allied environmental biotechnologies to 53 young researchers, inclusive of twelve women scientists, selected from a total of 130 applicants, and coming from Burundi, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Comoros, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zaire. Host institutes providing such training within the framework of the UNESCO/Biotechnology Action Council Scheme were in Australia, Belgium, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Norway, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA. Likewise, during the period 1992 – 1998, 82 short-term fellowships were awarded to young researchers, inclusive of twelve women scientists, and coming from Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinee, Guinee-Bissau, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, for study in the industrial, desert, environmental, medical, bioconversion, aquatic and marine biotechnologies, and microbial systematics and taxonomy, fermentation technology, and diagnostic virology, within the framework of the UNESCO global network of Microbial Resources Centres. Host institutions providing such training were in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Kenya, Senegal, Slovenia, UK, and USA. APBnet, with some initial funding from UNESCO, was established in 1989 in Nairobi, Kenya with a co-ordinating office at IITA, in Ibadan, Nigeria, and subregional offices for West, Central, East, North and Southern Africa. The co-ordination office collected data on biotechnology manpower and assembled it in a directory first published in 1990. The African Biosciences Network (ABN) is a co-operative mechanism linking biological institutions and bioscientists in sub-Saharan Africa in a common effort aimed at improving the level of the know-how and the applications of the biosciences throughout the region. The ABN is the African regional arm of the International Biosciences Networks (IBN), through which the expertise of the international scientific community is brought into close contact with the African Network. Moreover, the ABN is the result of one of the main recommendations of the international symposium on State of Biology in Africa held in Accra (Ghana) in 1981 under the initiative of UNESCO, the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and IBN with financial support from several international organizations amongst which were UNDP and the United Nations Fund for Science and Technology. An assessment of the state of biology on the continent during that symposium revealed that biological resources, especially latest developments, could contribute to solving problems of food production and famines, endemic diseases, irrational use of natural resources, conservation of biodiversity, and counteracting poverty and its consequences on people and their environment in Africa. The first phase (1983-86) of the tripartite ABN initiative deployed the networking process to link African biologists to one another and through ICSU, UNESCO and the IBN, to biologists in other countries and regions and, with other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations working within the continent in related fields. In that 4-year period, eleven research projects, eight training courses, workshops and conferences were organized and successfully implemented and 4 books (including the publication of a Directory of African Bioscientists) were published. About 650 scientists participated and contributed to the activities of the first phase. Research projects dealt with agroforestry, biocontrol of insect pests, basic immunology, epidemiological patterns in malaria and bilharzia, medicinal plants and protozoology. The high-level short-term training courses dealt with specific topics in the sectors of forestry, insect pests, nutrition, endemic diseases, microbiology and biotechnology, and basic biology. The second phase (1987-1992) of the African Biosciences network built upon the results of the proceeding phase with more emphasis on food production and endemic diseases. The programme comprised the following: - 91 research projects; 31 training courses, workshops, symposia and conferences; 25 travel grants and 9 publications.
About 1000 African scientists participated in the second phase activities.
The main activities of member countries in the African Biosciences Network in the second phase were research projects carried out by two or more countries on a partnership basis; conferences; symposia; training courses, and workshops in the nine priority areas (Table 2). Currently, the African Biosciences Network is engaged in capacity-building e.g. the training of young African scientists from Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal in Brazil, in the area of nitrogen-fixation and biofertilizer production.
The non-governmental association the African Association for Biological Nitrogen Fixation (AABNF), was founded in 1982 to promote scientific use of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) in Africa, for purposes of increasing food production while reducing the need for purchased fertilizer inputs. BNF can help meet national goals of alleviating food shortage and malnutrition with improved quality of foodstuffs free of pollution hazards associated with mineral nitrogen fertilizers. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, within the IITA/UNDP project GLO/77/013 on "Maximizing Nitrogen Fixation by Cowpeas and Soybeans in Farming Systems in the Humid Tropics", and the Microbial Resources Centres (MIRCENs) in Kenya, Senegal and Egypt, played a central role in the founding of this multidisciplinary association of soil scientists, microbiologists, agronomists, climatologists, social economists, breeders, plant physiologists, biotechnologists, nutritionists and policymakers, among others interested in the promotion of BNF systems in Africa. Since 1984 the Association has organized seven conferences respectively in Kenya, Egypt, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco, Zimbabwe and the Republic of South Africa to share experiences and information, to evaluate what has been done and to chart a course for the efficient exploitation of BNF systems in Africa, where the need to alleviate malnutrition and increase food production with minimal inputs is the most acute. A major development problem facing a number of African countries is how to increase food production, which is invariably limited by the availability of nitrogen fertilizer. In Africa, the high capital costs of building chemical fertilizer plants prevents many African countries from manufacturing the quantities required to support a higher per-acre yield of food. Considerable experience in the network approach has already been gained, especially through the MIRCENs for East and West Africa at the University of Nairobi and at the Centre National des Recherches Agronomiques, Bambey, Senegal. These MIRCENs functioned as the anchors of the networks within the framework of UNESCO's major regional project 1981 - 1985) in applied microbiology and biotechnology for Africa and the Arab States. Among the main mandates of the Nairobi MIRCEN are the collection, preservation, storage and distribution of authenticated microbial materials for deployment in environmental management through the Southern and Eastern African region, especially Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and elsewhere, and to serve as a taxonomic reference centre. Likewise, the West African MIRCEN co-operates with research institutes in Mali, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Niger and Chad. Culture collection, preservation and testing is one of the main services provided by the MIRCENs to the regions of East and West Africa. Since most of the collaborating laboratories are not very well equipped, culture identification, testing and preservation are generally carried out in Dakar and Nairobi with emphasis on Rhizobium. Authenticated cultures are lyophilized and conserved. Both local and imported Rhizobium strains are used for inoculant production for various grain, pasture and tree legumes. The trade name of inoculant produced by Nairobi MIRCEN is Biofix. All together inoculants were produced for 19 legume species. In recent years demand for inoculants has lagged behind total production and there is, therefore, need to expand the extension activities of the Nairobi MIRCEN. The Nairobi MIRCEN has a programme to educate farmers and agricultural extension officers on the merits arising from the proper use of inoculations produced by the MIRCEN in collaboration with the Kenya Seed Company. The catalytic roles of the MIRCENs in East, West and Southern Africa in harnessing. Biological-Nitrogen-Fixation Technology (BNF) for boosting African Agriculture has recently been documented (Brink and Prior, 1998). The Biotechnology Action Council (BAC) of UNESCO established a Biotechnology Education and Training Centre (BETCEN) for the African continent at the Roodeplaat Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in Pretoria, South Africa in 1995. The main objective of the BETCEN for Africa is to provide short and medium term training in Plant Biotechnology to scientists of Africa. The BETCEN therefore also forms part of the BETCEN network that includes centres in Mexico (Latin and South America), Hungary (Eastern Europe), Bethlehem University, Palestine (Middle East) and Qingdao, China (Asia). This latter BETCEN specializes in marine biotechnology. In the period November 1995 to September
1998, 16 courses were presented at the BETCEN at ARC-Roodeplaat in which
158 researchers from 23 countries participated. Furthermore, nine Fellowship
candidates from seven African countries were attached to the BETCEN
for training ranging from two to three months. BETCEN personnel have
been in contact with many of the participants after their initial training
and the feedback received regarding the application of techniques in
their own institutes was very positive. The demand for training in basic
biotechnology in Africa is very high and the emphasis in the future
should be on the presentation of short specialized courses applied to
specific African crops such as cassava, sweet potato or potato. Medium
term training through fellowships (2-3 months) at ARC-Roodeplaat will
also serve a purpose in the sense that in depth training on a specific
topic can be performed.
The following recommendations
are suggested for the successful implementation of Plant Biotechnology
activities in developing countries:
Concluding remarks
Notes: 1
ORSTOM : Organisation de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique
d’Outre-Mer
Brink, J.A. and Prior, B. (1998) The UNESCO BETCEN-MIRCEN Scientific Symposium: Proceedings of the Joint BETCEN – MIRCEN symposium, South Africa, March 1998.
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Villalabos V.M. (1995). Biotechnology in agriculture: How to obtain its benefits while limiting risks. In: Induced mutations and molecular techniques for crop improvement. IAEA Publication, Austria, p. 477-486.
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