"Asian publications on GM plant science are soaring"

Read the full article in SciDev.Net.

"In 2003, Asia matched Western Europe and North America in the number of papers published on the genetic modification of plants, according to a report in the November issue of Nature Biotechnology.

"By analysing publications from 1973-2003 in two major databases — the ISI Web of Science and CAB Abstracts — Philippe Vain of the UK-based John Innes Centre, concluded that: 'Currently, only the impact (the number of citations) differentiates the output of North America, Western Europe and Asia'.

"The study showed that while publications on both applications of 'transgenic' techniques and their use in developing new genetically modified (GM) crops are increasing, papers describing new technologies for such research have not increased significantly since 1995."

Comment

Clearly, there is a need to assure that food and feed is safe. Equally clearly, meeting the food needs of the coming century will require major increases in agriculutral productivity, and GM crops are perhaps the most promising way to obtain those increases in productivity. Unfortunately, unreasonable fear and fear mongering are militating against critically important research in developed countries -- if there is no market for GM foods and feeds, farmers won't grow them, and corporations won't invest in them. The developing nations of Asia, with both scientific capacity and pressing problems of feeding their huge and increasingly affluent populations, are taking up some of the slack. But it would be great to see more R&D in the developed nations as well, and thus to see the total global R&D program on genetic modification of crop grow.