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Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Monsanto ready to distribute new GM corn
GENERAL SANTOS- Seed giant Monsanto Philippines will begin the commercial distribution here of a genetically engineered corn variety that could resist both the destructive Asiatic corn borer and herbicides used to eliminate field weeds.
Approved Francisco Camacho, Monsanto's technology development executive here, said the "dekalb-stacked hybrid" has been approved for planting in the country by the Bureau of Plant Industry.
"This hybrid essentially solves the problem of our farmers here about the potential damage from the corn borer and weeds," Camacho said Thursday in a Monsanto-sponsored radio program.
According to a report from the University of the Philippines Los Baños-based Biotechnology Information Center (BIC), the new hybrid corn seed is practically a combination of the controversial Bacillus thuringiesis (Bt) corn and the Roundup-Ready corn, which underwent several field tests here and the neighboring areas.
Bt corn was approved for planting in the country in late 2002 while Roundup Ready corn was introduced in the markets earlier this year.
"So-called stacked-trait corn, the plant bears two introduced genes in its genetic make-up. The first one, called Bt gene (cry1ab), comes from a common soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.
"The second one, the EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshi-kimate-3-phosphate synthase) gene, isolated from the CP4 strain of Agrobac-terium tumefaciens, is a naturally occurring bacterium in the soils," the BIC report said. (Sun.Star General Santos/Sunnex)
(August 24, 2005 issue)
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