Uganda to allow Bt cotton trials

Uganda's National Biosafety Committee is considering an application for trials of genetically-modified cotton. The Bt cotton is encoded with genetic material from Baccilus thuringiensis, a beneficial bacterium that kills insects. It is a major component of the pesticide industry, used for control of specific caterpillar-like crop pests. The purposeof the gene manipulation is to make the cotton more resistant to the pests.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is to inject $160,000 on the Bt cotton trials through its Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Programme (APEP). The trials are to be undertaken by Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO).

APEP managing director Clive Drew said the trials are expected to start by the end of May. He said USAID is still awaiting approval of the trials from the National Biosafety Committee of the National Council of Science and Technology (NCST). "When approved, confined field trials will be conducted to test the effects of Bt on bollworms compared to controlled cotton, which will only be sprayed," Drew said. "But because of the porous nature of our borders, we have got to move very fast in getting the testing done in accordance with the legal framework."

"We don't know the outcome yet, the only thing we know is that whenever it is tested, it does not end up being released for commercial purposes," Drew said. "As part of the commercial procedure, the trial sites are guarded. All materials used will be completely destroyed. So there is no chance of productive materials leaking."

NCST Biosafety Officer Arthur Makara said the council was still reviewing the application and would come up with the date the trials will take off. He said the technology has a potential to increase yields, reduce the number of sprays and the costs of pesticides. "Yes, the confined field
trials will be done but it is hard to say as to to when, they are still at research stage, he said.

A research scientist at Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute, Godfrey Arinaitwe, said during a field visit to South Africa recently that the trials will be conducted in conjunction with the Cotton Development Authority (CDO) and will involve two technologies. One will be resistance to herbicide and the other will be resistance to the bollworm cotton pest.

"It is a very good technology even for small scale farmers. You don't need to mix chemicals, instead you use one herbicide," Arinaitwe said. Bt cotton has been tested and commercially released in a number of countries, including among others South Africa, Brazil and India. It is now under study in Kenya and Burkina Faso.

USAID is doing trials on herbicide-tolerance cotton; cotton that has been genetically modified so that if it is sprayed with Round-Up herbicide, the cotton is not affected but all weeds are killed. "It will be very beneficial to Uganda because weeds are a very big problem in cotton, it being a long season crop, contributing to 30 per cent of yield losses," Drew said.

If proved effective, the technologies are expected to improve the competitiveness of Uganda's cotton sector and result in increased cotton output. The cotton output in the 2006/07 season was 135,000 bales, down from 248,000 bales in the 2005/06 season. The output of the 2004/05 season was 103,000 bales.

Monitor