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PRESS RELEASE
By: Jessica Bacud

Monsanto-PAPI forum underscores GM crops
 
Monsanto Philippines has underscored the value of genetically modified (GM) crops in promoting sustainable Philippine agriculture and food security, during the recent media forum jointly organized by Monsanto and the Publishers Association of the Philippines Inc. (PAPI) held at the Novotel, Araneta Center Complex, Cuba, Quezon City. The forum was bannered by the theme “Towards Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.”
 
The forum focused on the biosafety regulatory framework policy on Genetically Modified crops and their socio-economic benefits and importance. It was designed to inform media players and enlist their support in helping clarify misconception about GM crops.
 
PAPI president Nelson Santos said the joint Monsanto-PAPI media forum was initiated to help  address the need for continuing public information and education, and institutional strengthening at national and local levels, apart from multi-stakeholder partnerships to strengthen the future of biotechnology in the country.
 
Dr. Nina G. Gloriani, Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines president, explained that Biosafety Regulations in the Philippines has documented the milestones and struggles of the GM food technology from the time the National Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines was established in 1990 under Executive Order No. 430.
 
“The regulation of GM foods is evaluated at the highest level of internationally prescribed standards before they are allowed for importation,” Gloriani stressed. The objective of E0 430 is to put in place a “regulatory framework that will ensure an adequate level of protection for the safe transfer, handling, and use of genetically modified organisms resulting from modern applications of biotechnology.”
 
At that time, Gloriani said, “we knew little about the impact of GMOs on an environment’s biodiversity and the possible risks on human and animal health, especially in cases of trans-boundary movement. The agricultural biotechnology is a safe and beneficial technology that contributes to both environmental and economic sustainability,” discrediting the claims by anti-GMO supporters that GM crops are not safe.
 
Another forum speaker, Dr. Gabriel O. Romero, Regulatory Affairs Lead of Monsanto Philippines Inc. said GM crops provide real economic benefits in the form of lower production costs, improved yields and simplified crop management. He pointed out that globally, farmers have benefited from improved crop varieties, citing that around 812,000 hectares of the estimated one million yellow-corn hectarage or about 80-85 percent of the area are planted to GM corn. The Philippines, he said, will soon become a corn exporter having gained self-sufficiency since 2012.
 
Charina G. Ocampo, Monsantos’s Corporate Affairs lead, noted that  farmers choose biotech crops because they increase yield and lower production costs. “Farmers get greater financial returns while using more environmentally friendly farming practices through the use of agricultural biotechnology.”
 
GMOs are created when a gene from one specie is transferred to another to resist pests, do away with herbicides, and enhance the plant’s nutritional value. GM corn commonly known as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) Corn is one of Monsanto’s direct-to-consumer products that are highly promoted among farmers across the country.
 
Ocampo said Bt corn has “zero or less pesticide use” and “better and more uniform quality” compared to ordinary corn. “The experience of the first 20 years of commercialization, 1996 to 2015, has confirmed that the early promise of crop biotechnology has been fulfilled. Biotech crops have delivered substantial agronomic, environmental, economic, health and social benefits to farmers and, increasingly, to society at large.
 
The rapid adoption of biotech crops from 1996 to 2015, reflects the substantial multiple benefits realized by both large-scale and small farmers in industrial and developing countries, which have grown biotech crops commercially, she added, noting that small farmers in developing countries generally tend to benefit most from biotech crops because they not spend additionally to protect them from insects and diseases (JCM) - Press Release

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