[searcabic] Latest news postings on biotechnology, 20 April 2009

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*Posted 19 April 2009*

*PHILIPPINES*
1-BAR INTENSIFIES SUPPORT FOR AGRI BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH
2-IRRADIATION MAKES FOOD ‘SALMONELLA’-FREE
3-GM RICE YIELDS 50% MORE HARVEST EVEN WITH LESS FERTILIZER AND WATER USE
4-BIOTECH CROPS' GLOBAL VALUE REACHES $7.5 BILLION
5-PCC PUTS UP P300-MILLION BIOTECH FACILITY
6-A NEW LOOK AT BIOFUELS

*INDIA*
7-Bt BRINJAL MAY BE RELEASED COMMERCIALLY BY YEAR-END

*GLOBAL*
8-THE WORLD MUST FEED ITS HUNGRY

     *1-BAR INTENSIFIES SUPPORT FOR AGRI BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH*
by Marvyn N. Benaning
19-April-2009 Manila
Bulletin<http://mb.com.ph/articles/202880/bar-intensifies-support-agri-biotechnology-research>

Recognizing the benefits of biotechnology application in agriculture, the
Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR), in partnership with the National
Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH) and selected
state universities and colleges (SUCs), is intensifying its biotechnology
R&D program giving specific attention to traditional and modern
biotechnology.

The biotechnology program focuses on integrated processing to increase the
value and competitiveness of traditional crops intended for local and world
markets. This includes the production of natural ingredients with the
application of traditional and modern technology and the creation of
clusters of natural ingredients industries.

With the Philippines being rich in biodiversity, it can exploit and create
new products and medicine for the growing global market.

In a recent pronouncement of BAR Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar, he noted how
biotechnology application in agriculture is seen as an answer to issues in
agricultural productivity and food security.

With such an initiative, BAR hopes to develop and promote the adoption of
new production and postharvest technologies to increase productivity and
profitability of selected agricultural commodities while minimizing the
environmental impact of farming and fishery practices to effectively manage
biodiversity, and help develop science-based policies.

The idea is to fast-track agricultural productivity that positively and
directly increases farmers’ incomes, provides access to nutritious and safer
food, and helps achieve a healthy environment.

Based at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), BIOTECH has
been promoting agricultural biotechnology that improves the productivity of
the industry in turning out products that cost less and are safer for family
consumption while at the same time, contributes to a healthy environment.

According to Dr. Ida F. Dalmacio of BIOTECH, speculative fear of genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) and biotechnology has prevented people from
understanding the real potentials and benefits of biotechnology application
in agriculture.

Dalmacio also clarified that there is more to agribiotechnology than the
GMOs and expounded on how biotechnology can be applied to agriculture.

“Biotechnology is the application of any technique that uses living
organisms, or a part of it, to make or modify a product, to improve plants
or animals or to develop substances for specific functions. If applied to
agriculture, it simply means to use living organisms or part of it, to
improve the productivity of crops, livestock and the fisheries,” she
explained.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*2-IRRADIATION MAKES FOOD ‘SALMONELLA’-FREE*
by Lyn Resurreccion / Science Editor
13-April-2009 BusinessMirror<http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/science/8635-irradiation-makes-food-salmonella-free-.html>

Salmonella contamination has been in the news lately in some peanut-butter
and pistachio brands. First, peanut-butter brands from the US were reported
contaminated. Later on, samples from two local brands were reported tainted.
Now it’s pistachio nuts mainly from the US that are affected, although most
of the brands were voluntarily recalled just as a precaution.

Salmonella bacteria are the most frequently reported cause of food-borne
illness, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) web-site fact sheet said.
To reduce salmonellosis or Salmonella infection, it said, a comprehensive
farm-to-table approach to food safety is necessary. Farmers, industry, food
inspectors, retailers, food-service workers and consumers are each critical
links in the food-safety chain.

The Salmonella family includes more than 2,300 serotypes of bacteria which
are one-celled organisms too small to be seen without a microscope. Two
types, Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium, are the most
common in the United States and account for half of all human infections.

Salmonella lives in the intestinal tract of humans and other animals,
including birds. It is usually transmitted to humans by eating food
contaminated with animal feces.

Being heat-sensitive, Salmonella present in raw meat and poultry could
survive if the product is not cooked to a safe minimum internal temperature,
the USDA said.

Salmonella can also cause salmonellosis through cross-contamination, wherein
juices from raw meat or poultry come in contact with ready-to-eat foods,
such as salads.

The bacteria have been known to cause illness for over 100 years. They were
discovered by American scientist Dr. Daniel E. Salmon.

To prevent food from Salmonella contamination, the Philippine Nuclear
Research Institute (PNRI) said the use of irradiation may be among
interventions that may be used.

Zenaida de Guzman, head of PNRI’s biomedical research section and project
leader of food-irradiation research and development project, said that in
tandem with Good Manufacturing Practices and Hazard Analysis and Critical
Control Points the use of irradiation in food may eliminate pathogenic
microbes.

“We want the public to know that we use this technology [irradiation] to
eliminate microbes, such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria in food,” de
Guzman told the BusinessMirror in an interview.

De Guzman, however, was quick to say that the peanut butter and pistachio
which were recently found or still suspected to be contaminated with
Salmonella could no longer be irradiated by the PNRI.

She explained that only raw agricultural materials are irradiated, like the
peanut in the peanut butter, or the raw pistachio, because the finished
products have already passed a long process—from planting to harvesting,
drying, processing, up to transporting, which might have caused the
contamination, or that toxins might have already developed.

“Agricultural raw materials have many sources of microbial contamination,
including water,” she noted.

Besides, she said, food irradiation observes certain protocols, wherein the
raw food materials are irradiated immediately after they are dried after
harvest to prevent the development of more microbes. She said if there is a
big amount of microbes present, it might require a higher dose of
irradiation that may affect the quality, taste or color of the produce.

However, she said Filipino food manufacturers should consider irradiation to
make their products free from disease-causing bacteria.

Irradiation uses high-energy ionizing radiation, a PNRI flyer said, to
reduce postharvest losses, disinfest fresh fruits and other agricultural
products, extend shelf life of food and agricultural commodities, such as
fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish and seafood, reduce microbes that
cause spoilage and eliminate pathogenic microbes.

De Guzman explained that irradiation—which uses 300 Gray (Gy) to 1,000 Gy
dose, depending on the product that will be irradiated—is safe for human and
animal consumption because there is no radioactive residue left on the
product.

“It is like putting the product under x-ray,” she noted.

The PNRI’s irradiation facility was set up as pilot-scale in 1984 and was
upgraded to semicommercial scale in 2008. It could handle 2 tons of products
per load.

It irradiates spices and dehydrated vegetables, such as ground black and
white peppers, powders like cayenne, turmeric, onion, garlic, ginger,
tamarind, chives and other condiments.

De Guzman added that there is a growing volume of herbal products, like
ampalaya and malunggay powder, that are irradiated at the PNRI. The same
with frozen fruits for export that are used in the production of ice cream.

Fresh onions and garlic also undergo irradiation in the PNRI facility to
inhibit sprouts. It, likewise, irradiates medical products for sterilization
purposes, such as syringes, cotton, orthopedic implants, gauze, tubings,
catheters.

She said that in foreign countries 80 percent use irradiation for
sterilization. In the US even pet foods are irradiated.

Patties for hamburgers, hot dogs or frozen chicken may also be irradiated.

De Guzman announced that the Philippines may soon export mango to the US
after the three-year study affirmed the absence of seed weevil in the whole
country. Luzon and Visayas were already found to be seed weevil- free. The
results of the same study in the Mindanao situation are being awaited this
year.

The mangoes for export to the US will still be irradiated against fruit
flies.

In another export prospect, de Guzman said China is making inquiries on its
possible importation of irradiated mangoes from the Philippines.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*3-GM RICE YIELDS 50% MORE HARVEST EVEN WITH LESS FERTILIZER AND WATER USE
*by Melody M. Aguiba
10-April-2009 Manila
Bulletin<http://mb.com.ph/articles/201909/gm-rice-yields-50-more-harvest-even-with-less-fertilizer-and-water-use>

A genetically modified (GM) rice that can give 50 percent more harvest while
requiring less fertilizer and water is seen as a long term solution to low
yield in resource-scarce, poverty-stricken farms threatened by climate
change.

The GM rice will have more efficient carbon dioxide capture with its
enhanced capacity for photosynthesis, the process of using solar energy to
capture carbon dioxide and converting it into growth-inducing carbohydrate
in plants.

Some rice plants have inefficient means for photosynthesis, known as C3.
However, Dr. John Sheehy, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
project leader for the GM rice, said that using C4 photosynthesis, rice
plant’s capacity to convert solar energy in producing a richer grain can be
enhanced particularly in tropical climates.

“Converting the photosynthesis of rice to C4 would increase yields by 50
percent, and that C4 would also use water twice as efficiently. The benefits
of this breakthrough would be immense in developing countries where billions
of poor people rely on rice as staple,” said Sheehy.

A total of $11 million has been allocated for this study.

In a related development, IRRI Director General Robert Zeigler said IRRI
needs $150 million over 10 years or $15 million yearly for the Rice Action
Plan (RAP) that would speed up development of high yielding rice varieties.

The plan aims to develop new high yielding rice inbreds and hybrids out of
thousands of rice varieties that are stored at IRRI’s gene banks and tap
into these germ-plasms’ yet unexplored genetic resources.

Aside from the development on the genetic side of rice, the program will
increase the delivery of postharvest facilities in rice-producing areas in
order to cut the losses that can amount to as much 20 percent of harvest.
Its aim is also to train more rice breeders that are working on research and
development projects funded by both the private sector and the government.

The RAP was approved by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Ministers
of Agriculture and Forestry in October last year.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*4-BIOTECH CROPS' GLOBAL VALUE REACHES $7.5 BILLION*
by Rudy A. Fernandez
06-April-2009 The Philippine
STAR<http://www.philstar.com/ArticlePrinterFriendly.aspx?articleId=455280>

MANILA, Philippines - The global market value of biotechnology crops reached
$7.5 billion in 2008, up from $6.9 billion in 2007.

Last year’s $7.5 billion represented 14 percent Dr. Clive James, founder and
current board chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of
Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

New York (USA)-based ISAAA is a not-for-profit organization with an
international network of centers designed to contribute to the alleviation
of hunger and poverty by sharing knowledge and crop biotechnology
applications.

The network includes the Southeast Asia Center based in Los Baños, Laguna,
headed by Dr. Randy Hautea, currently ISAAA global coordinator and former
director of the University of the Philippines Los Baños-Institute of Plant
Breeding (UPLB-IPB).

Dr. James’ report, titled “Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops:
2008”, was presented by Dr. Hautea and former UP president Dr. Emil Q.
Javier at a media forum last Feb. 12 at the Richmonde Hotel in Pasig City.

In his report, the Welsh-born research administrator projected that the
global value of the biotech crop market for 2009 is approximately $8.3
billion.

Of the genetically modified (GM) crops produced in 2008, biotech maize
constituted the biggest chunk of the global biotech market – $3.6 billion or
48 percent.

It was followed by soybean, $2.8 billion (37 percent); cotton, $0.9 billion
(12 percent); and canola, $0.2 billion (three percent).

The other biotech crops raised in 2008 in 25 countries were papaya, squash,
tomato, sweet pepper, alfalfa, poplar, petunia, carnation, and sugar beet.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*5-PCC PUTS UP P300-MILLION BIOTECH FACILITY*
by Jennifer A. Ng / Reporter
06-April-2009 BusinessMirror<http://businessmirror.com.ph/component/content/article/53-agri-commodities/8410-pcc-puts-up-p300-million-biotech-facility.html>

THE Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) is constructing a P300-million
biotechnology center under a three-year multicommodity research and
development project funded by a soft loan program of the United States
government dubbed as the Public Law 480.

An attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), PCC is the
country’s new biotechnology center for ruminants. The agency is expanding
its center to serve as a common facility for dairy and meat animals not only
for carabao, but also cattle, goat and sheep.

“We’re able to get funding for multicommodity research which allows us to
cut across commodities other than just carabao,” Dr. Libertado Cruz, PCC
executive director, said in a statement.

PCC intends to fully use the marker-assisted selection (MAS) method in
choosing the best animal breeds it intends to reproduce.

An equipment the PCC plans to acquire is the DNA sequencer. At a cost of P18
million to P20 million, the sequencer helps research identify animals with
superior traits. It is especially useful for breeding animals that could
produce higher quantities of milk than the average animal.

Animals that have the DNA markers associated with the good traits are mated
with other superior animals. The semen of these animals would be distributed
for crossbreeding with native animals through artificial insemination.

The PCC is also expanding its cryobank, a gene bank for animal embryos,
semen, blood and tissue—both native and foreign breeds—that need to be
preserved.

Preservation through cryobanking in below zero degrees temperature would
enable researchers to reproduce a specific breed known to carry a genetic
trait of important economic value, such as high milk production and quality
meat characterized by good marbling, tenderness and high-protein content.

Cruz noted that even the local breed may have future uses.

“The indigenous breed has distinct advantage which we don’t require at the
moment but can be valuable in the future. One is resistance to disease,
resistance to heat, and many others that have not yet been identified. The
problem is that genes that regulate this resistance have not yet been
identified,” he said.

The only animal-gene bank in the Philippines, the cryobank is in Muñoz,
Nueva Ecija, where the headquarters of PCC is also located. The cryobank has
a total of 76,249 accessions including purebreds and crossbreds of carabao
and cattle. It also keeps 2,168 native germplasms.

The agency has started ranking its own buffaloes according to expected
breeding value (EBV). It has 881 animals that have EBVs which indicate milk
production record of female animals. For the male buffalo, researchers place
an EBV on potential for milk production based on the milk production of
their female offspring.

Cruz said the PCC’s capability to determine molecular markers will also
enhance the country’s ability to conduct quarantine or sanitary and
phytosanitary processes when screening animals against diseases prior to
importation.

The agency noted that the Philippines in the past had imported sick animals
whose diseases have spread in the country because it lacked adequate ability
to quarantine animals and test them with technical capabilities at the
molecular level.

Cruz also said that PCC’s “capability for traceability through molecular
markers” will be useful in the country’s long-term plan to export meat
products.

He noted that traceability is now a feature in food safety required by the
export market, as the market is seriously concerned about the origin of farm
products.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*6-A NEW LOOK AT BIOFUELS *
Development Dialogue by Nora O. Gamolo
02-April-2009 Manila
Times<http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/april/02/yehey/opinion/20090402opi6.html>

Many landholders and land owning politicians tried to cash in on the
promising bio-fuels program through wanton land conversion, allegedly to
skirt agrarian reform, among other bad goals. Some long-time settlers and
indigenous peoples were displaced when their lands were used for jatropha
production. For the propertied investors, the program can later become
manna, since the law had given them tremendous boosters and policy perks.

With such a dubious start, especially in jatropha production, the biofuels
program became controversial. Yet, many of the mistakes that accompanied its
birthing can be corrected now.

The program can even be used to improve small farmers’ lives if we could
correct some fallacies and misconceptions, and amend the existing law to
insert preferential options for the poor provisions—or draft a new and
better law. Owing to its omissions and ambiguities, the existing law can be
considered as a work still in progress.

The best way, in fact, to neutralize people’s resistance and the unsavory
controversies that attended the program’s start is to make sure benefits
will trickle to the people this time, not to halt in the hands of big
landlords, corporate interests and land grabbers. To do this, you have to
work with the people.

The trainors in the Impact Assessment of Biofuels Seminar organized by the
Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in
Agriculture maintain that favored jatropha and other biofuel crops need not
displace food crops. Instead, they should be used as supplemental crops that
could in some cases even enrich the soil.

Jatropha could be intercropped with rice, corn, cassava and other tubers,
sweet sorghum and vegetables, among others. In fact, you should only plant
it with other crops as it takes at least three years before jatropha can
reward you for your efforts.

Dr. Nena Espiritu, a UP Los Baños forestry professor, disclosed that 87
percent of jatropha project implementers surveyed opined that its production
need not compete with food production only because you can plant it on
unproductive, idle, hilly/rolling land and marginal areas and can be
intercropped.

New ways of combining food production with energy crop production have
already been developed. Energy crops can be targeted for the more marginal
lands, while food crops can be grown on more favorable lands.

Communities and their local governments should follow their Comprehensive
Land Use Plan. They should not allow the use of prime land, but use only
marginal land, for ja-tropha production.

Jatropha production can help raise the incomes of small farmers and rural
laborers, and may in fact lead to improved food security, stresses Dr.
Espiritu.

These knowledge should now correct the bad practice of converting rice land
into purely jatropha-producing land. This continues unfortunately to be done
even now that we have a rice shortage and have to import rice often enough.

You also do not need a big corporate affair to process jatropha, since its
production can be done in the village level, to be participated in by small
farmers and their cooperatives that could either sell jatropha seeds, raise
seedlings or cut-tings, or process them into their own biofuels.

Dr. Espiritu cited one local government that has ventured into assisting
small farmers in processing indigenous and locally produced biofuel that it
feeds to its own vehicles. The Visayas State University maintains vehicles
that run on biofuels. These projects have upgraded the people’s science
intelligence quotient by simply germinating biofuel crops in their
communities.

Rafael Coscolouella, director of the Sugar Regulatory Administration and
deputy director of the National Biofuels Board (NBB), calls for our support
of the biofuels program, not just because it can provide much-needed jobs in
the rural areas, but also because it can supply vital power needs. In
Negros, a bioethanol project operates as a cogeneration project, producing
energy uploaded to the power grid.

The program can in fact be used to spur village production centers of small
farmers, rather than concentrate on big production ventures that benefit
only the business sector.

The need for biofuels is tremendous. Of the country’s energy sources, coco
methyl ester (CME) production can only supply less than 1 percent.

Using biofuels will greatly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to global warming, said forester Dr. Rodel Lasco. He shared
scientific projections that if global temperature rises by two degrees, 30
percent of the world’s biodiversity will be wiped out. Dr. Lasco is one of
four Filipino scientists who are members of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, and a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize won by the
elite group.

The Biofuels law enacted in 2007 mandated the increased use of biofuels. On
February 6, the mandated minimum of 5-percent bioethanol fuel blend for
gasoline became effective. Fuels available in pump stations for gasoline-fed
vehicles are 10-percent bioethanol fuel blend or E-10 and pure gasoline.

On February 6, 2011, the mandated minimum of 10 percent-bioethanol fuel
blend will become effective, subject to final recommendation of the NBB
depending on the local supply of bioethanol.

Biofuel production can open new socioeconomic and scientific vistas for the
Philippines. Agricultural research can and must help enhance overall crop
productivity, while policy researches are in order to correct some of the
biofuel’s law and program’s weaknesses.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*INDIA
7-Bt BRINJAL MAY BE RELEASED COMMERCIALLY BY YEAR-END
*15-April-2009 Business
Standard<http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/bt-brinjal-may-be-released-commercially-by-year-end/355113/>

Bt brinjal, the country’s first genetically modified (GM) edible product, is
in the final stage of getting a clearance from the Genetic Engineering
Approval Committee (GEAC), the biotechnology regulatory body of the
Government of India.

The Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company-(Mahyco-) developed Bt brinjal had run
into trouble last year with the Union health ministry and consumer
organisations raising questions about its safety with regard to health.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Usha Barwale Zehr, joint
director (research), Mahyco, said, “We have already got the GEAC’s
permission to produce Bt brinjal seeds for field trials, which have been
completed. The scientific papers and data of the field trials have been
submitted by the Review Committee on Genetic Modification (RCGM). It has
been tested to be absolutely safe. We have applied for the commercial
release of Bt brinjal seeds to the GEAC and hope it will be approved by the
end of this year.”

In 2006, Mahyco, a leading seed company in India, which had successfully
introduced cutting-edge biotech products such as Bt cotton hybrids, had
applied for the commercial release of Bt brinjal, but GEAC had asked the
company to conduct some more studies.

Mahyco had completed those studies and submitted the reports along with the
application for commercial release again in 2008, Zehr said.

About the NGO campaigns against the release of Bt brinjal, fuelled by global
studies questioning the health and safety of genetically modified edible
products, Zehr claimed that in terms of composition, it was not different
from the normal brinjal, except for the additional Bt protein. It would also
improve the marketable yield, she said.

A major constraint in brinjal production is plant infestation by fruit shoot
borers or FSBs. The pest can cause significant yield loss and reduce the
number of marketable fruits.

The marketable yield loss due to FSBs is almost 45-60 per cent. Experts had
estimated that financial loss to the country because of this 45-60 per cent
damage was equivalent to Rs 1,000 crore a year, Zehr said. Bt brinjal can
reduce this loss to 10 per cent, she claimed. Moreover, farmers would
require 70 per cent less insecticides to fight FSBs in this case, she
explained.

In India, brinjal is cultivated on 550,000 hectares with average produce of
30 tonnes.

According to a study by Mahyco, farmers invested about Rs 100 per pesticide
spray per acre for anywhere between 40 and 45 sprays on the 90-day brinjal
crop, depending upon the type of infestation, Zehr pointed out.

*------------------------------------------------------------*
*GLOBAL
8-THE WORLD MUST FEED ITS HUNGRY
*17-April-2009 Financial
Times<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab8dc834-2ab0-11de-8415-00144feabdc0.html>

*EDITORIAL*
As we agonise about the recession, we should remember that humanity’s
greatest economic problem is more basic: how to get enough food, a challenge
still faced by millions.

This weekend the Group of Eight leading countries gathers in Italy for its
first ever meeting of agriculture ministers. Their goal must be to move food
policy up the global political agenda to a position where it is treated as
the vital international security matter it is.

Last year’s record-high food commodity prices sparked riots as 100m people
needed help from the World Food Programme. Thousands of desperate people in
dozens of countries took to the streets in upheavals potentially far more
destabilising than any reactions the financial meltdown has yet provoked.
This danger will not go away.

Prices have come down, but remain higher than in decades. Even short
disruptions cast long shadows: malnutrition in infancy can permanently
impair children’s physical and cognitive development. Climate change,
decades of declining investment in agriculture, and current policy mistakes
conspire to make the crisis structural.

All countries share an interest in food security – their own, and for the
sake of stability, that of others. But they must not confuse security with
self-sufficiency. The world can produce enough food for all: as the
economist Amartya Sen points out, famines are caused not by lack of food but
by income inequality. The poor must get help – in ways that do not undermine
food production.

Food exporters and importers alike need well-functioning international
markets in food, which encourage efficient global production patterns. The
responses to the crisis, sadly, have been in the opposite direction: export
bans, land grabs of arable territory and secretive bilateral barter deals.
These policies must stop. They are self-destructive and costly, and for poor
countries ruinous. They do harm to others, as they undermine trading systems
that benefit all.

Governments must provide global public goods. Research is needed to boost
productivity, especially for African crops, and must not be hampered by
opposition to genetically modified food. Mechanisms must be found to hedge
against price volatility that discourages production even when prices are
high.

The G8 has rightly invited important emerging countries to the table. But
are agricultural ministers, who usually see their job as helping their own
farmers, up to the task? Food security is the greatest threat to human
well-being today. It should not be lost in quibbles about the branding of
Parma ham.

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*Biofuels: beating the heat from changing
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*---------------------------------------------------------*
*Download available paper and/or presentation handouts of some notable
speakers presented at SEARCA Agriculture and Development Series. CLICK HERE.
* <http://www.searca.org/web/adss/2009/index.html>

*Creating Public Awareness, Knowledge and Understanding of Biotech Crops:
Media Conference and Social Marketing of Public Sector Biotech Products in
Eastern Visayas* <http://www.bic.searca.org/>
*Ormoc, Leyte
12 - 14 May 2009*

*2nd Annual Biofuels
Summit*<http://www.bic.searca.org/events/index2009.html#may>
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*International Symposium on Second Green Revolution: Priorities, Programmes,
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2009)*<http://www.bic.searca.org/events/index2009.html#july>
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02 - 04 July 2009*

*-------------------------------------------------------------*
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