Kampala — A banana strain resistant to a common fungal disease could help smallholder farmers in East Africa better control the crippling disease, which has been spreading across the region over the last three decades.
The results of confined field trials of a genetically modified (GM) banana with improved resistance to a black sigatoga disease, the devastating leaf spot fungus, are promising, researchers have told SciDev.Net.
The disease is caused by the fungus Mycosphaerella fijiensis and it can halve fruit production in affected plantations. It is easily spread by airborne spores, rain, planting material, irrigation water and packing material used in transporting goods between banana-growing countries.
The dark leaf spots caused by the fungus eventually enlarge and merge together, causing much of the leaf area to dry.
The team led by Andrew Kiggundu - head of banana biotechnology research at the Uganda's National Agricultural Research Laboratories Institute (NARL) in Kawanda - analysed 19 lines of GM bananas and found promising results in five of them. Andrews told SciDev.Net further research is needed to calculate the exact yield gains from using the resistant banana strain.
The researchers inserted genes for chitinase - an enzyme that breaks down chitin, the hard substance that makes up the cell walls of the invading fungi - preventing the fungus from invading the plant cells and causing the disease.
Kiggundu said laboratory tests using leaves from transgenic plants showed almost full immunity when cultured fungi were applied to the leaves.
Researchers collaborated closely with the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where several banana lines were engineered to include the chitinase gene before being brought to NARL for testing.
However, Settumba Mukasa, resident banana expert in the department of crop science at Uganda's Makerere University, said the field trials had more significance for building research capacity in Uganda than the development of a new disease-resistant banana.
"[The project] is a stepping stone for subsequent breeding programs and genetic engineering programmes. As a consequence of this project we can now do transformations of other varieties of bananas and other crop species," said Mukasa.
While black sigatoka is among the top three diseases affecting bananas in Uganda it mainly affects Cavendish, which are not as widely cultivated as other types of bananas.
But for the few farmers in Uganda who do grow Cavendish bananas, the development may be useful since the disease is currently controlled by aerial pesticide spraying which is expensive for smallholders and affects their health.
"Farmers cannot afford that because they are small and they have few plants. Here, chemical control is not viable, so this approach may be the only available method to manage the disease," Mukasa said.
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I deal with the report in parts, briefly, as follows:
1. "analyzed 19 lines of GM bananas and found promising results in five of them".
My view: "Promising result" used is not a definite, certain or precise use of language and on a matter such as this, we should speak definite, certain or precise language so that no one would be mislead or deceived into exaggeration or the wrong conclusion and actionand have to suffer kidney, heart, liver, lung or immune system failure and death. Take note that the result showed that five lines showed promising results out of 19 lines. This gives a very meagre 21%. That should not be taken as promising or called promising or is it really promising? A 90% success would be promising to me and NOT 21% success
I wish to state very clearly, and please note, that to have 19 lines, all of which expressed different characteristics, shows the inherence of failure or problems in genetic RE-engineering of organisms. It also shows why new proteins, toxins, allergens, and mutagens are produced and the gastrointestinal system is always the first endogenous system to be affected, nearly always followed by the immune systemthe consequences of which is very well knownand, hence, why genetic RE-engineering should be BANNED or, at least restricted to the laboratories.
2. Kiggundu says laboratory tests using leaves from GM plants showed almost full immunity when the fungus which causes black sigatoga disease Mycosphaerella fijiensis) was applied to the leaves My view: My view about the use of almost full immunity is the same as my view about the use of promising in 1. I add to that the question: Did the leaf express any immune defence before they carried out their genetic RE-engineering?
3. Further research will be needed to calculate the exact effect on yields, according to Kiggundu.
My view: The further research should have been carried out and much better result should have been obtained before any result is published. 4. The GM bananas in question have been genetically engineered to contain genes for chitinase, an enzyme that breaks down chitin: the hard substance that makes up the cell walls of the invading fungi.
My view: They created no gene, they merely took the one that was created and used it as they liked or as they hoped, wished, expected, believed, thought, or intended would achieve their materialism, hedonism, romanticism, selfishness, politics, economics, commercialism, or wickedness. They did not use it in harmony with the way the creator of the gene designed or programmed it and intended it to be used. Consider your computer programme interfered with and the language disorganised by someone who used the disorganised form. What should be expected from that? If I write raw and another person changes it to war will the same function be carried out by the person to whom both words are sent? Will the same effect be achieved when both words are carried out?
5. The Ugandan researchers collaborated with researchers at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium to develop the GM banana lines.
My view: the fact that I am a catholic obliges me to be interested in the involvement of the Catholic university. Two facts should be noted: Those corrupt and evil people have been making very consistently great and desperate effort to get the catholic church involved.
They visited Pope John-Paul 11 and requested him to ask Catholics to accept GM foods but he told them to respect human life and the rights of people. They have visited Pope Benedict XV1 but have not succeeded in getting his approval yet, They have been trying to use other catholic institutions in the Vatican and had even claimed that they had got approval from these and from the pope; but they lied deliberately and desperately. I shall Google the university and discuss it if I find its email address.
I recall here also that Monsanto claimed that an independent researching Institute confirmed the safety of its soya in Sough Africa but it was discovered to be false and the institute to be its creation for strategic purposes. Monsanto was forbidden by South African Court to make any more claims about GM food until it can prove its safety. That was in 2007.
6. "Settumba Mukasa, resident banana expert in the department of crop science at Uganda's Makerere University, says, "[The project] is a stepping stone for subsequent breeding programs and genetic engineering programmes. As a consequence of this project we can now do transformations of other varieties of bananas and other crop species".
My view: The conclusion is very wrong following 21% success and the two imprecise languages used. I expected to see evidence of peer review, evidence of safety study with rat or mice, and publication in a well-known, trusted and relied on journal.
Prince Awele Odor Independent Researcher and Public Good Promoter