Banana is a staple crop in Uganda. Ugandans have the highest per capita consumption of cooking banana
in the world (Clarke, 2003). However, banana production in Uganda is limited by several productivity
constraints such as pests, diseases, soil depletion, and poor agronomic practices. To address those
constraints, the country has invested significant resources in research and development and other publicly
funded programs, pursuing approaches over both the short and long term. Uganda formally initiated its
short-term approach in the early 1990s; it involves the collection of both local and foreign germ plasms
for the evaluation and selection of cultivars tolerant to the productivity constraints. The long-term
approach, launched in 1995, includes breeding for resistance to the productivity constraints using
conventional breeding methods and genetic engineering. Genetic engineering projects in Uganda target
the most popular and infertile cultivars that cannot be improved through conventional (cross) breeding.
The main objective of genetic engineering in Uganda is to develop genetically modified (GM) cultivars
that are resistant to local pests and diseases, have improved agronomic attributes, and are acceptable to
consumers (Kikulwe et al., 2007).
The introduction of a GM banana in Uganda is not without controversy. In Uganda, where the
technology of genetic engineering is still in its infancy, it is likely to generate a wide portfolio of
concerns, as it has in other African countries. According to the Uganda National Council of Science and
Technology (UNCST) (2006), the main public concern is the safety of the technology for the environment
and human health.
Several countries have designed and implemented policies to address the safety concerns of
consumers and producers (Beckmann, Soregaroli, and Wesseler, 2006a, 2006b). Such policies include
assessment, management, and communication of the biosafety profiles of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) (Falck-Zepeda, 2006). As a consequence of its international obligations and the need to
guarantee a socially accepted level of safety to its citizens, Uganda has taken significant steps to ensure
the safety of GM biotechnology applications. GM banana varieties will need to undergo biosafety
assessments and receive the regulatory approval of the country’s National Biosafety Committee before
being approved for research, confined field trials, and release into the environment for
commercialization.
The biosafety regulatory process, however, has several economic consequences as biosafety
regulations are not costless endeavors. Kalaitzandonakes, Alston, and Bradford (2007) calculate the
compliance costs for regulatory approval of herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant maize to be on the
order of about US$7 to 50 million. They note that the approval costs for similar types of GM crops will be
similar. In addition, biosafety-testing requirements can consume significant amounts of time—from a few
months to several years. A delay in the approval of a new variety forestalls access to the potential benefits
generated by farmer adoption of the technology, and one can expect such costs to be substantially higher
than the regulatory compliance costs. Wesseler, Scatasta, and Nillesen (2007), for example, estimated that the average annual benefits of Bt corn for the European Union amount to about 155 million euros per
year. On the other hand, regulatory processes create additional information about the technology and can
help to improve the selection and regulation of appropriate technologies.
Jaffe (2006) has noted that existing drafts of Uganda’s biotechnology and biosafety policy stress
the importance of the socioeconomic implications of the technology for biosafety regulation, but that
author also observes a lack of precision in identifying the socioeconomic aspects and how they should be considered. Each country decides independently whether to include socioeconomic considerations as part of the process of deciding which technology may be approved for commercialization after being deemed
safe by the biosafety authority. In fact, Article 26.1 of the Cartagena Protocol gives countries the choice
of whether to include socioeconomic considerations in the biosafety assessment process consistent with
other international treaties although limited to the context of biodiversity (Jaffe, 2006). Article 26.1’s
“may take into account” clause has been applied strictly in some countries, such as India, where the
socioeconomic consideration is mandatory for biosafety applications.
Many countries, including Uganda, have not determined whether and how to include
socioeconomic considerations, at what stage of the regulatory process to include them, and what the scope and decision-making process within biosafety regulations should be. In fact, some biosafety experts (and some countries) have resisted including such considerations in the biosafety decision-making process, as in their view, such issues may cloud that process and distract regulators from the scientific/technical issues related directly to biosafety. It is worthwhile to note that inclusion of socioeconomic considerations for biosafety regulatory approval at the laboratory/greenhouse or confined field trial stages contributes
very little to the decision-making process, as the material will not enter the food chain and thus will not be
commercialized until it is given regulatory approval further along in the process. Therefore, a major
objective of this discussion paper is to illustrate the relevance of socioeconomic analyses for supporting
biotechnology decision making but also for contributing to the development and implementation of
biosafety regulations. We present a general approach using GM banana as an example.
In the following sections we discuss the benefits that a GM banana could provide to producers
and consumers in Uganda and the role of biosafety regulations in governing the introduction of a GM
banana. A real option model is presented that shows how concerns about environmental risks can be
considered within a cost-benefit analysis as a first step toward a socioeconomic assessment of introducing
a GM banana in Uganda. We explicitly show how the underlying trade-offs between potential irreversible
and reversible benefits and costs that accompany a GM banana can be assessed, building on previous
research on banana production in Uganda by Bagamba (2007) and Edmeades and Smale (2006). We
calculate the maximum incremental social tolerable irreversible costs (MISTICs). The application of the
MISTICs approach pays closer attention to the application of the precautionary principle within the
assessment of GM crops (Just, Alston, and Zilberman, 2006). It is important to note here that this is the
first application of the MISTICs approach in a developing-country setting.
In addition, we show how the results of the economic analysis can be combined with the
consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a GM banana using a choice experiment model. We explicitly
demonstrate how one can use a latent segment model to capture and account for heterogeneity among
consumer preferences given a tangible economic benefit of the GM banana.
The latent segment model
complements and extends the dimensions of previous research (Li et al., 2003; Loureiro and Bugbee,
2005; Knight et al., 2007) on consumers’ WTP for GM food by, first, incorporating the foregone
economic benefits of a delay in release and, second, incorporating producers as consumers in the sample.
The approach is unique in its application to banana varieties in a developing-country context.
The paper is structured as follows. The second section discusses in more detail the relevance of a
GM banana for Uganda. Section 3 introduces an overview of biosafety regulations in Uganda. Section 4
presents the MISTICs approach and explains its application. Section 5 reports and discusses the
preliminary results. Section 6 introduces the theoretical framework of the choice experiment and its
application. The final section draws conclusions and discusses implications for decision making regarding
biotechnology and biosafety regulations for a GM banana in Uganda.
Banana is one of the most important crops in Uganda with approximately 7 million people, or 26% of the
population, depending on the plant as a source of food and income. Bananas are estimated to occupy 1.5
million hectares of the total arable land, or 38% of the cultivated land, in the country (Rubaihayo and
Gold, 1993; Rubaihayo, 1991). The plant is grown primarily as a subsistence crop in rural areas, although
consumption is not limited to rural areas as approximately 65% of urban consumers in Uganda have a
meal of the cooking variety of banana at least once a day. Ugandans have the highest per capita
consumption of cooking banana in the world (Clarke, 2003).
Most of the banana varieties grown in Uganda are endemic to the East African highlands—a
region recognized as a secondary center of banana diversity (Stover and Simmonds, 1987; Swennen and
Vuylsteke, 1988; Smale and Tushemereirwe, 2007). The endemic banana varieties (AAA–EA genomic
group) consist of two use-determined types: cooking bananas (matooke) and beer bananas (mbidde).
Karamura (1998) recognized 238 names of East African highland banana varieties in Uganda, with 84
clones grouped into five clone sets. The nonendemic clones include dessert bananas (varieties that are
consumed raw), some beer bananas (varieties suitable for beer and juice making), and roasting bananas
(or plantains).
Banana yields in Uganda are severely reduced by several pests and diseases. Among the pests that
cause the most yield damage are weevils (Cosmopolites sordidus) and nematodes (Radopholus similis,
Pratylenchus goodeyi, and Helicotylenchus multicinctus). The diseases that contribute to the worst yield
losses in Uganda are the soil-borne fungal Panama disease, or Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum),
bacterial wilts including the banana Xanthomonus wilt (Xanthomonus campestris pv. musacearum), and
the air-borne fungal black leaf spot disease or “black Sigatoka” (Mycosphaerella fijiensis Morelet) (Gold,
1998; 2000; Gold et al., 1998, ; 2001; Tushemereirwe et al., 2003).
Consequently, the National Banana Research Program of the National Agricultural Research
Organization (NARO) in Uganda has developed a breeding program that employs a range of traditional
crop breeding methods and a portfolio of biotechnologies to address the crop’s most debilitating problems
caused by pests and diseases (Kikulwe et al., 2007). The short-term breeding strategy includes the
assembly of local and foreign germ plasms for evaluation and selection of varieties resistant or tolerant to
existing productivity constraints. Resistance to a limited set of pests and diseases (e.g., black Sigatoka)
was identified in hybrid banana varieties. Though characterized by bigger bunches, the hybrid varieties
are not widely grown in Uganda (Nowakunda, 2001; Smale and Tushemereirwe, 2007). Producers and
consumers prefer the East African highland cooking bananas, but these are also highly susceptible to
black Sigatoka (Nowakunda et al., 2000; Nowakunda, 2001) and bacterial wilts (Tushemereirwe et al.,
2003). Susceptibility to diseases prompted the national researchers to adopt a long-term breeding strategy
that includes the generation of new genotypes and other new approaches to introduce resistance.
The highest-yielding highland cooking bananas proved to be sterile, which slows down their
improvement through conventional breeding (Ssebuliba, 2001; Ssebuliba et al., 2006). With major biotic
constraints not easily addressed through conventional breeding and management practices, recent efforts
have been made to employ genetic engineering for the insertion of resistance traits into selected banana
background planting material. Unlike crossbreeding, genetic engineering allows for improving the
agronomic traits (e.g., disease and pest resistance) as genes are inserted into potential host varieties
(cultivars) while not changing other production and product attributes (e.g., cooking quality). The genetic
modification approach has shown potential for the improvement of the crop (Tripathi, 2003). At the
University of Leuven, Belgium, GM bananas with resistance against black Sigatoka have been developed.
Yet the performance of the new varieties and/or traits inserted into local host varieties cultivated under
local conditions is not known as the field trials have just begun.
Edmeades and Smale (2006) argue that the choice of a host variety for a genetic transformation
largely determines its acceptability by producers and consumers. In those regions strongly affected by
biotic constraints, it is likely that GM banana cultivars will be more beneficial to poorer and subsistence-oriented farmers. In addition, the insertion of multiple traits into East African highland bananas, although
associated with additional research and development costs (e.g., transformation costs, regulatory costs),
could further increase the benefits generated by the adoption of the technology in Uganda. Multiple traits
may also increase adoption rates, as farmers may not immediately notice the beneficial effect of a single
trait.
Although GM bananas look promising for large-scale (mass clonal) multiplication and
dissemination, empirical evidence of the success of such organisms is still limited. Long-term
multiplication of micropropagated (tissue-cultured) plants, for example, may lead to epigenetic
(somaclonal) variations. Additionally, genetic uniformity in a trait intensifies the probability of mutations
in the targeted pest or disease that overcome resistance and increase epidemic vulnerability. These two
aspects raise questions about the clonal fidelity of offspring plants and their genetic stability, both
affecting economic benefits of GM banana varieties. In this context biosafety measures to monitor,
evaluate, and mitigate effects of such occurrences become critical for the appropriate deployment of the
technology in Uganda.
If you are only trying to focus on push-ups, try doing your push-ups in "sets" of four. After each set, give yourself thirty seconds to recover, and then do your next set. Stop once you have done three sets. As you get stronger, gradually increase either the number of sets that you do or the number of push-ups in each set. Push yourself; always make sure that your sets are challenging enough that you are breathing heavily after each one. By the end of your last set, you should be totally exhausted.
I never honk unless someone is about to hit me, and I view anyone who honks for any other reason as an inconsiderate asshole. That is, unless they are trying to tell me something important, like my car is on fire.
Since you have probably just started (legally) driving, here is a word of advice: DO NOT GET A TICKET. Insurance is an angry ***** and a drain on your wallet. I found this out the hard way.
0
in the world (Clarke, 2003). However, banana production in Uganda is limited by several productivity
constraints such as pests, diseases, soil depletion, and poor agronomic practices. To address those
constraints, the country has invested significant resources in research and development and other publicly
funded programs, pursuing approaches over both the short and long term. Uganda formally initiated its
short-term approach in the early 1990s; it involves the collection of both local and foreign germ plasms
for the evaluation and selection of cultivars tolerant to the productivity constraints. The long-term
approach, launched in 1995, includes breeding for resistance to the productivity constraints using
conventional breeding methods and genetic engineering. Genetic engineering projects in Uganda target
the most popular and infertile cultivars that cannot be improved through conventional (cross) breeding.
The main objective of genetic engineering in Uganda is to develop genetically modified (GM) cultivars
that are resistant to local pests and diseases, have improved agronomic attributes, and are acceptable to
consumers (Kikulwe et al., 2007).
The introduction of a GM banana in Uganda is not without controversy. In Uganda, where the
technology of genetic engineering is still in its infancy, it is likely to generate a wide portfolio of
concerns, as it has in other African countries. According to the Uganda National Council of Science and
Technology (UNCST) (2006), the main public concern is the safety of the technology for the environment
and human health.
Several countries have designed and implemented policies to address the safety concerns of
consumers and producers (Beckmann, Soregaroli, and Wesseler, 2006a, 2006b). Such policies include
assessment, management, and communication of the biosafety profiles of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) (Falck-Zepeda, 2006). As a consequence of its international obligations and the need to
guarantee a socially accepted level of safety to its citizens, Uganda has taken significant steps to ensure
the safety of GM biotechnology applications. GM banana varieties will need to undergo biosafety
assessments and receive the regulatory approval of the country’s National Biosafety Committee before
being approved for research, confined field trials, and release into the environment for
commercialization.
The biosafety regulatory process, however, has several economic consequences as biosafety
regulations are not costless endeavors. Kalaitzandonakes, Alston, and Bradford (2007) calculate the
compliance costs for regulatory approval of herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant maize to be on the
order of about US$7 to 50 million. They note that the approval costs for similar types of GM crops will be
similar. In addition, biosafety-testing requirements can consume significant amounts of time—from a few
months to several years. A delay in the approval of a new variety forestalls access to the potential benefits
generated by farmer adoption of the technology, and one can expect such costs to be substantially higher
than the regulatory compliance costs. Wesseler, Scatasta, and Nillesen (2007), for example, estimated that the average annual benefits of Bt corn for the European Union amount to about 155 million euros per
year. On the other hand, regulatory processes create additional information about the technology and can
help to improve the selection and regulation of appropriate technologies.
Jaffe (2006) has noted that existing drafts of Uganda’s biotechnology and biosafety policy stress
the importance of the socioeconomic implications of the technology for biosafety regulation, but that
author also observes a lack of precision in identifying the socioeconomic aspects and how they should be considered. Each country decides independently whether to include socioeconomic considerations as part of the process of deciding which technology may be approved for commercialization after being deemed
safe by the biosafety authority. In fact, Article 26.1 of the Cartagena Protocol gives countries the choice
of whether to include socioeconomic considerations in the biosafety assessment process consistent with
other international treaties although limited to the context of biodiversity (Jaffe, 2006). Article 26.1’s
“may take into account” clause has been applied strictly in some countries, such as India, where the
socioeconomic consideration is mandatory for biosafety applications.
Many countries, including Uganda, have not determined whether and how to include
socioeconomic considerations, at what stage of the regulatory process to include them, and what the scope and decision-making process within biosafety regulations should be. In fact, some biosafety experts (and some countries) have resisted including such considerations in the biosafety decision-making process, as in their view, such issues may cloud that process and distract regulators from the scientific/technical issues related directly to biosafety. It is worthwhile to note that inclusion of socioeconomic considerations for biosafety regulatory approval at the laboratory/greenhouse or confined field trial stages contributes
very little to the decision-making process, as the material will not enter the food chain and thus will not be
commercialized until it is given regulatory approval further along in the process. Therefore, a major
objective of this discussion paper is to illustrate the relevance of socioeconomic analyses for supporting
biotechnology decision making but also for contributing to the development and implementation of
biosafety regulations. We present a general approach using GM banana as an example.
In the following sections we discuss the benefits that a GM banana could provide to producers
and consumers in Uganda and the role of biosafety regulations in governing the introduction of a GM
banana. A real option model is presented that shows how concerns about environmental risks can be
considered within a cost-benefit analysis as a first step toward a socioeconomic assessment of introducing
a GM banana in Uganda. We explicitly show how the underlying trade-offs between potential irreversible
and reversible benefits and costs that accompany a GM banana can be assessed, building on previous
research on banana production in Uganda by Bagamba (2007) and Edmeades and Smale (2006). We
calculate the maximum incremental social tolerable irreversible costs (MISTICs). The application of the
MISTICs approach pays closer attention to the application of the precautionary principle within the
assessment of GM crops (Just, Alston, and Zilberman, 2006). It is important to note here that this is the
first application of the MISTICs approach in a developing-country setting.
In addition, we show how the results of the economic analysis can be combined with the
consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a GM banana using a choice experiment model. We explicitly
demonstrate how one can use a latent segment model to capture and account for heterogeneity among
consumer preferences given a tangible economic benefit of the GM banana.
The latent segment model
complements and extends the dimensions of previous research (Li et al., 2003; Loureiro and Bugbee,
2005; Knight et al., 2007) on consumers’ WTP for GM food by, first, incorporating the foregone
economic benefits of a delay in release and, second, incorporating producers as consumers in the sample.
The approach is unique in its application to banana varieties in a developing-country context.
The paper is structured as follows. The second section discusses in more detail the relevance of a
GM banana for Uganda. Section 3 introduces an overview of biosafety regulations in Uganda. Section 4
presents the MISTICs approach and explains its application. Section 5 reports and discusses the
preliminary results. Section 6 introduces the theoretical framework of the choice experiment and its
application. The final section draws conclusions and discusses implications for decision making regarding
biotechnology and biosafety regulations for a GM banana in Uganda.
Banana is one of the most important crops in Uganda with approximately 7 million people, or 26% of the
population, depending on the plant as a source of food and income. Bananas are estimated to occupy 1.5
million hectares of the total arable land, or 38% of the cultivated land, in the country (Rubaihayo and
Gold, 1993; Rubaihayo, 1991). The plant is grown primarily as a subsistence crop in rural areas, although
consumption is not limited to rural areas as approximately 65% of urban consumers in Uganda have a
meal of the cooking variety of banana at least once a day. Ugandans have the highest per capita
consumption of cooking banana in the world (Clarke, 2003).
Most of the banana varieties grown in Uganda are endemic to the East African highlands—a
region recognized as a secondary center of banana diversity (Stover and Simmonds, 1987; Swennen and
Vuylsteke, 1988; Smale and Tushemereirwe, 2007). The endemic banana varieties (AAA–EA genomic
group) consist of two use-determined types: cooking bananas (matooke) and beer bananas (mbidde).
Karamura (1998) recognized 238 names of East African highland banana varieties in Uganda, with 84
clones grouped into five clone sets. The nonendemic clones include dessert bananas (varieties that are
consumed raw), some beer bananas (varieties suitable for beer and juice making), and roasting bananas
(or plantains).
Banana yields in Uganda are severely reduced by several pests and diseases. Among the pests that
cause the most yield damage are weevils (Cosmopolites sordidus) and nematodes (Radopholus similis,
Pratylenchus goodeyi, and Helicotylenchus multicinctus). The diseases that contribute to the worst yield
losses in Uganda are the soil-borne fungal Panama disease, or Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum),
bacterial wilts including the banana Xanthomonus wilt (Xanthomonus campestris pv. musacearum), and
the air-borne fungal black leaf spot disease or “black Sigatoka” (Mycosphaerella fijiensis Morelet) (Gold,
1998; 2000; Gold et al., 1998, ; 2001; Tushemereirwe et al., 2003).
Consequently, the National Banana Research Program of the National Agricultural Research
Organization (NARO) in Uganda has developed a breeding program that employs a range of traditional
crop breeding methods and a portfolio of biotechnologies to address the crop’s most debilitating problems
caused by pests and diseases (Kikulwe et al., 2007). The short-term breeding strategy includes the
assembly of local and foreign germ plasms for evaluation and selection of varieties resistant or tolerant to
existing productivity constraints. Resistance to a limited set of pests and diseases (e.g., black Sigatoka)
was identified in hybrid banana varieties. Though characterized by bigger bunches, the hybrid varieties
are not widely grown in Uganda (Nowakunda, 2001; Smale and Tushemereirwe, 2007). Producers and
consumers prefer the East African highland cooking bananas, but these are also highly susceptible to
black Sigatoka (Nowakunda et al., 2000; Nowakunda, 2001) and bacterial wilts (Tushemereirwe et al.,
2003). Susceptibility to diseases prompted the national researchers to adopt a long-term breeding strategy
that includes the generation of new genotypes and other new approaches to introduce resistance.
The highest-yielding highland cooking bananas proved to be sterile, which slows down their
improvement through conventional breeding (Ssebuliba, 2001; Ssebuliba et al., 2006). With major biotic
constraints not easily addressed through conventional breeding and management practices, recent efforts
have been made to employ genetic engineering for the insertion of resistance traits into selected banana
background planting material. Unlike crossbreeding, genetic engineering allows for improving the
agronomic traits (e.g., disease and pest resistance) as genes are inserted into potential host varieties
(cultivars) while not changing other production and product attributes (e.g., cooking quality). The genetic
modification approach has shown potential for the improvement of the crop (Tripathi, 2003). At the
University of Leuven, Belgium, GM bananas with resistance against black Sigatoka have been developed.
Yet the performance of the new varieties and/or traits inserted into local host varieties cultivated under
local conditions is not known as the field trials have just begun.
Edmeades and Smale (2006) argue that the choice of a host variety for a genetic transformation
largely determines its acceptability by producers and consumers. In those regions strongly affected by
biotic constraints, it is likely that GM banana cultivars will be more beneficial to poorer and subsistence-oriented farmers. In addition, the insertion of multiple traits into East African highland bananas, although
associated with additional research and development costs (e.g., transformation costs, regulatory costs),
could further increase the benefits generated by the adoption of the technology in Uganda. Multiple traits
may also increase adoption rates, as farmers may not immediately notice the beneficial effect of a single
trait.
Although GM bananas look promising for large-scale (mass clonal) multiplication and
dissemination, empirical evidence of the success of such organisms is still limited. Long-term
multiplication of micropropagated (tissue-cultured) plants, for example, may lead to epigenetic
(somaclonal) variations. Additionally, genetic uniformity in a trait intensifies the probability of mutations
in the targeted pest or disease that overcome resistance and increase epidemic vulnerability. These two
aspects raise questions about the clonal fidelity of offspring plants and their genetic stability, both
affecting economic benefits of GM banana varieties. In this context biosafety measures to monitor,
evaluate, and mitigate effects of such occurrences become critical for the appropriate deployment of the
technology in Uganda.
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Next poster hates Nutella.
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Next poster has made a bacon weave.
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Since you have probably just started (legally) driving, here is a word of advice: DO NOT GET A TICKET. Insurance is an angry ***** and a drain on your wallet. I found this out the hard way.
0
I love sushi, but I'd much rather not know what is in half of it. I prefer to eat it and not ask any questions.