BIOTECHNOLOGY is any technique using a living organism (e.g. plants, animals, micro-organisms) or parts of it to improve another living organism for a specific purpose.

And it’s not really new.

Traditionally, Filipinos were already practicing biotechnology in preparing vinegar, patis, basi (sugar cane wine), tapuy (rice wine), cheese, bread, fermentation, brewing, silage making, cheese making, animal vaccine production and compost making.

Antibiotics such as penicillin, insulin for the treatment of diabetes and vaccine for rabies, hepatitis B and measles are also products of biotechnology.

Indeed, we have been seeing the benefits of biotechnology for a long time.

Today, modern science boasts of tissue and cell culture, recombinant diagnostics, marker technologies, genetic engineering of micro-organisms, animals and plants, cloning and vaccine technologies.

Yes, it is safe.

Biotechnology, in fact, is one of the most extensively researched and reviewed agricultural developments.

Since the mid-80s thousands of field tests with biotech crops have been conducted. Findings show that benefits outweigh any potential risk.

Getting involved

Biotechnology is a priority in government’s development agenda to provide health-friendly food security through sustainable development, alleviate poverty and accelerate the modernization of Philippine agriculture into the 21st century.

In July 16, 2001, President Gloria Macapagal issued this policy statement: "We shall promote the safe and responsible use of modern biotechnology and its products as one of several means to achieve and sustain food security, equitable access to health services, sustainable and safe environment, and industry development."

Needless to say, that government thrust can only succeed on the basis of a comprehensive, sustained collaboration among government, private business and the various sectors, especially tapping the partnerships and networks forged by people’s organizations and civil-society groups. The urgent need of the moment is a national movement for biotechnology, with all players and stakeholders bound by the simple conviction that pushing the frontiers of science is the only way to go in order to surmount the challenge of feeding a growing, hungry world without depleting the environment.

Biotech for Life was set up to fill this need. It binds together government and the private sector, through the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Science and Technology’s PCARRD (Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development), the SEARCA (Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture), and the BCP (Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines).

The Biotechnology For Life Media and Advocacy Resource Center was also set up for the public to have an easy acess to their various information materials and activities.

Benefits of biotechnology

• Increases food production. Genetically-modified crops produce extra nutrients.
  
• Attains crop improvement faster and with more precision. There is now less "trial and error" as scientists try out more possibilities in achieving desired products. While traditional breeding takes 7 to 8 years to develop a rice variety, biotech tools can do this in 5 years.
  
• Improves agriculture, better food. Genetic modifications have improved the appearance of fruits and vegetables, increased the time food can be stored, enhanced the nutrient content of plants and foods, and reduced or eliminated protein allergens that occur naturally in specific food.

Examples: slow-ripening tomatoes with higher levels of nutrients such as Vitamins A, C and E and rice with Vitamin A; genetically-modified crops resistant to diseases and pests, like the PRV-resistant Rainbow Papaya introduced in Hawaii in 1988.

• Nurtures life. Genetic modification has been used in the production of medicines, pharmaceuticals and a number of life-saving drugs now commonly used such as insulin and vaccines.
  
• Helps protect the environment. Forest conservation has been boosted because trees are protected from disease.