...putting technology into the hands of those who need it most...

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center has made a special commitment to use its research and development capacity to improve nutrition, health, and agriculture in developing countries, with particular emphasis on the development of improved planting materials for resource-poor farmers. Advanced plant science and biotechnology offer great potential to improve the productivity of farmers in poor countries by making their crops more nutritious and more resistant to insects and disease. The International Programs Office strives to put the technology developed at the Danforth Center into the hands of those who need it most—subsistence farmers in developing countries throughout the world.

The International Programs Office strives to achieve this mission by building bridges between the Center’s researchers and partners in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The purpose of the International Programs Office is to facilitate this sharing of technology by shaping collaborative research and development programs with partner institutions, raising funds to support these projects, providing training for scientists and governmental officials about regulatory issues, and addressing the associated regulatory and intellectual property challenges.

Currently, the International Programs office is involved in 5 different projects which focus on different aspects of achieving the primary goal of putting cutting edge biotech products into the hands of subsistence farmers throughout the world: the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS), BioCassava Plus, the Disease-Resistant Cassava for Kenya Project, the Southern Africa Biotechnology Program (SABP), and the Virus-Resistant Cassava for Africa Project (VIRCA).

In 2005, the International Programs Office worked closely with the laboratories of Dr. Claude Fauquet, Dr. Daniel Schachtman and Dr. Edgar Cahoon to secure funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop and deliver to Africa a cassava plant with enhanced levels of micronutrients, vitamins, and resistance to environmental stresses. The Danforth Center group is part of a larger consortium, led by Ohio State University, which secured the $7.6 million grant. The International Programs Office manages intellectual property issues associated with the grant, pursues access to third party intellectual property and provides assistance to researchers on regulatory procedures for field testing of improved cassava developed through this project.

The Office also aided the laboratory of Dr. Roger Beachy in 2005 by securing regulatory approval from the National Biosafety Committee of the Philippines for a screenhouse trial of transgenic rice plants developed to be resistant to Rice Tungro Disease. A screenhouse trial was initiated in the spring of 2005.

The International Programs Office continued to work closely with Dr. Claude Fauquet’s lab this year to secure funding and regulatory approval for testing of transgenic virus-resistant cassava. Infrastructure for the field trial site was completed in Kenya and certified by the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS), and an application to conduct a field trial of transgenic cassava at this location was submitted to the National Biosafety Committee.  

Under the USAID-funded Program for Biosafety Systems, the International Programs Office provides training and consultative guidance to governments in Africa and Asia to develop regulatory systems for the safe field-testing of transgenic crops. In 2005, the Office worked with officials in Uganda to create a Guide for Conducting Confined Field Trials and an Inspector’s Manual for such trials. The Office also provided consultative guidance to the Catholic University of Leuven to develop and submit an application for a confined field trial of transgenic banana in Uganda. In addition, the Office delivered biosafety training workshops for regulators in Mali, Tanzania, and Ghana and initiated the development of a set of model regulatory documents to serve as resource materials for any country interested in conducting field trials of genetically-modified plants.

    In conjunction with USDA, the International Programs Office hosted a study tour in August 2005 for African regulators from Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania who were interested in visiting field trials of transgenic crops in the St. Louis region.