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This Position Paper was prepared by members of the Task Force on Global Food Security of the International Society for Plant Pathology. An objective approach is proposed to the assessment of the potential of genetic modification (GM) to reduce the impact of crop diseases. \ud \ud The addition of GM to the plant breeder’s conventional toolbox facilitates gene-by-gene introduction into breeding programmes of well defined characters, while also allowing access to genes from a greatly extended range of organisms. The current status of GM crops is outlined. GM could make an additional contribution to food security but its potential has been controversial, sometimes because of fixed views that GM is unnatural and risky. These have no factual basis: GM technology, where adopted, is widely regulated and no evidence has been reported of adverse consequences for human health. \ud \ud The potential benefits of GM could be particularly valuable for the developing world but there are numerous constraints. These include cost, inadequate seed supply systems, reluctance to adopt unfamiliar technology, concern about markets, inadequacy of local regulatory systems, mismatch between research and growers’ needs, and limited technical resources. The lower cost of new gene-editing methods should open the practice of GM beyond multinational corporations. As yet there are few examples of utilization of GM-based resistance to plant diseases.\ud \ud Two cases, papaya ringspot virus and banana xanthomonas wilt, are outlined. In the developing world there are many more potential cases whose progress is prevented by the absence of adequate biosafety regulation. \ud \ud It is concluded that there is untapped potential for using GM to introduce disease resistance. An objective approach to mobilizing this potential is recommended, to address the severe impact of plant disease on food security.

Water scarcity increasingly drives wastewater recovery. Campaigns towards re-use of wastewater are not very common in Africa among other factors, due to a lack of efficient and cost-effective technology to treat wastewater to re-usable standards. In this study, two treatment systems, a high rate activated sludge (HRAS) system and alternating charcoal filters (ACF) are combined and used to treat wastewater to standards fit for reuse in agriculture. The charcoal can upon saturation be dried and used as fuel. Two different ACF lines were used in parallel after the HRAS: ACF1 with a residence time of 2.5 h and ACF2 with residence time of 5 h. Results show no significant difference (α = 0.05) in the performance of the two filter lines, hence ACF1 with a higher flow rate was considered as optimal. The HRAS effectively removed up to 65% of total suspended solids (TSS) and 59% of chemical oxygen demand (COD), while ACF1 removed up to 70% TSS and 58% COD. The combined treatment system of HRAS and ACF1 effectively decreased TSS and COD on average by 89 and 83%, respectively. Total ammonium nitrogen (TAN) and total phosphates (TP) were largely retained in the effluent with average removal percentages of 19.5 and 27.5%, respectively, encouraging reuse for plant growth. Key words: A-stage, sustainable wastewater treatment, resource recovery, developing countries, water reuse, nutrient management, agriculture.

Population growth particularly in countries with developing economies will result in a need to increase food production by 70% by the year 2050. Biotechnology has been utilized to produce genetically modified (GM) crops for insect and weed control with benefits including increased crop yield and will also be used in emerging countries. A multicomponent safety assessment paradigm has been applied to individual GM crops to determine whether they as safe as foods from non-GM crops. This paper reviews methods to assess the safety of foods from GM crops for safe consumption from the first generation of GM crops. The methods can readily be applied to new products developed within country and this paper will emphasize the concept of data portability; that safety data produced in one geographic location is suitable for safety assessment regardless of where it is utilized.

To transform developing and least developing countries into industrialised ones, biotechnology could be deployed along the value chain, to provide support to the development of the bio-based industries in such a way to ensure sustainability of the sector and to reduce negative environmental impacts that might otherwise occur. In agribusiness development, for instance, interventions could start from inputs and agricultural mechanization, modern processing technologies, packaging of perishable products, the promotion of food safety in the processing and regulatory environment; and interventions to improve competitiveness and productivity. Worth over USD 300 billion in revenue, the role of the biotechnology goes beyond industrial growth, since it provides opportunities for progress towards many of the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). This paper reviews the status of industrial biotechnology as it relates to inclusive and sustainable industrial development.

In the field of occupational hygiene, researchers have been working on developing appropriate methods to estimate human exposure to pesticides in order to assess the risk and therefore to take the due decisions to improve the pesticide management process and reduce the health risks. This paper evaluates dermal exposure models to find the most appropriate. Eight models (i.e., COSHH, DERM, DREAM, EASE, PHED, RISKOFDERM, STOFFENMANAGER and PFAM) were evaluated according to a multi-criteria analysis and from these results five models (i.e., DERM, DREAM, PHED, RISKOFDERM and PFAM) were selected for the assessment of dermal exposure in the case study of the potato farming system in the Andean highlands of Vereda La Hoya, Colombia. The results show that the models provide different dermal exposure estimations which are not comparable. However, because of the simplicity of the algorithm and the specificity of the determinants, the DERM, DREAM and PFAM models were found to be the most appropriate although their estimations might be more accurate if specific determinants are included for the case studies in developing countries.

Background The tissue culture banana (TCB) is a biotechnological agricultural innovation that has been adopted widely in commercial banana production. In 2003, Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AH) initiated a TCB program that was explicitly developed for smallholder farmers in Kenya to help them adopt the TCB as a scalable agricultural business opportunity. At the heart of the challenge of encouraging more widespread adoption of the TCB is the question: what is the best way to introduce the TCB technology, and all its attendant practices and opportunities, to smallholder farmers. In essence, a challenge of community or stakeholder engagement (CE). Results In this paper, we report the results of a case study of the CE strategies employed by AH to introduce TCB agricultural practices to small-hold farmers in Kenya, and their impact on the uptake of the TCB, and on the nature of the relationship between AH and the relevant community of farmers and other stakeholders. We identified six specific features of CE in the AH TCB project that were critical to its effectiveness: (1) adopting an empirical, “evidence-based” approach; (2) building on existing social networks; (3) facilitating farmer-to-farmer engagement; (4) focusing engagement on farmer groups; (5) strengthening relationships of trust through collaborative experiential learning; and (6) helping farmers to “learn the marketing game”. We discuss the implications of AH’s “values-based” approach to engagement, and how these guiding values functioned as “design constraints” for the key features of their CE strategy. And we highlight the importance of attention to the human dimensions of complex partnerships as a key determinant of successful CE. Conclusion Our findings suggest new ways of conceptualizing the relationship between CE and the design and delivery of new technologies for global health and global development.

Although some important features of genetically modified (GM) crops such as insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, and drought tolerance might seem to be beneficial for small-scale farmers, the adoption of GM technology by smallholders is still slight. Identifying pros and cons of using this technology is important to understand the impacts of GM crops on these farmers. This article reviews the main opportunities and challenges of GM crops for small-scale farmers in developing countries. The most significant advantages of GM crops include being independent to farm size, environment protection, improvement of occupational health issues, and the potential of bio-fortified crops to reduce malnutrition. Challenges faced by small-scale farmers for adoption of GM crops comprise availability and accessibility of GM crop seeds, seed dissemination and price, and the lack of adequate information. In addition, R&D and production costs in using GM crops make it difficult for these farmers to adopt the use of these crops. Moreover, intellectual property right regulations may deprive resource poor farmers from the advantages of GM technology. Finally, concerns on socio-economic and environment safety issues are also addressed in this paper.