SPECIAL REPORT:
ABIC 2014 SASKATOON: the best of biotech!
An exciting program is in place for the 14th edition of the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC 2014), hosted by Ag-West Bio in Saskatoon, SK from October 5–8. ABIC™ is the premier global meeting that promotes innovation in bioscience to ensure sustainable food, feed, fibre and fuel security as the climate changes. ABIC 2014 will provide a forum for discussion and analysis of several themes and issues that are familiar to everyone involved in biosciences. Each of the four days of the conference will focus on a different theme: • Global Challenges and Issues related to Agricultural Productivity • Innovation for Global Food Security • Strategies for Agriculture Innovation • Leadership for Successful Innovation Wilf Keller, Chair of the ABIC Foundation and Ag-West Bio’s President and CEO, says that science will play a greater role than ever in creating solutions, as climate change creates unstable weather patterns, and the population grows. “The ABIC 2014 themes were chosen to reflect the most prevalent questions within the industry, such as, how can the biosciences mitigate some of the predicted challenges?”
ABIC 2014 SPEAKER HIGHLIGHTS The 2014 steering committee is proud of this year’s program, which brings high-calibre speakers from around the world to Saskatoon. Three of the 42 plenary and session speakers presenting at the conference are highlighted below.
Ingo Potrykus
child’s daily Vitamin A requirements. Golden Rice has the potential to eliminate Vitamin A deficiency, saving eyesight and lives. To Potrykus’s immense frustration, Golden Rice has yet to save anyone. Because the rice was biofortified with beta-carotene using genetic modification, the anti-GMO lobby and regulatory hurdles have held up release of the rice to those who would benefit most. “The science to develop Golden Rice took eight years,” says Potrykus. “Product development and deregulation, so far, has taken 15 years and is not yet over.” Golden Rice was developed with the intent of improving food security in developing countries, and reaching subsistence farmers in rice-dependent cultures, particularly in remote areas. The licensing agreement pioneered by Potrykus and his team identifies a cut-off level of income that separates free access to the technology for humanitarian purposes from commercial use of the technology. “The progress in science, and the projected impact on agriculture and food is breathtaking,” says Potrykus. “But effective use of biotechnology is locked by GMO opposition and extreme precautionary regulation. The future depends upon whether society listens to activists or science.”
Julie Borlaug
Every year in developing countries, more than two million children die from standard infectious diseases and approximately 500,000 children become blind because of vitamin A deficiency. In an effort to combat this diet-based disease, Dr. Ingo Potrykus, Professor Emeritus of Plant Sciences at the Institute of Plant Sciences of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, developed Golden Rice. Golden Rice looks and tastes like regular rice, but contains enough beta-carotene in a half-cup serving to meet 65% of a
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Biotechnology Focus / August/September 2014
No one knows better than Julie Borlaug the value of gaining public support for biotechnology projects. As the Associate Director of External Relations for the Borlaug Institute for Inter-
