From Emile Frison, International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain
As coordinators of the world’s first project to sequence the genome of the banana
(21 July, p 7),
we’d like to reassure correspondents such as David Jones
(4 August, p 50)
who fear that genetic modification programmes will replace
non-GM programmes to breed better bananas. Information from the sequencing
project will speed up all efforts to improve the banana, whether conventional,
GM or otherwise. Once researchers have identified a gene which helps to protect
bananas against disease, for example, they can screen large numbers of
conventionally bred varieties while they are still plantlets to see if they too
have the gene.
We agree wholeheartedly with Jones that successes have already been scored by
conventional breeding programmes such as those at the Honduran Foundation of
Agricultural Research, which we have sponsored and supported. Conventional
breeding can deliver the goods, but it’s a slow process and has been underfunded
for decades. We’ll continue to back it, but it would be folly not to make use of
new advances in plant genomics.
Hundreds of millions of people depend on bananas for food and income. It is
precisely because bananas have been neglected by conventional research for so
long that the effort to sequence the banana genome will be so valuable, for
conventional breeders and genetic engineers alike.
Montpellier, France
