Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

Government is completing the country's first policy on biotechno- logy, reflecting the growing international importance of the sector worth US$6 billion in genetically modified (GM) crops in the United States and Canada alone in 2005.

Speaking last Thursday at the final consultation for the policy, held at Jamaica House in St. Andrew, Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, Dr. Arnoldo Ventura, emphasised the importance of biotechnology for local agriculture.

Traditional biotechnology includes techniques like fermentation while biotechnology today means those such as GM crops.

Destined to affect

"No country, especially one with an agricultural base, can afford to ignore these developments. They are destined to affect, negatively or positively, the prospects of all nations, depending on the possession and use of knowledge, skills and scientific and technological capabilities," said Dr. Ventura.

The policy is being developed separately, along with other sub-sectors, to accompany the National Science Policy, which is currently before Cabinet.

Representing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at yesterday's event, Minister of Information and Development, Donald Buchanan, said Jamaican biotechnology should receive greater support.

Invest in the mechanisms

"We in Jamaica have started work in our research and teaching institutions. But the time has now come to invest in the mechanisms that will allow us to see developments in biotechnology for agro-industrial progress, human and environmental health, bio-safety and bio-diversity and protection of national resources," said Mr. Buchanan.

He added that the policy was also linked to existing agriculture and the draft bio-diversity policy.

However Merline Bardowell, executive director of the National Commission on Science and Technology (NCST), which coordinated the policy, told The Gleaner that it had no provisions for increasing funding of biotechnology, which would have to come at a later date.

ross.sheil@gleanerjm.com