The Bananas Bellwether

On a small plot 15 kilometers outside Kampala, Uganda, meticulously tended rows of shoulder-high plants carry the germ of hope for millions of farmers. Most Ugandans subsist on little more than matooke—the East African highland banana. In recent years, indigenous pests and imported diseases have become serious threats to this staple crop. But now the matooke, which means simply "food," is the centerpiece of an intensive effort to bring modern agricultural biotechnology to a nation where more than 70 percent of its people farm small plots.

Bananas are nearly impossible to improve through conventional breeding. In South America, scientists have been trying to improve bananas for more than 20 years to no avail. "Biotechnology provides new approaches to help us do what others have failed to do with conventional breeding," says Wilberforce Tushemereirwe, lead scientist on the Ugandan banana improvement project.

The first plants, engineered to resist the devastating fungal disease black sigatoka, were produced at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in a collaborative effort with the U.S. Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II and the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization. When the plants were ready to test, there were no procedures in place to import them. In 2006 Uganda established a comprehensive regulatory framework, using European guidelines as a model, for field-testing plants produced using biotechnology. And in 2010, the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, working with international partners, developed a biotechnology R&D agenda to guide policy going forward.

After those steps, Ugandan agricultural science flowered, making it a "go-to" place for field testing crops. In 2010, confined field trials tested Monsanto's Bt cotton, engineered to contain the biological pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis toxin. Supported by the Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ugandan scientists are transforming cassava, another East African food staple, to resist cassava brown streak disease. Other trials are planned for maize and sorghum.

Several field sites in Uganda now employ dozens of doctoral-level scientists, along with trained technicians and field workers. Scientists working on the banana project, the most mature of the biotechnology crops, are now transforming plants to resist nematodes and to improve nutritional value by adding vitamin A and iron, two micronutrients deficient in the Ugandan diet. These banana plants, grown not from seed, but in sterile culture dishes, represent the first generation of banana plants developed entirely in Sub-Saharan Africa using genetic techniques and indigenous banana varieties.

The Ugandan scientists see agricultural biotechnology as a key to uplifting small farmers and providing food security to their people. "These plants are developed in Uganda by Ugandans for Ugandans," Tushemereirwe says.