Genetically-modified (GM) papaya will be available for commercialization in the Philippines by 2007.

Dr. Desiree Hautea, director of the Institute of Plant Breeding of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna, expressed confidence that GM papaya will be on the "farmer level" in the next two years. The development of GM papaya is being carried out by the IPB and is funded by the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Development and the Department of Science and Technology.

"Under greenhouse conditions, we have developed a product that is resistant to the papaya ring spot virus that commonly affects traditional papaya varieties. We have grown three generations already, but what we're also testing its horticultural characters, meaning it should not just be resistant to diseases but we have to come up with a product that is also high-yielding," said Hautea.

She said scientists at the UPLB expect to begin field testing by the end of 2005.

"We want to determine its efficacy in the fields and to later validate and crossbreed it with the regular varieties because we want to develop not just one product, but other varieties also that will cater to consumer preferences," said Hautea.

The field testing of GM papaya, will require the approval of the National Committee on Biosafety while the approval for the multiple field trails should be secured from the Department of Agriculture (DA). The results of these trails will again be evaluated and its commercialization will be endorsed by a scientific body to the DA.

If approved, the GM papaya variety will be the second GM commercialized commodity in the Philippines next to Bt corn which was approved in December 2002.

Scientists as well as papaya producers are banking on GM papaya to improve local production and increase the country's share in global papaya trade currently dominated by Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, India and Indonesia.

Papaya is a major fruit crop in the Philippines with 94 percent of production used for food and six percent for feed. Although less than four percent is exported, it has substantial economic value because of its varied food and industrial uses. The current export markets are Japan, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates and other Middle East nations.

It is grown all over the country but mostly by small-scale producers. The two major commercial growers, Del Monte Philippines and Dole Philippines, account for less than five percent of the total production area.

Some of the preferred varieties are the Solo variety which is popular in the foreign market, the Cavite and Morado specials, while a hybrid cultivar Sinta, the first Philippine-bred hybrid papaya developed by the IPB of UPLB, has found a growing niche in the local market with potential for international sales.

In recent years, demand for high-papain varieties like red Solo has been increasing because of its growing use for beauty products.

While demand is up, production is being constrained by several diseases and pests, the most widespread of which is the papaya ring spot virus. When this virus affects the plant at its seedling stage, the trees will not produce mature fruit. At a later stage, fruit production is reduced and is of poor quality because it also decreases sugar content.

In 1982, an outbreak of ring spot virus in the Philippines grew to epidemic proportions and wiped out the small-scale growers of Cavite. By 1994, the disease had spread through the entire Southern Tagalog area and reduced output by as much as 80 percent.