Thailand is at a crossroads. Given its progress in agricultural know-how, the agricultural sector will have to decide what direction it wants to take. 'Outlook' explores two possibilities here - organic farming and the path of biotechnology.

A name change ... switching to promotion of non-food crops ... approaching farmers' groups - these are some of the strategies that Sutat Sriwatanapongse, current president of the Biotechnology Alliance Association (BAA), has adopted in pushing for public acceptance of genetically modified (GM) crops.

"From now on, we'll refer to them as 'phuet cheewaphap' or biotech crops instead," said the senior scientist. "The term 'GM' has apparently scared off many people. The new coinage will make it sound a little like 'pui cheewaphap' [usually applied to non-chemical fertilisers]. It may cause some confusion initially, but after a while, it will likely become part of the daily usage."

As the founding head of BAA, Sutat conceded he originally accepted the post as an "interim president". But there has been "pressure" for him to renew his term, he noted in a casual tone. "So before quitting for good, I'd like to see the BAA in a secure position, including financially."

Established in 2004, the BAA has been perceived differently depending on which side of the GM debate one is on. The opposition questions the ties between the organisation and some multinationals and special interest groups that sell GM technology/ products (including Monsanto, Novartis, Syngenta, Bayer and so on), in particular a US-based agency called the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). Some leading biotech industry executives also sit on ISAAA's board of directors.

Sutat insisted, though, that the BAA's mandate is to serve as a "knowledge centre" to create better understanding based on scientific grounds. There has been a lot of irrational "fear" spread around about negative health and environmental effects of the GM products, he lamented.

"Yes, ISAAA has been supporting us after it closed its branch office in Bangkok and transferred its work to us," Sutat said. "Our association has been, however, trying to strike a balance between public and private sources of funding. The state agencies tend to act hesitant toward us and private companies have to be careful about their image; they can't come out to give explicit support that much."

Indeed, Sutat's designated task - of promoting controversial GM products among Thai farmers and consumers - has never been easy. Thailand continues to ban all field tests of GM crops, following a Cabinet resolution issued on April 3, 2001. In August 2004, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had to quickly drop his proposal to revoke the moratorium after facing heavy protests by a coalition of farmers, consumers, campaigners and food exporters.

In Sutat's views, Thailand has lost many "opportunities" over the past decade, a poignant point considering that Thailand was one of the very first countries in Asia to pioneer the drafting of bio-safety guidelines and the subsequent field testing of transgenic tomato and cotton crops (until the scandal over the leak of GM cotton seeds in 1999). Sutat noted that the guidelines were published in 1993, a year after he returned to Thailand to work as deputy director of the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, or BIOTEC.

Now we are "behind" even Vietnam, he said. In a socialist regime, say Vietnam or China, things tend to move much faster, the scientist observed. "It is more complicated in a 'very democratic' country like ours," Sutat said. "We do have the National Biotechnology Policy with clearly stipulated timeframes, but what's stated therein never transpires according to the schedule."

It's not too late to catch up, though, Sutat swiftly added. We have plenty of laboratories and personnel with doctorate degrees in the field. The BAA has been focusing on creating an "informal network" with tertiary educational institutes, especially the newly established ones. Sutat mentioned in passing how the staff at Biotec and the Department of Agriculture occasionally came to give lectures at the BAA's meetings and workshops.

Importantly, the BAA has developed a closer rapport with some farmers' groups. "We have been working with academics for 10 years, but the voice is still not loud enough." Recently, they have been sponsoring "study trips" for rural people (and some media) to visit biotech labs and fields - at Kasetsart University (Kamphaengsaen campus), the Philippines, India and as far away as Hawaii.

The change of tactics seems to have yielded better fruit. Sutat mentioned a certain "Assembly of Northeastern Farmers" (of which the secretary-general has been on one of the study trips to Hawaii, he said) that has started making calls for the government to allow field tests of GM papayas - incidentally, the same line pushed forward by BAA and its allies. A similar move was repeated in January this year by another group allegedly representing farmers in the Central region. "But our job is to educate the people, not to stage rallies," Sutat affirmed.

To make these "biotech crops" more palatable to the Thai public, Sutat said we might have to begin with non-food items like flowers and decorative plants and cotton. Himself a veteran plant breeder, Sutat listed potential research topics: GM glow-in-the-dark orchids and aquarium fish. He hoped they would attract less opposition and thus not risk being abandoned as their predecessors had been.

Personally, the scientist still sees high potential in GM papayas - and other food crops (tomatoes, yard-long beans and chillis) that "perfectly make up the somtam dish". He cited an anecdote that once after a meeting at Parliament, some politicians came up to ask him in person for samples of GM papaya seeds. "I had to tell them that that was not possible yet - I would be breaking the law!" he said.

"On the other hand, there has not been any [recent] development of GM rice, even though we know that it will be safe," he noted. "[This is because] Thailand is one of the world's major exporters, but biotechnology has not yet been approved worldwide, so the policy has been to postpone [introduction of biotech rice in order to avoid potential contamination] up until now."

Such concerns about losing the country's coveted status for the staple commodity are exactly what Surawit Wannakrairoj, biotechnologist from Kasetsart University (where Sutat also graduated), said should be applied to non-food transgenic crops. "True, plants like orchids may not be for human consumption, but any premature introduction of transgenic versions [before implementation of proper bio-safety measures] could be raised by our rivals to erode our market access" - because other countries might be afraid of GM contamination.

"Even Singapore has not tried to introduce commercial cultivation of GM orchids, despite having done research in the area. It must have already calculated that such a scheme could become a sore point used by other trading competitors as a form of trade barrier."

One of the few Thai scientists to express concern about the potential risks of transgenic crops, Surawit said he was not against them per se. "What I'm saying is that the present safety assessment as it exists now is still inadequate," he said. "And I mean not only human, but also bio-safety aspects. Those proponents operate on a different paradigm - they assume that GM products have been safe to begin with so they only look for 'substantial equivalence' between ordinary and transgenic crops. They accept a margin of error by one to five per cent.

"In contrast, the more critical camp adopts precautionary principles. When it comes to human safety, we cannot bear to take any risk. Think about pharmaceutical research, even after rigorous tests and evaluation by relevant agencies, up to 10 per cent of the drugs have been regularly found to exert serious side effects and three to five per cent have to be recalled by the companies. But we can never 'recall' those transgenic living organisms once they are leaked into fields, can we?"

Considering the rather dismal track records of the past "tests" of GM crops in Thailand, notably the leaks of transgenic cotton and papaya seeds, Sutat appeared very optimistic. "Without the field trials, we can't answer the question of whether or not the [GM] crops will pose a hazard to the environment. How to prevent leaks? It all depends on how we regulate it. We should weigh the pros and cons. It's like intellectual property - we can't ensure a 100 per cent safeguard. "Will it affect the food chain? It's unlikely. After the harvest, all the [modified] genes will be gone. If one thinks too much, one can't do anything."

For the former director of the Thailand Biodiversity Centre, the promise of GM crops exceeded the possible risks. Sutat claimed studies had found that the switch to GM seeds had led to a reduction in the use of toxic chemicals by 50 to 80 per cent. This could be a reason why some parties have orchestrated opposition to GM produce, he suggested.

Asked whether he had ever considered that the very companies that are promoting GM seeds are also the ones that have been selling the agri-chemicals, Sutat said "every company has been competing to develop the [GM] technology, but those that are lagging behind are trying to stem the tide."

In fact, Sutat believes GM and organic crops could peacefully co-exist. "I'd like to see GM crops as another option for farmers. I want to tell the organic farmers that using GM seeds might be beneficial for them, since they wouldn't have to use bio-insecticides like sadao [neem]. But I know organic farmers in the US and the UK wouldn't accept this [proposal]."

The Biotechnology Alliance Association (BAA) has a web site at http://thaibaa.org with links to other related organisations and foundations.