Contemporary research in Asia, Latin America and Africa has already led to the widespread use of the techniques of tissue culture and genetic engineering in maintaining export markets and creating new ones. Current efforts in the Caribbean and pacific regions are indicative of this growing trend.

The Caribbean nations consist of more than 25 island states with varying populations that depend on a rich diversity of plant genetic resources for their nutrition, health and well-being.

The plan "Caribbean Development to the Year 2000: Challenges, Prospects and Policies" emphasised the general absence of innovation in Caribbean industry. The acquisition of appropriate technology from abroad and the development of a well-defined infrastructure to sustain such technology are identified as effective strategies in responding to these inherent weaknesses. Still again, many Caribbean countries with their island economies based on terrestrial and marine resources are encouraged to reconcile the sustained and judicious development of these resources with climatic and environmental changes. To meet these challenges, and to capitalise on the potential wealth of their resources, several Caribbean Island countries have resorted to the systematic application of biotechnology.

One such step has been the establishment of a Caribbean Biotechnology Network, within the framework of UNESCO's global network of Microbial Resources Centres (MIRCENs) which resulted from political commitment when, a decade ago, the Grenada National Commission for UNESCO, representing the general agreement of Caribbean Ministers responsible for UNESCO Affairs and the Member States in the Caribbean sub-region, resolved that "an extension of the international network of resources centres (MIRCENs) be created in the Caribbean region".

To date, the most common application of biotechnology in the Caribbean islands has been in the fermentation of rum and beer. More recently, tissue culture has been used as an economical tool for the micropropagation of many food and ornamental plants (Table 1). Another recent development is research into methods for food preservation and extension of the shell-life of plant products. The Mona and St. Augustine campuses of the University of the West Indies are involved in joint ventures. For example, the Jamaican Government collaborates with industry in the production of white potatoes, ginger, banana, and yam. In Trinidad, gingerlilies, roses and orchids are produced for local markets. Recently, the technique of embryo transfer has being used to boost meat and milk production.

Table 1. Current African status and trends in plant biotechnology in Africa.

The banana producing and exporting states in the Caribbean region-- Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Windward Islands, are plagued by a variety of geographical and economic disadvantages that are uncommon to their Central and South American competitors. Hilly terrain and hurricane-exposed locations add to high management and shipping costs of smaller volumes of banana exports. Crop production on steep terrain and small family venture farms, e.g. in the Windward Islands, continues to be the backbone of several rural economies and the socio-political fabric of a number of the Caribbean island countries. Collapse of such economies, can lead to socio-political turmoil, decimation of the tourist industry, to an exodus of economic refugees, development of undesirable markets e.g. illegal drug trade, and to turbulence and weakening of interdependent socio-economic infrastructures such as CARICOM and the Caribbean Basin Initiative.

The Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which promotes economic integration and encourages export security in small island countries is composed of Member States - Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. These island states on account of their monocrop economies, fragile ecosystems, location in the hurricane belt between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and little size, are extremely vulnerable to the forces of globalised development. The El Niño phenomenon also has a negative impact on crop production in the Caribbean isles. According to the global information and early warning system on food and agriculture, seasonal cereal and bean crops bosses for 1997 have been estimated at about 20 per cent in several Central American and Caribbean countries. Similar loss risks are anticipated in 1998.

Shock waves have been witnessed in most of the OECS banana-producing countries as a result of the hurricane storms in 1994 and 1995, and still again by the possible loss, after 2001, of European economic preferences for Caribbean bananas. It is estimated that 4000 to 8000 small farmers, in especially Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, may have to exit the banana industry and re-invest in other ventures. In this regard, cultural tourism seems to be a dominating option. Other options for diversification of agricultural markets are to be found in the cultivation of okra, tomatoes and avocados. On the negative side, the allure of easy revenue makes the illegal cultivation of marijuana an attractive proposition despite the risks involved.

Over the past decades, about 27 nations with thousands of islands in the pacific region have emerged with aid through the South Pacific Commission. Like that of the Caribbean, the Pacific region is dependent on a remarkably fragile environment, characterised by limited natural resources, including land, and a high incidence of natural disasters.

The nations of the pacific region share scientific and technological concerns peculiar to their geographic and oceanographic characteristic. They frequently face substantial constraints in terms of scientific, technological, managerial, and economic resources necessary for sustainable, island-wide, maricultural and maritime development. The most important of such developmental and educational issues are microbial aspects related to human health, nutrition, food safety and energy supply.

With the help of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, Massey University and Cawthron Institute in New Zealand and the government authorities of many of the Pacific island nations, a survey, a decade ago by the MIRCEN at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, established that some 50 researchers from 19 countries in over 44 laboratories were desirous of collaborating with each other.

The South Pacific region is composed of a vast number of islands that vary in size from Papua New Guinea with a population of around four million, to Nuie with a population of 2,000. The diversity of plant genetic resources and the availability of other resources such as labour vary though the latter, as a general rule, is always a limiting factor in agricultural production. Daily subsistence is mainly based on agriculture, though some of the islands have adopted a more commercial approach for export purposes. This is the case in Tonga with its production of squash for the Japanese market. Generally speaking the crops grown throughout the Pacific region are mostly root and tuber crops, banana, and coconut (Table 1).

At the moment, the only real application of biotechnology in the region is tissue culture. It was first introduced into the region through the tissue culture laboratory established by the South Pacific Commission (SPC), Plant Protection Service in Fiji with the aim of increasing the number of varieties of the main root and tuber crops available in the Pacific island countries, and to facilitate their distribution through their pathogen-tested status. In the late 1980s another tissue culture laboratory was established on the campus of the University of the South Pacific (USP), Western Samoa to provide security for the germplasm material that was being maintained in Suva, Fiji.

Another area of concern in the South Pacific islands is that of intellectual property rights. Tissue culture projects first became involved with the issues of intellectual property rights on account of requests from a commercial tissue culture laboratory, outside the Pacific island region for taro germplasm and the relevant multiplication technology (Taylor, 1996). The issue of germplasm exchange that aroused regional interest and concern, has led to the consideration of emerging pressures which emphasise the need for the Pacific island countries to consider some form of intellectual property rights system.

These pressures are:

• The need to comply with the directives of the World Trade Organisation to its members to institute a system of plant variety protection either through the use of patents or an 'effective sui generis system' by 1999;
• Increased bioprospecting in the Pacific island region, that is being practised often without prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms between the bioprospectors and the country in possession of the desired resources; and
• Imminent loss of commercial markets of medicinal plants such as kava that are of significance in the pharmaceutical industry.

On the issue of genebanks, the regional laboratories in the South Pacific are responsible for a wide range of crop germplasm originating from many different island countries in Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. These collections were originally assembled on the principle of 'common heritage' in the absence of a defined policy regarding germplasm exchange. Today, with the galloping advances being made in deriving benefits from the applications of biotechnology, the Pacific island countries have become concerned about the possible patenting of their plant and microbial genetic resources.

Globalisation has embraced the world of islands in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the pacific regions. As a result, and despite the geographic and economic limitations that slow down the pace of technological advancement, several island nations have embarked upon the path of diversifying and modernising their reliance on traditional agricultural and Nature-given biotech resources. Amongst the various options, virtually all island countries, inclusive of Cyprus and Malta, have adopted high-tech biotechnology, genetic engineering, and gene-rich micro-organisms as strategic mechanisms in ensuring self-reliant development and economic stability for the year 2000 and beyond.

DaSilva, E.J. (1998). Biotechnology: Developing Countries and Globalisation. World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology 14:463-486.

Jackson G.V.H. (1994). Taro and Yam resources in the Pacific and Asia, Report for ACIAR and IPGRI, Anutech Pty., Ltd

O'Garro, L. (1997). Prospects for Control of Bacterial Spot of Pepper and Tomato in the Anglophone Eastern Caribbean: A Research Model for the Application of Biotechnology in Small Developing Countries, UNESCO, Port of Spain, pp. 99

FAO, (1992). Current Status and Future Prospects of Modern Biotechnologies in Latin America and the Caribbean. Executive Summary 22nd Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, 28 September - 2 October, Montevideo, Uruguay. Document LARC/92/4 - W/Z9328/c.

Taylor M. (1996) Intellectual property rights and plant germplasm in the South Pacific region. PRAP Working Paper No. 96-3. Suva: Pacific Regional Agricultural Programme (PRAP). Project 7. Provision of tissue Culture Services for the Region.