Biotechnology Has Places to Go
by: Stewart Truelsen, a regular contributor to the American Farm Bureau’s Focus on Agriculture series.


Digital technology is wonderful.   It has transformed our lives with computers, cellular phones, high-definition television, iPods and other ways to do business, communicate and be entertained.  But that pales in comparison to what biotechnology seeks to do.
 
At the BIO 2006 International Conference in Chicago, Jim Mullen, CEO of Biogen and chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Organization said, “In the years ahead we have a simple but powerful vision of success. Heal the sick.  Feed the world.  Fuel the world.  Clean the environment.”  How’s that for a vision statement?
 
American farmers have helped feed a hungry world, either through exports and food aid or the sharing of knowledge and technology, and now agriculture is partnering with biotechnology in realizing these other dreams too—healing the sick, fueling the world and cleaning the environment.
 
Nearly 20,000 attendees from 62 countries were at BIO 2006, a scientific trade show.  One of the biggest attention-getters at the meeting was a large indoor cornfield that measured 1,000 square feet in Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center.  The cornfield symbolized the importance of biotechnology to food and agriculture. 
 
Biotechnology is increasing crop yields while decreasing the need for crop protection products. It allows farmers to grow more specialized crops with additional benefits for consumers.   
 
But food took a backseat to fuel at the convention when it came to media attention.  Most of the buzz was about biorefining—the processing of commodities into fuel and other materials.  Corn is the main feedstock for ethanol in this country, but biotech companies also are working on developing low-cost enzymes to convert corn stalks, wheat straw and switch grass to sugars that can be fermented into cellulosic ethanol.
 
The conference drew a lot of attention from the investment community and from city and state governments.  When the “tech bubble” burst in the stock market a few years ago, biotech companies were hit by a sharp decline in share prices.  Needed capital was harder to acquire.  The business outlook is better now.
 
Twelve state governors attended BIO 2006, all of them with the intention of luring biotech companies, jobs and research dollars to their states.  Regions around the country can aspire to become biotech hot spots.
 
The digital revolution created a lot of jobs, but many were low paying and ended up in foreign countries.  That’s not the case with bioscience jobs.  The average wage is considerably higher than that of all private-sector jobs.   
 
The Chicago Tribune did a good job of capturing the spirit of the conference and the future of the agricultural biotechnology with its headline, “Industry all grown up and has places to go.”  No one can deny that, and American agriculture will play a key role in getting there.   

5/8/06