by OWEN ROBERTS, ANDREW BEARINGER and HEIDI CLARK

Late in the spring, an "unnamed source" in Ottawa floated a trial balloon through the pages of the National Post, describing a wide-ranging, $3.5-billion, five-year federal farm-aid package, firmly anchored in the life sciences.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada minister Lyle Vanclief has openly supported a move towards life sciences. In a speech to the Ottawa Life Sciences National Conference and Exhibition in December, he called life sciences "integral" to his department's objectives. But there's work to do in the trenches. Focus groups held across Canada last winter showed that producers are not convinced life sciences will help their bottom line.

Now, bureaucrats are paying attention. Documentation from a working group charged with developing a common federal-provincial-territorial path towards the life science economy is clear about the need for a life-sciences public awareness strategy, based on consumer concerns about biotechnology and the fact that many life sciences products are actually non-genetically modified.

And life sciences themselves are so diverse and hard to pigeonhole. Their relatively recent arrival (in name, at least) on the farm scene brings with them the excitement and suspicion that surrounds anything new. However, it's widely agreed that the building blocks and basic ingredients of life sciences -- be they high-value molecules, renewable industrial feedstocks or biomass for energy -- will be produced by those who know how to efficiently, effectively and commercially grow plants and raise animals. That means farmers, especially in Ontario, where extreme climate and intense competition, notably from the volume-driven United States, have made producers here among the world's best.

"The United States is not as good as Ontario with smaller specialty markets," says Peter Hannam, president of First Line Seeds. "In soybeans, Ontario farmers have been involved in identity preservation for 25 years. We have a number of producers who are very good at it and an elevator and transportation system that can accommodate specific varieties. That's vital for high-value markets where purity and consistency are essential."

Adds Loretta Smith of London-based Prime Management Group Inc., which specializes in life sciences recruiting: "Life sciences can bring the agricultural industry up with the corporate giants, because we have an expertise in growing things. We've always been the customer and the client, but we have life lessons and they're worth something."

But will farmers be ready for a life sciences-based economy? Exactly how will they prosper? And what has the agri-food industry learned from the poorly planned and poorly communicated introduction of biotechnology a scant decade or so ago? Canadians are still reeling from that boondoggle, and opponents of new technology are gaining ground all the time.

This time around, though, there may be as many answers as questions. Proponents say life sciences may actually derail the anti-technology locomotive because the same consumers who say they fear technology flock to it when their health is threatened. Life sciences create next-generation products and services -- nutraceuticals, antibodies and vaccines among them. "How can anyone argue with products like those?" asks Dr. Larry Milligan, whose term as vice-president of research at the University of Guelph ended recently after a 15-year span. "They help people and save lives."

Profits look promising
Agriculture is already a player in the life sciences economy. Consider agriculture-related, life-science advances from research at the University of Guelph alone: winter hardiness in alfalfa and canola, Omega-3 enriched eggs, chemical-free ways to store fresh fruit and vegetables, shipping fever vaccine for cattle pneumonia, and seed treatments for heat and drought-tolerance in corn, rice and barley.

It's clear that agricultural researchers are tuned in to life sciences -- Guelph, for example, is now fundraising for a multi-million-dollar agricultural plant biotechnology and biocomputing centre. But what about farmers?

Some say there will be a learning curve and, as usual, the early adopters of technology will derive the most benefits. But farmers can prepare (see checklist). "The obligation will be higher with respect to management, time and documentation requirements," says Henri Olechowski of Hyland Seeds, "but the returns will be higher."

Art Stirling, government and industry relations manager for Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd., says growers are already on the right track. He's seeing some farmers diversifying their production skill sets, becoming better marketers, learning the identity-preserved system, compliance and isolation distances. "The grower will be the Number One educator, because life-science opportunities require a higher degree of skills and diligence," he says. "Growers must self-educate if they want to seize the opportunity."

As Olechowski suggests, the profits and residual benefits look promising. Many observers point to how the development of a key bioproduct, ethanol, is already making a difference. Bliss Baker, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, calls the ethanol industry "a great engine for rural economic development." He says 80 per cent of the revenue from an ethanol plant is spent within a 100-mile radius, and means big returns for farmers. A study of the Commercial Alcohols plant at Chatham shows the faculty has boosted southwestern Ontario corn prices 15 cents a bushel.

Moreover, there's money available for investment. "Venture capitalists are looking towards life sciences rather than high technology," says recruitment specialist Smith. "How can anyone think that a cow that produces insulin or a plant that gets tweaked to produce a vaccine is not going to make money?"

Companies such as Foragen Technologies Management, led by former Ontario Agri-Food Technologies president Dr. Murray McLaughlin, have an eye out for life-sciences opportunities. Foragen has raised $42 million to invest in "agroscience company creation" and has targeted the development of about five companies a year. Human and animal wellness, food and fibre trait enhancement and alternative bio-based products, materials and processes are all areas of opportunity for Foragen, which McLaughlin considers directly related to life sciences.

Be "open-minded and adventurous"
Some producers are already getting ready for the life sciences movement. A group of 10 eastern Ontario farmers have formed a company called AgExcell to produce a wide range of modified, transgenic and traditional crops for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and biotechnology industries. While none of the members have grown any higher-end, identity-preserved crops, executive director Tony Wouters forecasts that more than half of their collective 11,000 acres will be dedicated to these crops within five years. "Producers need to be open-minded and adventurous," he says.

They also need to be included in the game plan, says fruit farmer Murray Porteous, chair of the Agricultural Adaptation Council. "Producers must be involved with how to move the life sciences agenda forward, so they have an opportunity to benefit financially in those products," he says.

There are some concerns that if the stakes are sky-high, life science companies themselves will muscle out farmers. But so far, that hasn't happened. "We'll stick to what we know, and let farmers do what they do best, which is grow crops," says Karla Miller, corporate communications manager of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in Decatur, Ill., home to one of the world's most heralded life sciences-agricultural companies (see sidebar). "We would never grow [bio-based] crops ourselves." ADM has contracts for about 500 acres of high-oil corn in surrounding Macon County.

Education will be key. Dr. Alan Wildeman, the University of Guelph's new vice-president of research, says the institution recently started offering an on-line, distance-education course on genomics, one of the scientific foundations of life sciences. And closer to the field, Sharon Zadorozny, business director for DuPont Agricultural Products Canada, says agricultural sales reps will serve an educational role, too. "Farmers are part of an industry that is very willing to help them with advice," she says. "Many of our field staff have research backgrounds and graduate degrees. We have the knowledge base available and are quite happy when farmers want to spend time with us."

Dr. Larry Martin, CEO of the George Morris Centre, an independent agricultural think-tank, says life-science products with unique end uses, value-added benefits or niche market appeal spell opportunities for producers. But those benefits won't come naturally. By definition, he says, everyone can't fit in a niche. Farmers will need to develop strategic networks to help with marketing and sophisticated contract negotiations, to ensure they get full advantage.

His advice? "Get out of the commodity jungle and into the product world." he says. "Life sciences may not save all of agriculture, but it may give you a tremendous opportunity." BF
Owen Roberts heads research communications for the University of Guelph. Andrew Bearinger and Heidi Clark are students in the integrated agricultural communication program at the University of Guelph.

The tobacco plants will be genetically modified to produce highly specific antibodies that can detect food-borne organisms that spoil food and poison consumers. The antibodies, which are incorporated into food wrapping, never touch the food and turn colour in the presence of the pathogens.

Guelph researchers are working with Mississauga-based Toxin Alert Inc., which has opened a laboratory on campus, to develop a high-tech wrap that can detect the likes of listeria, salmonella, E.coli, toxoplasma and campylobacter. These five pathogens are responsible for more than 90 per cent of all food-borne pathogens, which cost the North American economy an estimated $11 billion.

At Guelph, Toxin Alert has 16 bioreactors (automated cell-culture systems) that will be able to produce up to 15 kilograms of antibodies for the initial plastic-wrap launch, scheduled for June 2002. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. Toxin Alert requires about 500 kilograms of the stuff to apply pathogen-detection technology to a mere five per cent of the $17.5-billion flexible packaging industry. The company just can't get it from conventional mechanical bioreactors. It needs cheap mass production, which is why fields of relatively low-cost agricultural crops fit the bill so well.

Tobacco is a natural. It's easy to manipulate genetically and, since tobacco is not a food crop, Hall anticipates less consumer concern about doctoring the plant's genetic code. "A technology that can give consumers an early warning system about the freshness and safety of food is a good idea," adds Prof. Mansel Griffiths, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph.

The technology is supported by a diverse roster of sponsors and participants. Besides Toxin Alert, there's involvement from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the National Research Council, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Ontario Agri-Food Technologies.BF
Andrew Bearinger and Owen Roberts

Prepare yourself for the life sciences evolution

- Improve your record keeping through computerization.

- Develop a highly accurate history of your land, including inputs.

- Learn about contracting practices and procedures.

- Become active and competent on the Internet.

- Pencil-out profitability; determine what your time is worth.

- Build a reputation as producer who understands the identity preservation system. BF

An industrial model for rural Ontario?

The life-sciences message featuring soybeans is central to a multi-million-dollar, high-profile U.S. advertising campaign launched earlier this year by agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The ads look like mini-rock videos, but their aim is clear: to convince urban Americans that soybeans growing on prairie landscapes are the secret to longevity, environmental salvation and the dietary needs of developing nations.

ADM is staking its future on life sciences. While it was publicly taking its lumps for a price-fixing scam a few years ago, behind the scenes it was regrouping to make itself relevant to society. It saw uneasy baby boomers threatened with mortality, sabre rattling, energy-rich OPEC nations taunting the rest of the globe, and thousands of farmers hardly able to scratch out a living, despite growing populations. So the company got aggressive, and started looking at alternatives. Now, that search has led to one of the most integrated, imaginative and productive facilities in rural America.

ADM's world headquarters outside Decatur, Ill. (pop. 80,000) was built in the early 1970s, when the company president decided to move from Minneapolis to rural America to be closer to its main supplier: farmers. It looks like it was good move. Sales rose to $18.6 billion US last year from $320 million in 1969. The plant, which employs 3,600, has become the world's largest wet-filling corn facility, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Michigan Biotechnology Institute president Dr. Greg Zeikus visited the University of Guelph earlier this spring to talk about a world based on life sciences and a bio-economy. He held out the ADM plant as a shining example of a rural-based industry using local products, employing local people and contributing to local prosperity. On a smaller scale -- perhaps for niche-market production -- it could be a model for Ontario, he suggested, as the province looks for ways to help rural areas survive.

Here's why. The Decatur plant has three significant product streams: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), alcohol and ethanol, and since 1989 bioproducts (mostly soy-based) designed to improve health. Right now, they're all winners. Americans are more obese than ever, so the HFCS market (sweeteners and soda pop) is doing fine. With fossil fuel-gasoline prices skyrocketing and Middle East tensions high, there's rapidly growing interest in ethanol. And, perhaps because of the extent of obesity, there's a booming market for health-related bioproducts. Nearby farmers are enthralled. Whatever betrayal they felt from the price-fixing scam seems to be forgotten, given that everything ADM produces is based on corn and soybeans drawn mainly from a 250-mile radius. Farmers in that area enjoy about a 25-cent premium on corn, mainly because they don't have to ship it far. "Some people think that if ADM promotes a new product, it's only promoting itself," says area farmer Mike Stacey, president of the 6,000-member Macon County farm bureau, which includes Decatur. "But if we as farmers buy that product, we're not promoting ADM, we're promoting our own yields. If ADM sells more, we sell more too."

That's one reason a lot of farmers he knows, such as Emmett Sefton who grows corn and soybeans and raises cattle 10 miles southeast of Decatur, are ADM boosters. Sefton, for example, takes Novasoy isoflavones, ADM's soy-based wonder supplement, made from good old, non-GM Illinois soybeans. Sefton says his cholesterol rate dropped to 179 from 280 in three years, as a result of isoflavone supplements. "I take isoflavones and I use ethanol," he says. "I'm supporting the industry."

Ethanol production at the ADM plant produces excess heat, which the company gives to the neighbouring community college in the form of steam. It uses other excess heat for a five-acre greenhouse hydroponic vegetable production operation and a huge aquaculture program. It gives the regional landfill a big break by using spent rubber tires to co-generate power. The plant uses six million tires a year, and ADM claims its emissions come out 10 per cent better than Environmental Protection Agency minimum standards.

An ADM-like plant can also attract other winners. For example, in May DuPont announced it had manufactured a critical ingredient for its newest polymer, Sorona, using a fermentation process based on corn sugar. Before this development, the substance could only be produced from petrochemicals. The chemical was produced by DuPont scientists at a pilot plant owned by Tate & Lyle, a major corn-based products company with expertise in fermentation processes --.in none other than Decatur.BF
Owen Roberts

What is/are life sciences?

"Life sciences are to this century what information technology was to the last century."
Harvard Business Review,
March-April 2000.

"Life sciences are the corporate merging of agriculture and food, nutrition, health and pharmaceutical sectors with agricultural crop and animal production as the base platform."
- Art Stirling, government and industry relations manager,
Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd.

"Life sciences is being able to substitute plant technology into the human sciences."
- Tony Woulters, farmer and executive director,
AgExcell.

"Life sciences is science that will affect the quality of our lives though superior genetics in animals and plants."
- Loretta Smith, senior recruitment specialist,
Prime Management Group.

"Life sciences is the evolution of language. Agriculture has always been based on life sciences; molecular biology techniques will allow us to go that extra step."
- Dr. Larry Milligan, former vice-president of research,
University of Guelph.

"Life sciences is a new buzzword for the integration of biology, chemistry, molecular biology, physics, agriculture and veterinary medicine, centred on improving our health and welfare."

- Prof. Chris Hall, environmental biologist,
University of Guelph.