Farmers turn to genome

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agricultural editor

Crossover research benefiting humans as well as animals is a key goal for a new farmer-funded biotechnology company. It will spend up to $75 million over five years boosting sheep productivity.

AgResearch and the Meat and Wool Boards yesterday launched Ovita, a vehicle to develop and commercialise knowledge of the sheep genome.

The move was first mooted in the McKinsey consultants' report on improving wool industry profitability last year, but the three organisations have worked together informally for around four years and last year began a joint gene discovery programme.

Now they have signed a heads of agreement document committing each of them to financing of up to $5 million for up to five years.

They hope that by the end of the term some of the investments, including licensing biomedical intellectual property, would be generating enough income to make Ovita at least partly self-sustaining.

Meat Board acting chief executive Neil Clarke said the move was one of the most exciting for sheep farmers in years.

"We will be using the tools of biotechnology to lift productivity that farmers have been trying to do in other ways for a very long time."

AgResearch chief executive Keith Steele said Ovita would enable the institute to enlarge and accelerate the $7 million of sheep research programmes already under way.

"What we're interested in is innovation ... and bringing together the resources of AgResearch and the Meat and Wool Boards will move it forward a lot quicker."

The $75 million would be mainly spread between AgResearch and its overseas partners. It would take the research on the sheep genome in two directions - back to the farm, and off farm, he said.

Farmers would get a short-term payoff in such things as trait selection for productivity and product quality. They would also have longer-term prospects of new vaccines and animal health products.

There was also likely to be benefits from crossover science - research that could apply equally to sheep as humans - in such areas as fertility, immunology, hair growth and muscle development.

AgResearch had led the world in sheep genome mapping by targeting certain areas that had value to the New Zealand farmer and the sheep industry, Dr Steele said.



Animal genomics researcher Dr John Bass, of AgResearch Ruakura, is investigating sheep muscle development which could lead to more meatier animals. The work has direct spin-offs for humans.

Researchers have identified several genes that control the muscle-growth inhibiting gene myostatin. That has implications for muscle-wasting in people who are bedridden, or suffer from a number of diseases.

"About a third of the people die, not from the disease, but from muscle-wasting known as cachexia. It kills about a third of heart patients, and a number of cancer and Aids patients," Dr Bass said.

Ovita is expected to be operational from October 1 but details of its research programme will not be settled until a board is appointed and a business plan formalised. However, all three parties have agreed to invest in the high-value areas of reproduction, wool, hair and skin, animal health, including facial eczema and parasite resistance, rumen function, and muscle growth and development. Only rumen function is specific to sheep.

Dr Clarke said being able to select animals which were parasite resistant was worth at least $100 million a year to farmers. The similarity of genes across species meant work on sheep could also benefit beef producers.

Ovita would not be putting transgenic animals into the food chain though some test work in research laboratories might involve genetic engineering, he said.

Only last month Federated Farmers' meat and fibre producers chairman Murray Taggart questioned why producer boards would invest farmer funds in ventures that were being undertaken on a commercial basis by the private sector.

Yesterday he said that biotechnology had huge potential for farmers but many were concerned at the associated high financial risks.

Individual farmers should be given a chance to invest in Ovita, rather than through producer board levies, he said.

Meat Board chairman Jeff Grant said biotechnology and Ovita had been discussed by both boards at farmer meetings.

"There is general widespread support for the concept of using biotechnology to open up new opportunities for New Zealand sheep farmers."