Facts about the Joint FAO/IAEA Programme
- General
- Q: 'Nuclear' in what sense?
- Animal Production and Health (APH)
- Q: Which nuclear techniques can be used in animal production research for enhancing livestock productivity?
- Q: Which molecular techniques can be used in animal production research for enhancing livestock productivity?
- » On Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
- Plant Breeding and Genetics (PBG)
- Q: To which extent is radiation used in plant breeding today?
- Q: How do induced mutants compare to spontaneous mutants in crop improvement?
- Q: What's the role of marker-aided selection (MAS) in crop improvement in LIFDCs?
- Q: What are the current and future trends in Plant Breeding?
- Insect Pest Control (IPC)
- Q: Are Sterile Insects that have been Irradiated Radioactive?
- This is a common misconception related to the deployment of sterile insects (Whitten and Mahon 2005). Insects that are released in an SIT programme are not radioactive.
The type of radiation used to sterilize insects is very similar to that used for medical x-ray procedures, to sterilize medical products and to irradiate foodstuffs. The conclusion of all the studies
on irradiated foods indicates that there are no levels of residual radiation nor of the production of biologically active compounds.
The radiation sources used to irradiate food and agricultural products (including insects) are restricted to: gamma rays from the radionuclides 60Co and 137Cs, and accelerator-generated radiation
either as 10 million electron volt (MeV) electrons or 5 MeV X-rays (FAO 2003).
Insect sterilization also requires a much lower radiation dose, 100-300 Gy, (IDIDAS 2004; Bakri et al. 2005) than for food irradiation, 100 Gy to 60 kGy, (IAEA 2002a, b). Thus, the induction
of radioactivity in insects irradiated for programmes that release sterile insects can also be "best characterized as zero". Given the low levels of irradiation for insects, the small biomass
of the released insects and their wide dispersal, there are no plausible grounds for concern about residual radioactivity, or radiation-induced toxins, in released insects.
Bakri, A. J., N. Heather, J. Hendrichs, and I. Ferris. 2005. Fifty years of radiation biology in entomology: lessons learned from IDIDAS. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 98: 1-12.
(FAO) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2003. Codex general standard for irradiated foods, CODEX-STAN 106-1983, Revised 1-2003, Codex Alimentarius. FAO, Rome Italy.
(IAEA) International Atomic Energy Agency. 2002a. Natural and induced radioactivity in food. IAEA-TECDOC-1287. IAEA, Vienna, Austria.
(IAEA) International Atomic Energy Agency. 2002b. Dosimetry for food irradiation. Technical Reports Series, Number 409. IAEA, Vienna, Austria.
(IDIDAS) International Database on Insect Disinfestation and Sterilization. 2004. FAO/IAEA, Vienna, Austria. http://www-ididas.iaea.org/IDIDAS/default.htm
Whitten, M. and R. Mahon. 2005. Population suppression in support of the Sterile Insect Technique. In V. A. Dyck, J. Hendrichs and A. S. Robinson (eds.), Sterile insect technique. Principles and practice in area-wide integrated pest
management. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany.
- Q: Is the SIT a stand-alone technology?
- Q: Is Eradication Necessary when Using the Sterile Insect Technique?
- Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition (SWMCN)
- Q: What isotopic and nuclear techniques are commonly used to study soil and water management and crop nutrition?
- Q: I would be interested in receiving training in the use of nuclear techniques to evaluate water management and crop nutrition. How should I proceed?
