Humans have altered nature for thousands of years. Farmers have trimmed weeds into ever more productive grains and bred bigger, tastier animals. Is genetic engineering only the next evolutionary step or a step too far?
 | Two transgenic pigs are irradiated under ultraviolet radiation showing their green fluorescence protein feature at a hogpen in Harbin, China (Photo: Reuters) |
It really depends on how you ask the question: Would you like tastier tomatoes, healthier ham, and vegetables full of vitamins? Who wouldn’t raise a hand?
Now let’s rephrase it: Would you rather buy conventional food or genetically modified products? That’s usually when the enthusiasm fades.
Genetically modified food has a bad image. Extreme, alien creatures like Korean piglets carrying a jellyfish DNA that makes them glow green in the dark don’t help. They make most of us feel uncomfortable; concerned that such tinkering with the building blocks of life is possibly dangerous.
On the other hand, there are examples of genetic engineering no one would question anymore.
Insulin, the only known treatment for diabetes, has been produced by genetically modified bacteria for 20 years. Before the advent of genetic engineering, patients had to use insulin from the pancreas of dead pigs and cows, which occasionally led to allergic reactions.
Insulin has become the GM success story, but it wasn’t an easy ride, recalls Johannes Klose, Scientific Advisor at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty. “It took [the life-sciences company] Hoechst nearly 10 years to get their first insulin facility running. Nowadays, nobody would be scared. Millions of people use genetically engineered insulin.”
America: land of the free gene
If the perception of GM insulin can change over time, the same might be true of GM food, says Klose. In many parts of the world, this has already happened.
While a conservative and skeptical Europe remains a virtually GMO-free region, America has long accepted GM crops. Some 70 percent of the world’s soybean production and one quarter of all corn is genetically modified, and almost exclusively grown in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. The Center for Food Safety estimates that up to 85 percent of U.S. corn is genetically engineered as are 91 percent of soybeans.
Its not that Americans don’t care, says Klose, they just don’t know. Whereas the European Union labels all products containing more than 0.9 percent of GM food stuff, no such labels exist in the United States. Once a new GM product has passed controls at the Food and Drug Administration, it is deemed safe to eat and enters the market unrecognizable.
 | Picture Gallery (click on the image to start)See some of the most important genetic innovations |
Whether this assumption is true remains to be seen. According to the American Institute of Biological Sciences there are “no peer-reviewed publications of clinical studies on the human health effects of GM food.” It is nearly impossible to test the long-term effects on human health and the environment. “You would have to monitor this for decades, but you cannot do this because this would put people at risk,“ says Klose.
However, most criticisms leveled against GM foods are not about their safety but about their economic and environmental impacts. When farmers in France or Germany stage protests destroying experimental plantations of GM maize or canola, they do so in the belief that they are resisting the corporate takeover of agriculture.
Economic stranglehold
The biotech giant Monsanto controls about 90 percent of the market for genetically modified seeds and holds more than 400 patents on genetic improvements. Its “Roundup” herbicides— the world’s most successful brand—and a set of crops genetically modified to tolerate these chemical weed killers—“Roundup Ready” crops—have spearheaded the GM revolution since 1996.
The company has made headlines with a set of law suits against Canadian farmers that had inadvertently used Monsanto seeds blown in from a neighboring field growing Roundup Ready canola. Canada’s Farmers Union claims that such lawsuits jeopardize a farmer's right to save and use seeds from year to year, a basic principle of conventional agriculture.
Monsanto counters that its products require less fertilizers and pesticides while yielding bigger harvests, thus outweighing the seed costs.
Most GM food crops—soybeans and maize dominate—target developed markets and either provide herbicide tolerance or pest resistance, important traits for large scale, monoculture production. Food farmers in the developing world are still waiting for GM crops suitable for them.
But projects involving African crops like cowpeas or sorghum are underway, says Walter Alhassan, biotechnology consultant at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. “If we are able to get drought-resistant varieties in place this would really be very important,” he says. “Farmers would instantly adopt crops that are more resistant to droughts.”
Projects like WEMA—Water Efficient Maize for Africa—are still years from completion. But even when in place, many small-scale farmers will not have the funds to buy expensive, patented seeds.
GMOs vs. Malnutrition
That is why Swiss scientist Ingo Potrykus and his German colleague Peter Beyer decided to develop a type of GM rice that would benefit small-scale farmers in Asia and Africa. Their so-called Golden Rice contains beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A, that millions of poor people lack, leading to blindness and even death.
Although Golden Rice uses some 70 existing patents, the scientists managed to convince the patent holders to waive their claims for all farmers earning less than 10,000 dollars annually.
But the rice hasn’t been distributed yet. Critics like the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva question its effectiveness. Malnutrition, she argues, cannot be solved by one crop only, but needs a balanced diet including various vitamin-rich crops.
Contamination of non-GM rice through cross pollination is another issue. Once grown in the field, modified genes would inevitably end up in non-GM rice. “If a hazardous, unexpected effect arises with the GE rice, e.g. increased toxicity or susceptibility to disease, there could be no withdrawal of the gene due to contamination,” Greenpeace writes in its report The False Hope of ‘Golden Rice’.
Such contamination could also diminish crop biodiversity, important for plants’ ability to adapt to new climatic challenges or diseases. “As you decrease the gene pool through monoculture and replacing traditional varieties you reduce the properties plants have—whether resistance to pests, or to drought, or to floods,” says Krystyna Swiderska of the International Institute for Environment and Development.
Simply rejecting GMOs won’t solve this problem. But neither will modifying food without asking consumers or farmers. A balanced approach that harnesses the opportunities without ignoring the risks could win back some public sympathy for GM foods.
editor: Thilo Kunzemann
publishing date: October 16, 2009
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