GM crops and technology …

INSIGHT

From the desk of MD

INGO POTRYKUS, a Swiss biologist, is credited with being the principle creator of genetically modified rice, known as “golden rice”. Mr. Portrykus was hailed as potentially one of mankind’s greatest benefactors after it was claimed some 8-years ago, that golden rice was to be the start of a new green revolution that would improve the lives of millions of poor people throughout the world. It would help remedy Vitamin A deficiency – the cause of nearly 2-million deaths a year – and, could save up to 500,000 children a year from going blind. Golden rice was seen as the flagship of plant biotechnology. No other scientific development in recent times has held out greater promise.

Eight years on, the most optimistic forecast is that it will take another six years before golden rice can be grown commercially. The realisation of Portrykus’s dream keeps receding. The promised benefits from other crops, too, that should reduce hunger and disease have been equally elusive. Recent attacks by Prince Charles in Britain, in support of the anti-GM lobby, will hardly give momentum to bio-crops that could be relieving some of the starvation and the plight of many poor people throughout the world.

GM crops should now be growing in areas where no crops can grow: drought-resistant crops in arid soil and salt-resistant crops in soil of high salinity. Plant-based oral vaccines should now be saving millions of people who are still dying from diarrhoea and hepatitis B; they can be ingested in orange juice, bananas or tomatoes, avoiding the need for injection and for trained staff to administer them.

Yet, none of those promised crops has ever been made available to the market. What has gone wrong? Were the pledges unrealistic, or is GM technology, as its ardent opponents claim, flawed- because of possible harm to human safety or the environment or because it is ill-suited to the needs of poor farmers in the developing world? Public discussion of GM food throughout the British media, and throughout Europe, reflects a persistent suspicion of GM crops. Supermarkets are required to disclose and display notices that their products are “GM-free”, if so applicable. Sales of organic food, promoted as a natural alternative to the products of modern scientific farming, are increasing by about 20 percent a year. EU regulations, too, based on the ‘precautionary principle’ provide safeguards against “contamination” of organic farms by GM crops; they require any produce containing more than 0.9 percent GM content to be properly labeled, with the clear implication that it needs a health warning and should be avoided. This causes a major conflict over GM soya beans imported into the UK from America. Some GM crops are taking root in some European countries, but in most they are in effect banned. The public is led to believe that GM technology is not only unsafe but harmful to the environment, and that it only serves to profit large agricultural companies. Seldom has public perception been more out of line with the facts.

 

LICENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

The public in Britain and throughout Europe seem unaware of the astonishing success of GM crops throughout the rest of the world. No new agricultural technology in recent times has spread as fast or more widely. Only a decade after their commercial introduction, GM crops are now cultivated within 22 countries, by over 10-million farmers, of which 90% are resource-poor within the developing world, mostly within India and China. Most of these are small-scale farmers who grow pest-resistant GM cotton. In India alone, production tripled during 2006-07 in covering an area totalling more than 3.6-million hectares. Cotton benefits farmers because it reduces the need for insecticides, thereby increasing farming income and by improving health. It is true that the promised development of staple GM food crops for the developing world has been delayed, but this is not to do with technical faults. Principally, it is due to GM crops having to overcome costly, time-consuming and unnecessary regulations before such crops can be licensed, unlike conventional style crops.

The alleged risk to public health from GM crops is still the main reason for public disquiet and anxiety – something that was actually nurtured by environmental NGOs, who in 2002, even persuaded Zambia to reject food aid from the US at a time of famine because some of it was derived from GM crops.

Unless the charges of ‘harm’ are confronted, contradicted or disproved whenever such claims are made, its credibility will persist. The fact remains, though, that not a shred of evidence exists of any risk to human health from GM crops. Every academy of science, representing the views of the world’s leading experts – Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Brazilian, French and American, as well as the Royal Society – has confirmed this through the publication of four separate reports on the issue. Independent inquiries have found and concluded that the health risk from GM crops is no greater than that from conventionally grown crops that do not have to undergo such rigorous testing.

During 2001, the Research Directorate of the EU Commission released a summary of the 81 scientific studies it funded – not by private industry – that had been conducted over a 15-year period in determining whether EU products were unsafe or insufficiently tested. None of the tests found any evidence of harm to humans or to the environment.

Indeed, the nature of GM technology makes it extremely unlikely that it is more dangerous than conventional style farming. Throughout the course of history, farmers have sought to improve their crops by cross-fertilising plants with desirable characteristics. Cross-fertilisation, however, is a lottery and its consequences cannot be easily predicted. Small genetic changes occurring from cross-breeding that are deemed desirable may be accompanied by others that might be undesirable. It might take generations of ‘back-crossing’ to eliminate unwanted characteristics. The method is therefore not only unpredictable but slow and expensive, and may even be risky as genetic mutation might create new and deadly diseases. And yet, one of the most effective standard methods of breeding to obtain improved crops is tom bombard seeds and plants with gamma rays to alter their DNA by causing mutations, some of which can then be selected for a desired trait.

 

IRRADIATION

Irradiation alters both chromosome structure and genome sequence in a way that is quite random. Organic farmers, in their desire to avoid artificial chemicals, are even more dependant than conventional farmers on crop varieties generated by irradiation. Besides, there is no legal requirement to test such irradiated products either for the effects on human health or for what they might do to the environment. By contrast, genetic modification in the laboratory introduces a well-characterised gene or genes into an established genetic background without large displacement or big disruption. What such modification does is what plant breeding has always done, but more quickly and accurately. Opponents often argue that GM technology is different because it can transfer genes between species. However, this is nothing new, as we can see if we look and examine the evolution timeline: genes have moved between species naturally. That is why we have such a diversity of plant life.

Also, those who oppose genetic modification in agriculture are often known to embrace the technology in medical research. The human insulin used in treating diabetes, for instance, is genetically engineered: the human gene that codes for insulin has been transferred into bacteria and yeast, a process that involves crossing the species barrier. By what rational can the technology be safe and ethical when saving lives in medical treatment, but not when used to make plants resistant to pests in order to save people from hunger and starvation?

 

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Opponents of GM crops, who appear to have lost the argument on the basis of safety, are now focussing their opposition on environmental concerns, arguing that GM crops destroy biodiversity. It would be wrong in claiming that GM crops could never have adverse environmental effects but, crucially, their impacts depend on circumstances, and on the particular crop and environment in which they are grown. Worldwide evidence in using GM crops actually provides substantial reasons as to why GM crops should be pursued by the West more vigorously: they reduce reliance on agro-chemical sprays, save energy, use less fossil fuels in their production and reduces the emissions of greenhouse gases. And, by improving yields, they make far better use of scarce agricultural land.

Such findings were first reported by ‘Brookes and Barfoot’ (PG Economics) in a close study and examination of the global effects of GM crops in their first 10-years of commercial use, 1996-2005. The study concluded that the “environmental impacts” of pesticide and herbicide use within GM growing countries had been reduced by 15 and 20% respectively. Energy-intensive cultivation is being replaced by ‘no or low-till’ methods of agriculture. More than a third of the soya bean crop grown in the United States is now grown in unploughed fields. Apart from using less energy, avoiding the plough has many environmental advantages. Soil quality is improved, it causes far less disturbance to life within it and diminishes the emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases. The study concludes:

… “that the carbon savings from reduced fuel use and social carbon sequestration during 2005 was equal to removing 4-million cars from the road (or equivalent to 17% of all registered cars in the UK)

One other aspect of GM crops maybe the most significant of all. In the next 50-years, the world will have to more than double its food production to feed the over 800-million people who now go hungry, the extra 3-billion by 2050 and the hundreds of millions of people who will, as living standards rise, acquire a more Western lifestyle by eating a great deal more meat. At the same time, the world is running out of good agricultural land and water resources. Land shortages have already caused subsistence farmers in Indonesia and South America to slash and burn tropical forests. More droughts and desertification caused by global warming will make matters even worse. So will the manufacturer of biofuels from wheat, corn and other food crops that further diminishes the supply of land for growing food, pushing up prices yet further. Improved yields from GM technology leads, ultimately, to better use of land and by preventing the destruction of rainforests with its effects on global warming. By contrast, James Lovelock, the environmentalist infamous for his Gaia Theory, has estimated that if all farming became organic, we would only be able to feed one-third of even the present world population.

Given the evidence about the safety of GM crops and their beneficial environmental impact, and given the global success of GM cotton, maize and soya, why have so few staple GM food crops been licensed for commercial growth? Why are the benefits of golden rice, drought or salt-resistant crops, plant-based vaccines and other GM products with special promise for the developing world so long delayed?

 

REGULATORY CONTROL

The development of the golden rice product under Professor Potrykus was a great scientific achievement. A bacterial gene combined with two genes from the daffodil was inserted into rice in synthesising the micronutrient “β-carotene” which, when consumed, is converted into Vitamin A. The process took almost a decade in producing the product with many more years spent by Biotech companies – such as Syngenta – in solving some of the difficult patent problems. Resolving the patent issue is important because it enables golden-rice to be made available to small-scale farmers without royalty payments. The struggle then began in obtaining regulatory approval.

It is agreed even by those opposed to GM technology that the presence of β-carotene within the rice grain presents no possible environmental risk. And, yet, no small-scale experimental field trials are permitted. All rice plants must be grown in specific plant growth chambers in greenhouses – processes that can take up to 3-years. Each plant must be shown to be the product of one gene transfer into the same part of its DNA. Its protein must then be extracted and fractioned, characterised biochemically and their function confirmed – analysis that is intensive and must be performed within well equipped laboratories. Feeding experiments in rodents, for example, is a necessary prerequisite condition during testing. Though most people have happily eaten these genes and the proteins they code for from other sources, proteins produced from the daffodil gene bear no relation to any toxin or allergen.

It is ironic that other varieties of rice grown throughout southeast Asia have been shown to be “genetically modified” too, but ‘accidentally’ as the result of genetic mutations, chromosome recombinations, translocation and even deletions of part of the DNA structure. This rice is consumed everywhere without any requirement for laboratory testing.

 

SCIENTIFICALLY, the way to ensure that crops are safe is to test the product, not the process. Perversely, regulators in the US, as well as within Europe, require the opposite. The result is that it takes much longer and costs at least ten-times as much to bring a new GM crop to market as an equivalent conventionally bred crop. As Professor Potrykus pointed out during his research of GM crops, no individual scientist or scientific institution in the public domain has either the funding or the motivation to proceed with such an expensive and drawn-out procedure. Only large companies or the most richly funded charities will be in a position to do so but, generally, the only projects likely to be backed are those that will generate big profits. Producing rice that saves lives, or saving the eyesight of millions within the developing world, offers minimal financial reward.

Why is such a technology which has so much to contribute impeded by regulations that makes no sense? Part of the blame lies with some of the large agro-companies who initially welcomed extensive regulation and additional bureaucracy that served to discourage competition from small companies that could not afford the cost. With the larger companies raising the economic barrier to entry, the concentration of agricultural biotechnology lies in the hands of a few giants, like Monsanto. In addition, tight regulations were also backed by some GM supporters who believed that it would reassure the public; it has actually had the opposite effect. If government thinks it necessary and appropriate in taking extreme measures and precautions, as they have with GM crops and technologies, the public perception will likely be that genetic modifications must be dangerous.

Another element that has created public doubt and concern has been the mistrust of multinationals. Essentially, this has intensified opposition to GM crops because it is widely believed that the companies involved are, in the main, the prime beneficiaries and motivated by huge profits. Mistrust has created the economic dilemma that if such agro-businesses are the only winners, then such firms should be subject to the strictest of regulations.

 

BACK TO NATURE

The broader driving force behind the excessive regulation of GM crops, however, has been the notional concept of “back to nature”, which once momentum gathered pace became a strong propaganda tool against the agricultural biotech firms as a whole. This has manifested itself in a number of different ways such as the popularity of organic farming (that which is based on the manifestly false premise that artificial chemicals are bad and natural chemicals good) and the rising fashionable tastes for alternative, non-evidence based medicine. The dogmatic opponents of GM crops, particularly those throughout Europe, stems from the belief that by interfering with the genetic make-up of plants that, that is in someway linked to mankind’s sinful attempt to control nature, contributing to global warming and the epidemics and blights of modern life. The European view attaches a great deal of morality and ethics to the issue.

Given this vast undercurrent of anti-science sentiment what are the chances that many of these obstacles will be overcome in the future through the spread of GM crops? Notably, however, there are grounds for hope. During 2006, for example, the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology recommended:

… that the term ‘precautionary principle’ should not be used and, should cease to be included within policy guidance.

The principle has long been a major impediment to the exercise of good sense within public policy. It is either so obvious as to be otiose (i.e. if there is cause for concern, be careful) or, so vague, as to be rendered meaningless. But, in its most common application it has been an invaluable tool for those who want to stop any new scientific development that they dislike, thus:

… Where an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

There are also encouraging signs from the British government. Previously, when David Miliband was Environment Secretary, the minister then announced that there was no evidence that organic food is any more nutritious than conventionally grown food. In principle, the government has declared itself ready to licence GM crops and has widely promoted their use throughout the European Union.

Evident, too, is the significant change in attitude within several European countries: Spain, for instance, which has successfully grown GM maize for some years and, in France, where crop cultivation has increased from 500 to 50,000 hectares in 3-years. The fact that farmers in France are becoming convinced of the commercial benefits of GM could likely have a big impact on the rest of Europe.

More saliently is GM’s rapid spread in India and China. The Chinese government has declared that biotechnology could become its fastest growing industry in the next 15-years. The expectations are that half the research and development of GM crops in the world will soon be done in China and will naturally concern crops that benefit the impoverished peoples of the developing world. China is already ahead in the testing of new strains of GM rice that, potentially, could benefit as many as 250-million farmers. While China’s exports to Europe must comply with EU regulations, it also has a huge domestic market at home. India, too, is not far behind and favours a light regulatory regime.

In Africa, the “Gates foundation” is committed to the improvement by genetic engineering of the staple crops on which most of the human population depends. Just over two years ago, the foundation announced millions of dollars of investment in an ambitious programme building on the work of Potryus, aiming to add the essential vitamins A and E, iron, zinc and improved protein to bananas, cassava, rice and Sorghum.

There can be little doubt that, in-time, GM crops will have to be accepted worldwide. But, in delaying cultivation, the anti-GM lobbies (including the recent vociferous opposition to GM by Prince Charles) have exacted a heavy price. Opposition undermines agro-businesses in Europe and has driven abroad much needed research into plant biotechnology – an area in which Britain formerly excelled. Whilst over-regulation will likely cause technological costs to be higher than they should be, further delays will needlessly cause the loss of millions of lives in the developing world. The lobbies and their proponents need to wake-up to reality.

 

© Mark Dowe 2008: all rights protected

 

Considerations: 

•  New Statesman, Colin Tudge The Truth about GM

…  Will GM technology feed the world – or destroy farming, and human health, in the name of corporate profit? How can we tell, when the science is up for sale?

 

• Guardian: Peter Melchett, “Organic food: no flash in the pan fad“

Far from being niche, our research shows that as the price of oil increases, organically farmed food is the most profitable option