Plant Gene Seeker -PGS

Despite receiving the seal of approval from scientists, genetically modified food continues to be unpalatable in many parts of the world. As Cyrus Martin reports, a combination of factors, including economics and culture, may help to explain the differences... 

Why the difference in the attitude? Keith Lindsey, a plant scientist at Durham University who sits on a panel charged with advising the British government on GMO, points out that the initial reception of GM food in Europe was actually positive, but the relationship quickly soured due to a combination of suspect science and media sensationalism...

“Originally in the UK, in the mid 90s, the first GM product (Flavr Savr tomato) was very popular in the UK and elsewhere — I bought some from the local supermarket, and it sold very well at the time. The turning point was later, with some flawed experiments on GM potatoes, not peer-reviewed but seized on by the popular press, which in turn was seized on by environmentalist campaigners.”

Indeed, this same scenario seems to have played out in the case of the recent Séralini study as the panel of experts appointed by the EFSA have discredited the paper, citing a combination of small sample sizes and inadequate statistics. Unfortunately for proponents of GM food, reporting on the EFSA findings in the popular media has been scant, in contrast to when the story first broke...

The failure of Calgene was followed by a string of successes with GM crops engineered not to improve the quality of the product but to increase yields and lower costs of production. Chief among these developments was the creation of herbicide- and pest-resistant plants... Such crops are planted extensively in the US, and a global survey reveals that they have also been embraced next door in Canada and in certain South American countries. However, as noted above, GM crops are scarcely planted in Europe. [AS: But they are imported at a large scale.] 

If the full history of man’s relationship with food is considered, a reasonable question to ask is whether it is rational for the consumer to put GM food in a different category than traditionally cultivated crops. As is clear in the case of the teosinte to maize transformation, our crops have undergone extensive genetic modification over the millennia, long before modern genetic tools emerged. But there seems to have been a line crossed in the consumer’s mind when it comes to transgenic plants, and the media and environmental groups have certainly helped fan these embers of doubt.

But other scientists close to the GM debate feel that, at least in Europe, there may be other mitigating factors — the economy for instance. Hanspeter Naegeli, a toxicology expert who sits on a GM advisory panel for the EFSA, says, “since the end of WWII, there has been no major economic, financial or political crisis in Western Europe and in these countries we have a very high quality of life with prosperity and a well implemented welfare system. The cost of food declined enormously when compared to the overall costs of living such that people are not dependent on a cheap agricultural production and can afford to buy more expensive products (i.e. organic food).” 

Coupled to a favourable economic climate in which the consumer can afford to turn their nose up at a genetically modified potato, Naegeli senses an anti-big business current running through Europe, explaining, “there is also a negative attitude against large multinational companies. The economies of Western European countries are traditionally built upon small and medium-sized enterprises and larger international companies are considered suspicious.” Ironically, Naegeli thinks that the stranglehold that big business enjoys is also a product of the reforms environmentalists lobbied for, explaining that, “because of the extensive experimental testing required for approval, GM crops are mainly a domain of such large multinationals.” ... 

As with any technology, at some point there has to be a cost/benefit analysis done. While all of the food safety scares surrounding GM food continue to be debunked as fast as they materialize, there are no doubt potential risks that are not yet fully understood, as can be seen in the ecology aspect of the debate. And there is nothing to say that new varieties of GM food could, in principle, potentially be harmful. On the other side of the ledger, however, we have the enormous challenge of feeding the world’s population, which is rapidly growing on a planet with finite resources. Of course, malnourishment has many causes, including local politics and war, but agricultural technology will certainly factor importantly.

And GM food has lived up to its promise of providing increased yields with less pesticide use and at a lower cost to the consumer. Not only this, but genetic engineering has the potential to provide much needed micronutrients (i.e., vitamins) to the malnourished of the world. A case in point is the recent development of an engineered form of rice that produces a precursor of vitamin A, dubbed ‘golden rice’. This remarkable and easily implementable technology has the potential to mitigate hundreds of thousands of cases of blindness in the developing world, and yet it remains shelved due to unsubstantiated health concerns.

Many western consumers can afford to stock their refrigerators with organic produce, but can the rest of the world? Do the potential risks really trump malnourishment and starvation? While the interested parties continue to debate, science marches on. On the horizon are GM crops that can grow in inhospitable corners of the earth, such as the dry and salty environs. And we are now seeing the application of GM technology to animals, such as salmon engineered to reach market weight more quickly through the expression of genes encoding growth hormones. Whether these technologies are taken up or left to gather dust on the shelf will likely depend on the ability of scientists and the government to make a convincing case to the public. If they fail, we potentially handcuff ourselves and will be forced to rely on 20th century technology to solve 21st century problems.