Text 6 another gene genie out of the bottle

Genetics modification can give us easy-peel oranges, cancer-fighting strawberries and blue potatoes. But if you don’t want your food fiddled about with, can you avoid it?

When you bite into an apple, do you ever wish it were a pineapple instead? Well, now you can have the best of both. Australian scientists have created a fruit with the convenience of an apple and the taste of a pineapple. The aim is to persuade children to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables and it’s just one illustration of how far science is prepared to go in pursuit of this worthy ideal.

Now, science can create new types of foods by means of genetic manipulation. A gene may be transferred from a different species in order to increase the nutritional value of the plant, or to make it more resistant to pests and disease. Incredibly, scientists have used a gene from a fish to give antifreeze properties to tomatoes and so increase their growing season.

There are plans to introduce even more appealing products: peas which contain more vitamin C and broccoli, strawberries and tomatoes with more of the anti-cancer compound, sulphophane. We could also have blue potatoes. The genes that make one natural blue dye have recently been transferred from bacteria to flowers, so why not to food plants? And if your main objection to fruit is the unpeelable orange, there are also plans for an orange that will practically peel itself.

Apart from that, the main proponents of biotechnology claim that cultivating genetically modified varieties of plants can increase crop yields as compared with organic agriculture. They argue that carefully planned introduction of these crops should reduce or even eliminate the enormous crop losses due to weeds, insect pests, and pathogens. This is of paramount importance considering the urgent food supply issue. It is estimated that well over 800 million people across the world are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty", which means they are starving or suffering from malnutrition; and every year 15 million children die of starvation. So, to cope with famine threatening 82 countries of the world which are unable to either produce or import enough food.

Moreover, advocates of GMO manufacturing insist that genetic engineering will have beneficial effects on the environment by significantly reducing the use of agrochemicals like herbicides and pesticides. However, recent scientific studies dispute these claims.

Despite the alleged benefits, not everyone is in favour of genetically modified (GM) foods or “Frankenfoods”, as the media calls them. Because there are no long-term studies to prove the safety of GM foods, their long-term effect on human health is unknown. There is also much concern for the environment, with fears that GM crops might spread their genes by pollination to conventional plants growing nearby. This kind of genetic pollution would be very difficult to clean up.

There is particular controversy surrounding soya, a common ingredient in processed foodstuffs. One of the problems is that imports of soya from the US contain both GM and non-GM beans because it’s not thought practical to separate them at their source. It is therefore difficult to avoid GM soya because we don’t know which products contain it and which don’t. A large number of consumers object to this and have called for clearer labeling of GM products. Moreover, scientific opinion is divided on the safety of GM soya.

Though the European Union had approved a number of GM crops until late 1998, growing public concern over their supposed environmental and health risks led several EU countries to demand a moratorium on genetically modified products. By late 1999 there were enough such countries to block any new approvals of GM products. Later on, the greens were cheered by a decision by Bayer, a biotech giant, to scrap plans to sell GM maize (sweetcorn) in Britain. Likewise, Monsanto, another giant biotechnology firm, dropped its plans to market the world’s first strain of GM wheat. Still, they have tried more than once to ship their transgenic products to famine-stricken countries in Africa by way of food aid.

This fact among others may well prove that the battle by producers of such crops to win governmental and social acceptance is far from being over. In fact, the environmentalist lobby has been suffering at least as many setbacks as victories in its drive to rid the world of “frankenfoods”.

Thus, in 2003, while the EU members continued to argue among themselves, three of the largest producers of modified crops—America, Canada and Argentina—filed a complaint at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) about the moratorium, arguing that it was an illegal trade barrier because there is no scientific basis for it. Under pressure from the biotech firms, and from America and other big growers of GM crops, the EU then persuaded the anti-GM countries to replace the moratorium with a scheme in which all products containing GM ingredients would have to be labelled as such, and those ingredients traceable to their source. This label-and-trace scheme came into force in April 2004 and since then the worldwide acreage of GM crops continues to grow sharply.

Now, under the European Union’s rules on such matters, the decisions on each case have passed to its executive arm, the European Commission. And one of its recent decisions was to approve imports of a variety of maize which has been modified by a Swiss firm, Syngenta, to incorporate a gene found naturally in soil bacteria that makes it resistant to attack by the corn borer—an insect that can devastate crops. However, the decision does not mean that Syngenta’s maize variety can yet be grown in the EU itself.

As to the US that alone grows 53% of the global transgenic crops, the country is literally awash in genetically modified foods and products: 80% of all corn, 86% of all cotton, and 92% of all soybeans grown in the United States are GM varieties. The Grocery Manufacturers of America estimate that 75% of all processed foods in the US contain a GM ingredient. Yet, more than half of Americans still believe they've never eaten GM foods, for the American legislation does not require labeling genetically modified foods. No wonder that biotech corporations and interest groups continually justify their pro-GM stance by asserting that consumers just don't care.

Anyway, while Americans seem happy enough to consume food made from GM crops, opinion polls continue to show that European consumers dislike the idea. For this reason some EU countries have continued to resist approving new GM crop varieties. Europeans seem to be taking the attitude that, since there remains the slightest possibility of adverse consequences and since it is not clear how they, as consumers (as opposed to farmers and biotech firms), benefit from GM crops, they would rather not take the risk. So, while the European Commission’s decision means that tons of modified sweetcorn can now be sold across all 25 EU states, it is still not clear whether supermarkets will stock them, nor if consumers will buy them.

So far, European food manufacturers and retailers, fearful of losing customers, have tended to avoid putting GM ingredients—even those approved before the EU moratorium—in their products. But this may not be so easy in future. Though GM crops still represent only a fraction of the world’s agricultural output, their planting is growing at double-digit annual rates. One of the world’s biggest producer countries, Brazil, gave in to pressure from its farmers and approved the planting of a variety of GM soyabeans. The country is fast becoming to such agricultural commodities as soyabeans what Saudi Arabia is to oil: a swing producer, whose decisions can sway the world market.

Up to now, food manufacturers and retailers, and thus their customers, have not had to pay a big premium for GM-free ingredients. But this may change if present trends continue and it gets harder to find non-GM sources for such ingredients as soya oil and maize syrup. Thus, despite the recent decisions by Bayer and Monsanto to drop some of their GM products, it seems likely that Europeans will find foodstuffs carrying the EU-mandated warning labels on their supermarket shelves. GM-free foods will, of course, continue to be on offer—though they are likely to start costing more, as “organic” foods already do. Though it will be a long time before they are as laid-back about GM foods as Americans are, Europe’s nervous consumers may increasingly be forced to choose between their phobias and their wallets.

(compiled from http://www.biotechblog.com)