GLOBAL REPORT Signs of the food fight to come
Chrisitan Science Monitor
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1999
Gene-spliced plants and
hormone-treated beef raise ethical
questions about how much to fool
with nature.
Laurent Belsie (belsiel@csps.com)
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
ST. LOUIS
Geneticists are on
the verge of
revolutionizing
agriculture and medicine in much the
same way computers have transformed
business. Labs around the world are
working on crops that could feed a
growing planet, plants that could clean up
contaminated soils, and pigs whose
organs may one day get trans-planted
into people.
But to do these things, scientists are
fooling with nature's basic building
blocks. As they do, they are kicking up
dissent around the world as one nation
tries to sell its genetically altered foods to
another's grocers.
BIO-WARS: Activists dumped 4
tons of soya beans on Downing
St., home of British Prime Minister
Tony Blair after he said
bioengineered food was safe to
eat last month.
(MATTHEW FEARN /AP)
The current food fight between the
United States and Europe - over
hormone-treated beef and genetically
altered soy beans - could be just a
prelude of arguments to come. That's
because the greatest risks probably don't
lie with today's simple genetic alterations.
Future rounds of exotic agriculture pose
bigger threats because they will put
organisms to completely new uses. The
fundamental question: How much should
science manipulate nature to care for
mankind?
And there's no going back, scientists say.
Consider the US experience. While
Europeans debate how far to proceed
with the new technology, Americans are
quietly ingesting the new foods, often
without knowing it.
"The genie can't be put back," says
Marshall Martin, an agricultural
economist at Purdue University in West
Lafayette, Ind. "Anyone who eats pizza
or cheese on their hamburger has
consumed genetically modified food....
We pulled the cork out of the bottle in a
sense with the discovery of DNA."
For example, three-quarters of America's
cheese gets its start with a bioengineered
enzyme. Nearly 1 out of 6 dairy farmers
injects his cows with a genetically
engineered growth hormone to boost
milk production. And genetically
modified crops are increasingly taking
over farmlands - with some 70 million
acres planted worldwide, 60 million of it
in North America.
This planting season promises more
inroads. For example, half of America's
soybeans, perhaps more of its cotton,
and a third of its corn could be
genetically modified - a remarkable
adoption rate in the four years since the
new seeds were introduced.
Other countries are also moving rapidly
to incorporate the technology. Last year,
some 650,000 farmers in China planted
genetically modified cotton. And this year
Monsanto, which produces the cotton
seed, expects to double that number.
Even the European Union has approved
bioengineered soybeans and corn. Small
quantities of corn, genetically modified to
resist pests, are being grown in Spain
and, if approved by France's high court,
could start showing up in the fields of
Europe's largest corn producer.
Slow acceptance
Biotech companies such as Monsanto
hope that resistance to the technology
will crumble once European farmers
begin to adopt the new strains. That
move is likely, companies say, because
the new-fangled crops typically improve
yields and cut costs.
"It's likely to be adopted because the
value of the benefits will be recognized,"
says Philip Angell, a Monsanto
spokesman.
Take cotton, one of the world's most
pest-prone crops. By incorporating the
genes of a natural insecticide, scientists
have created a pest-resistant strain that
requires fewer chemicals. It "has been
massively beneficial," says Val Giddings,
a vice president of the Biotechnology
Industry Organization in Washington.
In the three years since they began using
it, US farmers have saved the equivalent
of 850,000 gallons of pesticides - the
equivalent of 48 railroad tank cars of
chemicals.
Cutting pesticide use saves money.
According to newly released figures by
one of Britain's leading plant-research
centers, bioengineered soybeans saved
farmers an average $30 a hectare
because they used 40 percent less
herbicide. Pest-resistant corn saved $42
per hectare. (A hectare represents some
2-1/2 acres.)
Despite these benefits, environmentalists
worry the new crops pose a bigger
hazard to human health and the
environment. They've caught the ear of
many Europeans.
The environmental group Greenpeace,
for example, has mounted an effective
campaign across Europe to block the
sale of genetically modified food. In
February, it persuaded biotech giant
AgrEvo (Hoechst) not to conduct field
trials of such crops in Austria.
In January, it organized
anti-bioengineering protests at the
national offices of three European food
companies in nine countries. Thanks to a
Greenpeace suit, France's highest
administrative court in December upheld
its preliminary ban on genetically
modified corn from a Swiss firm.
The debate rings loudest in Britain, where
memories of the government's
mishandling of "mad-cow" disease remain
fresh. The issue has gone all the way to
the top: Prime Minister Tony Blair is
risking his popularity to support
genetically modified foods, while Prince
Charles says he will never eat any of
them.
Further confounding the issue have been
the findings of Arpad Pusztai, a Scottish
researcher who ignited the whole
controversy. Last summer he was quietly
feeding potatoes to rats. Then he went
public with concerns about the genetically
modified rations he was using.
On one hand, the researcher claims he's
enthusiastic about bioengineering's
potential; but he warns that it has to be
done right because genetically modified
potatoes stunted the growth of rats and
depressed their immune system.
Mr. Pusztai has not released his full
results for review by other scientists - a
traditional practice. And when an internal
audit committee evaluated his study, it
disputed the findings. But 20 scientists
have come forward since, saying Pusztai
may have a point.
Controversy builds
Whatever the outcome, even biotech
executives acknowledge the controversy
is likely to continue. "I think we have to
be very, very careful about how these
technologies are applied," says Richard
Gill, senior vice president and general
manger of BTG International Inc., a
tech-transfer company with offices in the
US, Britain, and Japan. "There needs to
be ... more information shared with
people in a form that can be understood."
Even in the United
States, activists
remain hopeful
they can slow
down the
technology. Dairy
farmer
associations and
consumer groups,
for example,
continue to battle
the milk-boosting
growth hormone.
"Americans are
expressing their
concern with
genetic engineering
and agribusiness in
general, not in a political way but in the
marketplace," says Ben Lilliston of the
Center for Food Safety.
That's why organic products are growing
so rapidly, he says, and why some
200,000 citizens complained when US
agricultural officials proposed including
bioengineered food as organic.
Concern is justified, scientists say,
because no one can predict how nature
will react when new organisms appear.
"We're not talking about killer tomatoes.
We're talking about plants that will pick
up genes," says Norm Ellstrand, a
geneticist at the University of California at
Riverside.
Genes can only transfer to relatives. So
genetically modified corn in Iowa doesn't
pose much danger because it has no wild
relatives there. But planted in central
America, it could create super-weeds
that could out-compete the corn. And the
risks increase as more of these
genetically modified plants get released
into the wild and interact.
The biggest question hangs over plants
containing many new genes so they can
take lead out of contaminated soil or
create ingredients for medicines. "The
next generation of crops is going to be
engineered for truly novel traits.... And
we don't know how those combinations
are going to play out," says Louis Myers,
a biotech specialist at Fish & Richardson,
a law firm.
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For further information:
Campaign for Food Safety
Campaigners arrested at genetic
crop protest BBC
Genetically engineered food Safety
problems New Zealand Natural
Food Commission
Canadians unknowingly eat
genetically altered supercrops
Calgary Herald
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