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The 2010 Maize Genetics Conference started with a call for maize geneticists to take on one of the greatest challenges of human history – feeding the world. Marianne Bänziger of CIMMYT presented the first plenary talk, titled Stress tolerant maize for the developing world – Challenges and prospects. Find the abstract of her talk at the end of this post.
We’ve seen such claims made in popular media such as the March 2010 Fury as EU approves GM potato: Critics claim plant could spread antibiotic-resistant diseases to humans in the Independent: “Opponents fear bacteria inside the guts of animals fed the GM potato – which can cause human diseases – may develop resistance to antibiotics.” Groups that actively work against deregulation of genetically engineered crops have been making such claims for years. We’ve also seen these claims in peer-reviewed journals (although, far less frequently than in non-peer reviewed media and reports). For example, in the February 2009 issue of Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, the review Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods: “An area of concern focuses on the possibility that antibiotic resistance genes used as markers in transgenic crops may be horizontally transferred to pathogenic gut bacteria, thereby reducing the effectiveness of antimicrobial therapy.” Are antibiotic marker genes in genetically engineered crops really a risk to human health? Many people have raised this question and there seems to be a lot of confusion about the issue. It’s time to look into the risks and reasons more deeply. Continue reading… The first of my videos from my trip to the MOSES conference is up on Biofortifed’s new Vimeo account. This is the keynote speech that Margaret Mellon gave. ‘Mardi’ is the director of the Food & Agriculture Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and as you will see in the video, is a critic of genetic engineering in agriculture. She gave an argument comparing genetic engineering with organic agriculture, suggesting that the safety This summer will be my 4th year growing corn for my research. Every year, I’ve seen some crazy things in the transgenic and non-transgenic fields alike. For example:
On the left is “tassel ear”, where silks and kernels (female, seed producing plant parts) appear on the tassel (male, pollen producing plant parts), where they are most certainly NOT supposed to be – it’s ok for sorghum and other grasses, but not for corn! On the right, there are at least 2 ears where there should be one, and those leaves poking out between the two might be more ears. Neither of these plants are transgenic or carry heritable mutations that cause these strange phenotypes. Both transgenic and non-transgenic fields are treated with a herbicide before we plant but after that the plants are grown with no additives, chemical or otherwise. So, what the heck is going on?
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Organic consumers not very concerned about GE
(Hat tip to Elton Robinson at South East Farm Press)
The Consumers Union wanted to know what consumers felt about genetically engineered crops cross-pollinating with organic crops. So in early February, they conducted a poll. They called a thousand random people over the phone and asked them just two questions:
Sounds like a pretty simple exercise. However, I question the use of the term “contaminated.” This is a loaded term, and assumes one of the things that they want people to believe – that organic agriculture should not include genetic engineering. This introduces a bias into the poll. For instance, if you asked these two similar and benign questions, you would get two different results:
Of course, hybrids are allowed in organic agriculture, but I’ll bet my backyard garden harvest for this entire year that if you ask these two questions the word ‘contaminated’ will have a measurable effect and cause people to answer that they are more concerned than they would be otherwise.
Ok, that issue aside, it is good that the Consumers Union did a poll such as this, because there hasn’t been very much research investigating what people really think about genetic engineering and organic agriculture, and there’s been some talk about it in numerous channels. So how concerned are consumers about this “contamination?”
Continue reading…