Back in 1995, I was party to some discussions about whether about-to-be-released GMO crops should be labeled at the consumer level.  It was clear that a failure to do so would look to some like a conspiracy, but we also realized that it would be far too expensive to track the great rivers of grain well enough to be able to label everything accurately.   Practicality won the day and GMO foods were never labeled.  15 years later this decision is still being needlessly debated.

Why You Can’t Really Track All Grain

It does not normally make sense for a farmer to have his/her own harvesting equipment.  There are “custom, contract harvesters” who move from South to North during the harvest season.  There are always some grains left in the harvester as it moves from field to field.  The grain is then hauled to local “elevators” which are used to store grain.  They only have a few silos which end up containing grain from dozens to hundreds of fields.  Segregating the GMO portion of the crop is not possible at this stage.   To ask this system to segregate and track GMO is absurd.  It is much more practical to “identity preserve” the small amount of non-GMO crop.  That also usually involves paying a price premium.

A “May Contain” Label Might Have Been A Better Choice

I actually supported the idea of a “may contain GMO” label, recognizing that things like corn and soybeans are turned into ingredients that are in just about any processed food (corn starch, HFCS, soy protein, soybean oil…).  Both the biotech industry and the food industry thought that a “may contain” label would unnecessarily frighten consumers.  I still think it would have inoculated them against alarm.  In the Information Age, only the absence of information stands out.

Fruits and Vegetables

As I have written elsewhere, almost no fruit or vegetable crops will ever be GMO – not because of consumer wishes, but because of economics, brand protectionism, and alternative ways of achieving the same goals.  If GMO ever did move to fruit and vegetable crops, it would probably be intentionally labeled and farmers would then segregate the GMO from the non-GMO.  For instance, if there was a line of coffee with a trait that allowed intentional timing of flowering (and thus timing of harvest), it would be much cheaper because it could be mechanically harvested (this is actually needed, or coffee is going to become extremely expensive in the future).  A label could explain this.  If there was a new variety of potato with higher starch content, it would absorb less fat during cooking.  It could be proudly advertised as a “low fat” option at a fast food chain (there was such a potato in the works before McDonald’s killed the program).

The “Biotech By Choice” Brand Concept

There is the concept of an umbrella brand for these sorts of GMO innovations – “Biotech By Choice”  (I even once reserved the domain name for that). The GMO,Bt sweet corn, that already exists (quietly) should be the first product under that brand – if there ever was a grocery retailer with the guts to promote it.  Instead, they quietly tell their suppliers not to bring them any GMO corn.  The second product under the brand could be the GMO virus resistant papaya (which saved the Hawaiian papaya industry a few years ago). Instead it is being sold on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” basis.

Biotech Wine

A third product under the Biotech By Choice brand could be premium wine grown on virus and nematode resistant rootstock.  I once advised the folks in Chile, that own this Cornell-developed technology, to buy some previously ideal vineyard sites in Napa and France that are now worthless because they are contaminated with the nematode and virus which kill any grape you plant there.  They could buy that land cheaply, grow some really good grapes, and make a premium wine.  There are plenty of people who would subscribe ahead of time to be able to buy a case a year at a wholesale price.  Did that happen?  No. People with fears of genetic contamination (which shows that they know nothing about grapes)ripped the French version of that experiment out of the ground.  The US experiment still exists, but only because its location is secret.  Still, this technology will probably never reach the market (do you have a couple million spare bucks to help finish the work?).

A Biotech Crop to Feed the World

A fourth Biotech by Choice crop could be wheat.  It might be drought tolerant or efficient in its use of nitrogen.  It might be resistant to a herbicide so that specific varieties can be grown purely under a no-till system.  It might be resistant to Fusarium, a fungus, and thus free of the mycotoxin, DON or vomitoxin.  I’d like to be able to choose a loaf like that.  Wheat actually could be segregated into GMO and non-GMO.  Most wheat farmers have their own, on-farm grain storage facilities. Wheat quality is variable by variety, geography and year, so there is a lot of testing and movement of small lots.  If there were reasonable rules about “adventitious presence,” (e.g. a few kernals of GMO in the non-GMO because they were harvested with the same harvester). Then Biotech By Choice wheat products could be sold.  Will that happen?  Its hard to know.  The wheat farmers certainly hope so.

All Food Is Effectively Labeled if You Know A Few Rules

Most people would like GMO products to be labeled.  I get that.  But, if you know a few rules, they already are in a de-facto mode.  For the grain crops, other than wheat, it just isn’t practical to segregate, and it makes far more sense to label only what is non-GMO.  We do that and should. Just assume the rest contains GMOs. It is like buying eggs: they all contain cholesterol, but there is no need to say so on the label except for the “whites only” variety and no one would mistake the little boxes for eggs.

For fruits and vegetables it would make sense to proudly label the improved, GMO versions.  If they are not promoted that way, just assume they are non-GMO because that is the norm. This is comparable to the reason you don’t have to label lettuce or water that is “fat free.” If you don’t want GMO, don’t buy papaya’s from Hawaii.  You could also avoid squash, but I don’t think it is GMO anymore.

For wheat products, actual labeling will be feasible as long as people accept reasonable thresholds for adventitious presence. For now, just know that there is no GMO wheat being grown commercially, so there is no need to label anything (although most wheat products will have some soy or corn ingredients as well).

Conclusion

In my world, this all makes perfect sense.  I hope this helps.  If you don’t worry about GMOs, there is no need for labels.  If you have worries, it is easy to avoid GMO.  However, I’m under no delusion that activists will adopt such a view.  There is way too much money to be made in the fear business.

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 6/23/11)

My email is savage.sd@gmail.com.  My website is Applied Mythology. GMO label Image from Food Freedom website.

1.  Brand protectionism

2.  Unfavorable economics

3.  Other ways to achieve the same goals, and

4.  Anti-GMO activism

1.  Brand Protectionism

For most crops, somewhere along the chain of commerce from the farmer to the consumer, there is a step where there is considerable “concentration.” This means that much of the market is in the hands of one or a few players.  A classic case is potatoes.  In the US, McDonalds corporation is such a dominant buyer of frozen fries,  it was able to stop the commercial deployment of biotech potatoes with three phone calls.  Unlike standard potatoes, the GMO potatoes in question are not planted into a supply of insecticide sufficient to be picked up by the roots for 60 days because they make their own, super-safe and specific “pesticide” in their leaves (Bt).  The GMO potatoes also don’t need to be sprayed for aphids close to harvest because they are resistant to the virus those aphids spread.  The potato growers were extremely excited about the technology, but purely for the sake of brand protection, McDonalds was able to deprive the entire industry of this advance.  Potatoes are still a perfectly safe food.  It could just be easier on the growers.

There are other cases of this sort of brand-protection power.  The major frozen food companies and grocery retailers have been able to block most use of “Bt Sweet Corn” which could save farmers 8-10 insecticide sprays/season.  Frito-Lay blocked the use of GMO, Bt white corn for corn chips even though that technology greatly reduces the risk of contamination with the mycotoxin, Fumonisin, which has been linked to neural tube defects in humans.

Brands are very valuable things and are protected fiercely.  Activists like Greenpeace know this well, and they are able to use the threat of protest to turn that business instinct into decisions that are counter-productive for farmers and consumers alike.

2.  Unfavorable Economics

Genetically engineering a crop is not that costly, but doing all the work necessary for the regulators is very expensive.  Unless the crop in question is very large, very valuable or both, it will just never “pencil” to make the R&D investment, particularly if there is any marketing risk.  I was once on a team that helped a major banana company and a biotech company think-through whether they should spend the money to develop a disease resistant banana.  In Central America, it is necessary to spray this crop from the air almost every week to control a disease called Black Sigatoka.  Bananas are a large, global crop so I was certain that the “business case” would be attractive.  To everyone’s surprise, when we did the math, it came out as a poor investment!  The problem is that banana plantations only get re-planted about every 20 years, so even if the new technology was available, only a small area would be planted each year. Saving >50 aerial sprays wasn’t enough to cover registration costs once the time-value-of-money is factored in.

So no minor crop and almost no perennial crop is ever going to become GMO unless the growers band together to make the investment.  A coffee expert explained this to the global Specialty Coffee Association last year and suggested that they contemplate what it means that coffee will never be GMO.  With the issues of climate change and declining labor availability, that entire industry is at risk.

3.  Other Ways to Achieve the Same Goals

There has been a tremendous, public/private, global investment in biotechnology, far beyond that for the few crops that have been modified.  That has led to the development of many new methods to alter the genes of plants etc. that don’t involve the introduction of any “foreign DNA.”  Most of the crops that fit category 2 above will likely be improved using these alternatives (Marker Assisted Selection, Directed Mutagenesis, Induced Polyploidy…).  These improvements will not involve expensive regulatory barriers, and so far, don’t draw the ire of activists. (With the exception of one attack on “Hidden GMO” sunflowers that were generated by mutagenesis.)

4.  Anti-GMO Activism

Plant genetic engineering has been the most carefully thought-through new technology introduction in history.  I remember attending major scientific conferences on the safety and environmental questions at least 10 years before the first commercial seeds were planted.  We talked through everything with ecologists, botanists, sociologists, economists, molecular geneticists, food industry experts. But none of this influences the “environmental” groups who have seized on this issue to raise funds and draw attention.  The activist’s task is made easier because molecular genetics is a fast-moving science that few consumers understand.  The press has also been unwilling to take the time to understand this to the extent that journalistic standards would require and so many have not helped to counteract the fear-mongering.  This is the only way I can explain some activist-driven rejections.

My all-time-most-read blog post was titled, “A Sad Day For Wine. A Sad Day For Science.”  There is a virus called Grapevine Fanleaf Virus that is spread by a nematode (Xiphenema index). If the two ever infest a given vineyard site, good quality wine can never be produced there again because the vines will soon decline and die.  That means that there are many wonderful vineyards around the world that have the an excellent “terrior” (something the French appreciate so much), but that site can no longer produce good wine.  Grapes are grown on “rootstocks” and Cornell University had modified a rootstock to be resistant to the virus.  This was an elegant solution to the Grape Fanleaf Virus problem because the top part of the vine is unchanged and only one kind of rootstock has to be developed.  Last fall an experimental block of this new technology was ripped out of the ground by activists who believed they were saving the French wine industry from “genetic contamination.”  That fear is 100% irrational - it is a rootstock under the ground that never flowers.  Besides, grapes are not grown from seeds anyway.  Different varieties of wine grapes are planted side-by-side all the time with no ill effects!

Is This Good Or Bad-Consider the Case of Wheat

So for a variety of reasons (some economic, some logical, some irrational, some selfish), very few additional crops will ever be GMO. That is not to say GMO is a small contribution to the food supply.  Corn, Soy, Cotton, Canola, Sugarbeets and Alfalfa are GMO and cover hundreds of millions of acres and find their way into many processed foods, meat and milk.  Still,  I will continue to argue that GMO crops can be beneficial.  The world will survive without a bit more excellent wine (very few vineyards in California, Chile, Argentina or Australia are contaminated!), but the other crop where activist-generated-fear has “won” by eliciting Brand Protectionism is - wheat, the second largest food crop on earth.  By 2004, Greenpeace was able to generate enough fear in Europe to get major millers and bakers to threaten not to purchase North American wheat if any became GMO.  The Canadian Wheat Board blinked, and two, nearly commercial wheat traits, were stopped in their tracks.  One kind of GMO wheat would have been easier to farm with no-till methods and easier to keep pure for specialty uses.  The other GMO wheat would have reduced disease-related yield losses as well as mycotoxin contamination.

It is far easier to stir up fear than it is to educate the public.   There was an excellent article by Justin Gillis in the New York Times on 6/4/11 titled, “A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself.”  Much of the article is about how wheat production is failing to increase sufficiently to meet rising global demand.  GM technology is not the full answer to this challenge by any means, but the fact that we are not including GM in the wheat improvement toolbox is a clear-cut “bad thing” in my book.

This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 6/8/11.
You are welcome to comment here or to email me at applied.mythology@gmail.com.  My website is Applied Mythology.  Image of Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting,  ”The Scream” from oddsock. French Fry image by Sun Dazed. Alsatian vineyard image near Colmar, France from Andreea.

One good thing about the industrialization of agriculture is that nothing gets wasted. Vegetable oils get turned into all kinds of different products: cooking oils, frying oils, salad oils, cosmetics, industrial waxes, lubricants and polymers, margarine, shortening, medical products and biodiesel. As you might expect, different characteristics are important for different applications. For example, it’s important for frying oils to withstand high temperatures without burning and forming bad-tasting impurities – and all the better if the oil’s low in saturation and full of omega 3s and vitamin E.

“With over 80% of the corn grown in the US genetically modified, and biotechnology companies phasing out non-GMO corn seed varieties, American farmers have fewer choices for finding non-GMO seeds to grow.

As a result of this narrowing of farmer choice, a new initiative was launched in 2009 by Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) to address the problem. The US Testing Network (USTN) aims to develop and introduce new non-GMO corn hybrids in the market, while improving the quality and quantity of non-GMO corn hybrids available.”

I haven’t heard of any of these organizations before – and I would be interested if you know something about them – but it sounds like an interesting project. I couldn’t care less about avoiding transgenes, but I love the idea of small companies, public sector scientists and enthusiastic individuals working together to improve germplasm for niche markets too small for the big seed companies to serve.

Do you have any experience with these organizations?

h/t: Seed Today

Traditional Breeding

In trad breeding, the breeder/gardener simply crosses two parents that show great (and complementary) traits, grows up the offspring, selects the best and repeats. It’s effective, slow, labor intensive and limited by the perception of the breeder. Most traits are also very heavily impacted by the environment, so each new genotype must be grown in multiple locations +/or multiple years to make sure the recorded phenotype is due to the genetics (not the environment) of the individual. Most of our crops were domesticated and refined this way (quite a success!). Modern breeding has additionally been refined by the development of various statistical techniques and crossing schemes that make the whole process more efficient.

Marker-Assisted Selection

MAS relies on the development of “markers” that co-segregate with traits of interest. Picture a chromosome: an incredibly long stretch of DNA with genes located occasionally along its length. You can develop molecular markers (e.g. SNPs or microsatellites) that act as signposts along the whole length of the chromosome (where each of the signposts look different in each parent). Since sexual recombination moves DNA in big chunks, lots of the nearby markers will be moved with each gene. Statistical techniques can then be used to see which markers are associated with each trait. Since markers that are physically close to the gene along the chromosome are more likely to move with it during recombination (and since you know where on the chromosome each marker sits) you can narrow down where the gene that causes your trait is and then actually have a shot at identifying it! Or you can just use the marker to help make sure your gene moves where you want it to. This has been an extremely useful tool to complement trad breeding but in practice it’s often impossible to pin a trait on just one or two genes (e.g. human height, last time I heard, was associated with huge number of genes that together only explained a small amount of the total population variation – even though it’s extremely heritable).

Genome Wide Selection

In GWS, the breeder doesn’t even bother to try to identify which traits or genes a marker is associated with. She simply picks a population of her crop or livestock and measures each individual with huge numbers of markers. She uses statistics to see which markers are “good” and which are “bad” and decides how good future offspring are just by their combination of markers. New developments in biotechnology are making marker development and measurement absurdly affordable – which makes phenotyping (growing and measuring offspring over multiple sites/years) the bottleneck in many breeding operations.

This is where it gets really interesting…

Even if the markers aren’t as efficient at recognizing “good” offspring, you can more than make up for this with shorter generation times. A typical maize breeding operation will need to grow each generation in multiple sites in some representative climate (probably the Midwest) to see which individuals/lines are really the best. With GWS, you can ship the whole lot to some tropical location and grow three generations a year (picking the best in each round with markers)!

From what I’ve heard this is most advanced in the dairy industry. Artificial insemination (AI) has been a huge advance in animal breeding because dairymen can simply order semen from the best bulls in the country instead of keeping their own mediocre bulls on site.* Breeding elite bulls is BIG business. Currently 9 million Holstein cows in the U.S. are bred with AI from just 500 bulls!** Bulls need to get “proved” to access this market. Traditionally, the quality of a bull was determined by seeing how much milk its female relatives produced (b/c milk quantity is what matters to dairymen). This process traditionally involved waiting for each individual young bull to grow to reproductive maturity, produce several rounds of daughters, let the daughters mature, mate them and then measure their milk production. This took years and cost about $50,000 per bull. Now a genetic marker test give you just as much information about a male calf the day it’s born for just $250!

Dairymen are really excited about this. There’s been talk of developing a marker certification system for dairy bulls for 20 years but only now is the technology cheap and effective enough to make it work. From what I’ve heard, the U.S. government now runs a certification program (AIPL I think…) that will assign official breeding values to any cattle DNA that a farmer sends in. I bet they’ll be a lot more farmers in the bull semen business now!

* I once worked with a guy who did dairy AI. I’m all for getting my hands dirty, but that doesn’t include anything that comes with gloves that go past your elbow…

** Hopefully the animal breeding community is as on top of preserving unique germplasm as the plant breeding community is.

Bernardo, R., & Yu, J. (2007). Prospects for Genomewide Selection for Quantitative Traits in Maize Crop Science, 47, 1082-1090 DOI: 10.2135/cropsci2006.11.0690

Schaeffer LR (2006). Strategy for applying genome-wide selection in dairy cattle. Journal of animal breeding and genetics = Zeitschrift fur Tierzuchtung und Zuchtungsbiologie, 123 (4), 218-23 PMID: 16882088