By Emily Willingham

Rice.

A study from a Chinese group led by Chen-Yu Zhang of Nanking University and published in Cell Research, has uncovered the fascinating result that when people eat rice, they can absorb microRNAs (miRNAs)–tiny sequences of RNA–from the rice into the blood. These rice-originating miRNAs turn up in blood and tissues of people who eat rice and…here’s the kicker…one type of rice miRNA interacts with human proteins that are responsible for removing LDL (“bad” cholesterol) from the blood (!). It’s the first report of plant miRNAs ending up in people by way of diet and the finding that at least one of them alters an important process in the body.

The implications could extend in many a direction, but not as far as writer Ari Levaux would like to take them in this remarkably confusing article published on the Atlantic Website. Before taking on the errors and the overstretch that are that piece, let’s look at something far more interesting: miRNAs themselves.

These little bits of RNA, consisting of 22 building blocks linked in a single strand (a human DNA molecule has billions) get around with surprising facility, and their purpose is to regulate genes. They don’t regulate by latching directly onto a DNA sequence but instead lurk in the cell and interfere with processes that come after the gene’s role is complete. If you consider the gene sequence as the directions for building a protein, one job of RNA is to serve as a copy of those directions. It takes on the risky business of toting that copy out of the safety of the nuclear vault in our cells and into the big, bad scary cytoplasm outside. In the cytoplasm, the fluid-ish environment of the cell, RNA has many, many roles, but all of them center on executing the directions encoded in the gene for building proteins, the molecules that help make up our tissues and perform the tasks required to keep us alive.

In some cases, though, RNA occurs in the form of miRNAs, and their job may well be to bollix up the protein-building works. These little molecules–which researchers have identified in the hundreds in humans–can, for example, latch onto an RNA that is a copy of the protein code and cause it to break down or keep the cell from using it. These tiny RNA sequences help fine-tune the process of protein building well beyond the starting point of directions copied from a gene sequence. Thanks to miRNAs and many other steps that can promote or interfere with protein building, the cell–and the organism–has several chances to modulate how much of a specific protein it makes, allowing agile, real-time responses to changing conditions.

Researchers have discovered myriad ways that miRNA influences human development and disease, and these discoveries open the way to using that information to cure disease. But all of the miRNAs investigated thus far in people have come from people themselves, either present for normal functions or overabundant and linked to disease. The flashy take-home from this latest rice study is, We can pick up these tiny regulators from what we eat…and they can interfere with the functions of proteins we make.

This take-home could have huge implications for how diet influences our health and development if other non-human miRNAs turn up that fit the same profile: absorbable after we eat them and modifying how our bodies function. The effects could be good, bad, ugly, or neutral. This paper is simply an open door. Now, for years and years, investigators will walk through it to find a number of research paths to explore, from seeking more non-human miRNAs and identifying their effects to evaluating how modifying diet might influence disease or human development via miRNAs.

In spite of how much lies ahead and how relatively little lies in the present about this discovery–one rice miRNA, one human effect–the piece that appeared today in the Atlantic argues that the implications are immediate and dire and related to genetically modified organisms. I initially read the piece trying to identify how someone could make that leap but instead found myself distracted by how poorly the article presents the science itself.

First, the headline: The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods. I read the Cell Research paper. I can’t find mention of GMOs in it. I don’t find mention in the paper the the rice miRNA in question derives from a genetically modified rice strain. So, I don’t see that this headline appropriately represents the science here.

Then there’s the dek: “New research shows that when we eat we’re consuming more than just vitamins and proteins. Our bodies are absorbing information, or DNA.” That’s not what this research shows. It shows that the body takes up a specific rice miRNA when people consume it. Not DNA or “information.”

The lede leaves out a crucial modifier: the word “rice”: “Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice.” Actually, miRNAs are present in the blood and organs of…all humans, whether they eat rice or not. I think the writer here means “small pieces of rice ribonucleic acid.”

There is then a series of claims about what the research implies, including, mysteriously, that it will help us learn how some “herbal medicines function.” The original paper makes no mention of herbal medicines, although some research indicates that “natural agents” can alter expression of human miRNA. Also among the potential implications described in the piece is, “And it reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health.” That’s an enormous leap to make from “one rice miRNA in blood and tissues influences activity of one human protein.” A number of steps would be required for a GM food to exert a similar effect, none of which have been investigated yet. These steps include identifying that the modified sequence in the target food either also encodes a miRNA sequence or interacts with its expression or, later in the gene-to-protein process, somehow evades normal miRNA regulation thanks to this change.

Then suddenly, there’s Monsanto and a strange effort to explain the central dogma of molecular biology (DNA–>RNA–>protein) using a pizza/pizza restaurant analogy that involves the “DNA” knowing what kind of pizza “it wants,” although in truth, the cell is the entity in charge of which parts of the DNA it uses. The central dogma, a linear representation of how a cell copies DNA into RNA and then uses the RNA copy instructions to build proteins, is too simple for what we know today about how cells regulate protein expression. But the core dogma remains intact, including that DNA serves as the template for making RNA.

The article makes a number of other scientific errors, including in a bold pull quote claiming, “The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in Monsanto’s claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA (italics mine), which can, in fact, be hazardous.” No. That’s not what the Chinese study “means.” It’s not news that DNA encodes RNA of all kinds. It encodes the messenger form that carries the copy of the code. It encodes the ribosomal form that is a component of ribosomes, the cell factory workers that take the code copy and use it as an instruction book for building proteins. It encodes the RNAs that bring those factory workers the molecular blocks the cell uses for building proteins. And it encodes miRNAs. This latest paper does not carry the meaning that DNA encodes miRNAs–that’s a longstanding part of the Central Dogma, ironically, and not news. Nor does it threaten in any discernible way to “blast a hole” in much of anything. As I noted, the study opens a door.

In closing, Levaux writes,

The news that we’re ingesting information as well as physical material should force the biotech industry to confront the possibility that new DNA can have dangerous implications far beyond the products it codes for. Can we count on the biotech industry to accept the notion that more testing is necessary? Not if such action is perceived as a threat to the bottom line.

That's a lot of rice. U gonna eat that?

“Ingesting information”? The miRNAs are not “information” (they are noncoding molecules), and like all other things of this world that we’ve identified, they’re not somehow distinctive from “physical material.” There is naught in this study that implies that “new DNA” can have “dangerous implications” far beyond the products it “codes for.” The miRNAs in this paper are not “new.” They are from rice, the most-prevalent grain crop in Asia, and presumably something humans have been taking in for hundreds of years. It’s unclear from this study even what the implications of the findings are for consumers of regular rice, much less what they’d be for modified organisms. Furthermore, we are not the only entities that modify organisms. Nature does so, often by way of viruses. I wonder why the fact that miRNAs are also present in viruses and could “potentially regulate host genes” didn’t set off the anti-GMO alarms, too.

The article goes on for several grafs about Monsanto and substantial equivalence–indeed, the writer devotes a mere 180 words or so of 908 to the study itself–and observes that the lead author on the Cell Research paper (wisely) declined to comment on any implications about these findings for GM foods. If only the Atlantic and Ari Levaux had done the same, the real implications of this remarkable work could simply stand on their own.
——————————————————————–
For an article that focuses more on the research findings from the study, including design and other dietary miRNAs identified, see this piece by Anne-Marie C. Hodge at Scientific American.

ETA: As for the study itself, the effects the authors found weren’t earthshattering, and it seems that there was an issue with images provided that required a rapid erratum after the paper was published.

Follow-up: The author of the piece, Ari Levaux, has responded here, and I have replied just below that.

Follow-up follow-up: Ari Levaux has tweeted that he is going to rewrite the piece, taking the scientific critiques into account. I’m looking forward to seeing the update.

Emily Willingham has a bachelor’s degree in English and a PhD in biological sciences, both from The University of Texas at Austin, with a completed postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. She blogs at The Biology Files about how science and writing about science take shape around the audience known as You. She is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to College Biology and currently working on a book about lice. Yep, “lice.” She bets you’re about to scratch your head right now.

As part of an Undergraduate Research Scholars program, I gathered research for Professor Jordan Rosenblum. He is interested in how the slow food and local food movements, as well as the biotechnology revolution relate to Kosher Laws. He is working on writing a book about ancient Jewish dietary practices, and the various arguments for or against it. He is a well-versed scholar on the subject of biblical and rabbinical literature. My role was to help him find modern arguments concerning Jewish dietary laws and culture, and how they are interpreted in the 21st century. I have read and analyzed over a dozen books, journal articles and web links to focus on two modern debates concerning Jewish dietary laws. I wanted to find out how Jewish beliefs influence their views on genetic engineering, and whether there was evidence for the modern argument that certain Kosher laws were based on health considerations.

The first topic that I researched was Jewish views on genetic engineering. I was surprised by what I found because I had assumptions going into it. I thought liberal Jews would be open to genetic engineering because of an “open mind” to modern biotechnology. On the other hand, I assumed conservative Jews would be against genetic engineering because I thought they would view it as a potential threat to their views on social and religious order. I was completely proven wrong.

Liberal Jews tend to be more cautious and reserved about food biotechnology. They employ a different set of ethics compared to their Conservative counterparts, like the use of secular, modern liberal ideology. They feel that not enough is known about its potential drawbacks and benefits to completely integrate its use into modern society. Some also feel, in a very general way, that an organism’s “soul” has been tampered with by manipulating its genome. There is one exception to these feelings of doubt and malaise concerning genetic engineering. This is the Jewish duty of pikuach nefesh – the solemn duty to save a human soul. If genetically engineered food can save lives, then it must be supported.

On the whole, conservative Jews are strongly in favor of biotechnology. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, there is no fear over “playing God.” They regard themselves as “co-creators” with God in improving the natural world. Psalm 115:6 reads ‘the heavens are the heavens of God’ yet ‘the earth he has given to the sons of man.’ Second, the Torah and the Talmud has nothing in it that directly or indirectly forbids genetic engineering. So conservative Jews who strictly follow the holy texts openly embrace genetic engineering and use it to their advantage. Interestingly enough, we also see Amish communities as deeply religious and resistant to modern technologies, yet there are Amish farmers who grow genetically engineered crops because they believe it supports their way of life and it is not directly forbidden in their Scriptures.

Frank and Jordan. Shalom! שָׁלוֹם

The second topic is about modern scientific claims surrounding the kosher laws. Our current understanding of food safety has imbued ancient religious discourses about food and dietary practices. For instance, there are many scholars who argue that ancient injunctions against consuming pork products were a way of avoiding being contaminated with trichinosis. The kosher laws were thought to have been enacted for religious purposes, intent upon purifying one’s soul of “unclean” food sources. The truth is, no scholar is certain as to the origin of the kosher laws. The modern analysis of kosher laws as health prescription is a wholly modern invention, with little Biblical or Talmudic justification. The application of modern scientific ideas to ancient food rules and practices is a way of rationalizing non-rational rituals.

There are various reasons given for the nature of the kosher laws, some are intellectual and others are hukum. Intellectual arguments in favor of kosher laws are laid out by rabbis in the Talmud. Hukum is a non-rational justification for following a rule. Basically, as a Jew, you are expected to follow the kosher laws because God said so. It is like being told to do something that seems irrational by a parent without a good explanation. The Kosher laws are also seen as a form of cohesion within the Jewish community. During ancient times and even today, they were a way of stating one’s unique Jewish heritage. Kosher food rules made it difficult to mingle with Gentiles or non-practicing Jews who did not keep kosher. This definitely solidified social bonds between Jews through food and ceremony. The fact that certain dietary laws may be healthy or sanitary is superfluous to its initial meaning.

My research on the kosher laws will be relevant to me as a trained sociologist and Registered Dietitian. This will be very useful for me as an aspiring dietitian to know the rationale behind religious food rituals. I would know what questions to ask and boundaries to respect concerning these food practices. Given the growing number of practicing Muslims and Jews in the United States alone makes this topic worth researching. Even after having completed my work with the Undergraduate Research Scholars, I plan to keep researching this topic. Food and sociology are two very relevant and important topics for me as an aspiring dietitian!

References:

1. Green, Ronald M. “The Jewish Perspective on GenEthics.” Ed. Pfleiderer, G., Brahier, G., Lindpainter, K. Genethics and Religion. Basel: Karger, 2010. 118-127.
   Hart, Mitchell B. The Healthy Jew. New York, Cambridge, 2007.
   Regenstein, Joe M. and Carrie E. “An Introduction to Kosher and Halal Food Laws.” Ed. Patricia A. Curtis.  Guide to Food Laws and Regulations Iowa: Blackwell, 2005. 163-201.
2. Reichman, Edward. “Why Is This Gene Different from All Other Genes? The Jewish Approach to Biotechnology.” Ed. Michael C. Brannigan. Cross-Cultural Biotechnology. Oxford: Rowman, 2004. 93-102.
3. Schlich, Thomas. “The Word of God and the Word of Science: Nutrition Science and the Jewish Dietary Laws in Germany, 1820-1920.” Ed. Harmke Kaminga and Andrew Cunningham. The Science and Culture of Nutrition, 1840-1940. Amsterdam: Atlanta, 1995. 97-120.
4. Sherwin, Byron L. Golems Among Us: How a Jewish Legend Can Help Us Navigate The Biotech Century. Chicago: Dee, 2004.
5. Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava. “Jewish Philosophy, Human Dignity, and  the New Genetics.” Ed. Sean D. Sutton. Biotechnology: Our Future as Human Beings and Citizens. New York: Albany, 2009. 81-112.
6. Zoloth, Laurie. “When You Plow the Field, Your Torah Is with You: Genetic Modification and GM Foods in the Jewish Tradition(s).” Ed. Conrad G. Brunk and Harold Coward. Acceptable Genes? Religious Traditions and Genetically Modified Foods. New York: Albany, 2009. 81-110.

For this community contest, the stakes were high. With two tote bags, two books, and a Norman Borlaug coin up for grabs, it took ingenuity, creativity, and sewing acuity to make an entry that stood out. We had Luscious of Borg dress as a living work of art with her Son of Man outfit, and an aptly-named and mustached “flavor saver” pumpkin by Richard R. and son. So far, excellent! (One judge was forced to recuse himself as he painted the apple on Ms. of Borg’s face.)

"I find your lack of pith disturbing"

Then CulturaBiotech pulled some maize out o’ the old packet and whipped up a Bt Corn Darth Vader. Stepping outside the pumpkin box, (and into a freeze dryer flask?) it sure caught the attention of the judges.

Then SkepticalVegan posted his entry… Frank N. Foode. Hey that’s my name. Wait, what?

Holy Compost! It’s me, but I’m like almost 2 meters tall! He’s got my hair, eyes, and lab coat with a name tag.  I hear he also passed out cards on Halloween advertising our blog. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to hear any more!

The decision of the editors was swift, so I am pleased to announce the winners for Biofortified’s second annual Carving and Costume Contest:

Human by day, biotech corn by night

First place goes to Skeptical Vegan for being the first person with tassels of steel to dress as Frank N. Foode for Halloween! He will receive a blog tote bag, a Norman Borlaug coin, and a autographed hardcover edition of Denialism by Michael Specter!

Second place goes to Cultura Biotech for showing us the power of the dark side of The Force with her Bt Darth Vader. She will receive a blog tote bag and she also chose our second paperback copy of Denialism.

Science denialism must have everyone scared this Halloween, and now we’re out of that book! There are still so many more to choose from in future contests! Also, both of our winners have blogs of their own – check em out and see what they’re talking about!

So now with the second annual carving and costume contest done, I had a lot of work to do getting this pile of prizes ready to go. Armed with some cotton thread, the new tote bags have been finished, stuffed with goodies, and are on their way to the new winners’ (and previously mentioned winners’) places of residence, research, or world domination. And just in time for Cornmas!

This is the first time that biotech food actually involved a needle!

Thank you everyone for participating, and also thank the Non-GMO Project for letting us advertise this contest in their event calendar. It doesn’t look like any entries came from there, but who knows about next year?

And stay tuned this week, because we’ve got some important things to talk about as the blog continues into the new year, and some great news, too!

Question number one asked people to self-report their understanding of GE food. While self-reporting has its own problems (Like people who say they completely understand GE foods yet don’t really know anything about them), it does provide some information about how aware different groups are about GE. The survey reports that 65% of people are aware that some foods in the store are genetically engineered, and high-income and highly-educated people are up in the 80s. As for the understanding of the concepts, check out these results:

As you might expect, education level influences people’s self-reported understanding of GE food, and the column with the asterisk shows a significant result, which should be a no-brainer: People with a high school education or less report that they have a low understanding of genetic engineering. This understanding appears to be a result of higher education, and as we have discussed on this blog before, secondary education has room for improvement. You can look at the data for age and income in the paper, but I thought the education level was the most interesting.

Next, they asked the survey participants their opinion about the safety of GE food, and this reveals a result that is partly surprising, and partly expected.

Most people are undecided about the safety of genetically engineered foods. This should come as no surprise to anyone in this debate, although quite frequently people on the anti-GE side (and sometimes the pro-GE side) think that most people believe that these foods are unsafe. This is entirely not the case, as the peer-reviewed literature shows that most people are undecided in general about GE, and that includes safety. But there are a few surprises in these results.

When I describe the shape of public opinion on GE, I often say that the people who have decided in favor or against GE as being roughly equal, but both minority groups next to the majority of undecided people. This Reuters survey reveals that in fact more people in the US believe that GE foods are safe than those who do not. And as you move from younger to older, less to more income, and lower to higher education that you see the greatest differences. Amongst people over 65, who make $100k per year or more, or have advanced degrees, there are twice as many people who believe GE foods are safe than those who believe that they are unsafe.

This has several important implications, including the fact that companies that advertise their products as being “non-GMO” tend to have people of higher income and education as their niche market – and therefore marketing their products on the basis of GE foods being unsafe may not resonate with these customers. These results also mean that there is a positive correlation between education and belief about the safety of GE foods.

The survey asked a question about labeling of GE foods, and found an unsurprising result:

Consistently, surveys have shown that about 90% of people, when asked, believe that GE foods should be labeled in the store. Anti-GE organizations tend to state that this is because most people want to avoid GE foods. Most of these surveys don’t delve into why people want them labeled, but some published papers do. Consumers want more information about genetically engineered food, which makes perfect sense considering how many people are still undecided about its safety, benefits, impact, etc. For those who dislike the idea of GE foods, naturally they would want to avoid them. Amongst those in favor of GE, there is probably more diversity of opinion about labels, ranging from no need whatsoever, to wanting to know if something is GE because you would want to buy it. I would rather know that some foods were GE than not, myself. But the important factor in deciding how much people want a mandatory food label is the strength of the desire, not an answer to a simple binary yes/no question. This can be (and has been) asked in several ways, such as how much people would be willing to pay for GE labels, or for people to rate different kinds of labels in order of importance. Examining attitudes on labeling outside of these contexts does not give guidance for public policy.

Now here comes the real news – would people eat GE foods?

This is the result that most people who talk about the acceptance of genetic engineering should pay attention to. Despite lack of knowledge about GE crops, uncertainty regarding its safety, and a desire for labels – most people surveyed would eat genetically engineered plant-based foods, to the tune of 60%. This 60% represents people who would eat GE foods if they knew they were genetically engineered, so even if you were to institute mandatory labeling for GE crops, this is 60% of those people who would happen to read that on the label – people who do not would not change their decision. Furthermore, we can also see that acceptance of genetic engineering in animals is lower – at about 40% for both fish and meat. This is similar to where opinion on plants was years ago, and we have not yet had genetically engineered animals on our dinner plates. So this result could either reflect an inherent difference in attitude between genetic engineering of plants and animals, or, a difference in attitude that reflects the time since the introduction of GE plants.

There are, as with all studies, certain caveats. This survey was conducted on 3,025 people, with an error rate of 1.8% That’s pretty good, however it does not reveal the limitations of the type of data collected. This is data based on self-reported assessments of current and/or future hypothetical behavior – something that is known to give an inaccurate picture of actual behavior. Survey respondents can sometimes give what answer they believe they should give, rather than how they would actually behave. And people can sometimes be really bad at self-assessment. For instance, when asked about generosity toward charitable organizations, respondents rate themselves as being much more generous than they actually are. The best kind of research you can do on human behavior is to actually study human behavior, or set up hypothetical situations that more closely reflect reality. This is the stuff of peer-reviewed research, and not the kind of thing you can do with phone surveys.

The Non-GMO Project reports on their website that a 2008 CBS/New York Times poll, “53% of consumers said they would not buy food that has been genetically modified.” Yet, we find that this survey find that fully 60% self-report that they would eat GE plants, and 40% for animals. How can we put these two results together? First, the statement on the Non GMO Project website that these 53% “would not” buy GE foods is false – the study did not give results that are clearly delineated like that. Although I have been unable to find any data from the original 2008 poll, this book chapter(PDF, pg 7-40) describes some of the results in more detail. The 53% figure represents the people who personally rate buying a GE food “not very likely” and “not likely at all.” These are expressions of likelihood, not determinations of the binary behavior of whether or not they would in practice. The 53% figure also lumps together people who feel moderately disinclined and strongly disinclined to buy them – and if their results follow other existing research, then the people who feel strongly disinclined are in a minority. It was also a question about buying attitude, not eating behavior, and the sample size was one third that of the new Reuters survey. Finally, 50% is right in the middle of 60% for plants, and 40% for animals, so it could reflect the average attitude of people toward GE.

However, There is another difference: time. The CBS/NY Times poll was conducted in 2008, and the Reuters survey was conducted in 2010. There has been much discussion about GE in the past few years, perhaps attitudes have changed somewhat – a possibility that we cannot rule out. The survey also found that 70% of people were aware of GE foods in the marketplace, whereas the CBS poll found only 44% were aware of them in 2008. Clearly, more people are aware of them, and perhaps have become educated about them. I’d like to know where they learned about them! (By coincidence, Biofortified was founded in 2008.)

I would like to make one last point about labeling of GE foods. Several groups are pushing for mandatory labeling, often suggesting that there will be widespread rejection of these GE foods once labeled. This survey shows that when asked, and when aware that food have been genetically engineered, still 60% self-report that they will eat GE foods that are on the market. We already know that people don’t read the labels, as found by Charles Noussair in 2002. And this quote from Noussair bolsters my comment about the difference between opinion surveys and actual behaviors:

“Opinion surveys capture the respondent in the role of a voter, not in the role of a consumer,” he says. “The two behaviors can be quite different, as many studies have shown.”

Japan is arguably one of the most GE-cautious nations in the world, yet, 94% of its soy is imported, 71% of which is from the U.S., and 93% of that is genetically engineered. Therefore, despite the presence of mandatory labels, at least 62% of the soy in Japan is genetically engineered, and people buy and eat it there. Labels will not eliminate GE foods from stores, because people will buy and eat them nevertheless. Adding an extra cost to everyone’s food based on public opinion and not actual behavior or demonstrated need should give you pause. If it is your own desire you are expressing by pushing for these labels, remember that this survey shows that public opinion on the safety and acceptance of genetically engineered foods is not in your favor. If anything, it shows the need for more information, and what happens when more people get it.

*As noted in a comment below, the survey is from 2010, but it appears to have resurfaced recently, so I thought it was just released, but that the data was from 2010. The first sentence has been edited to reflect this fact.

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 8/1/11)

In the debate about GMO crops, the “threat of genetic contamination” is often raised as a reason  to reject the technology.  Is this threat real?  Does it justify acts of vandalism?  Could it lead to the “End of Organics“?  Is it actually an over-blown issue?  To answer these questions it is necessary to put this issue in the context of basic plant biology.

What We Are Talking About Is Really Just “Plant Sex”

“Genetic Contamination” is an emotional term which obscures the fact that the underlying biological process in question is quite normal, natural and highly necessary. All living species, need to be able to reproduce.  They also need to generate the genetic diversity that will allow the species to adapt and evolve as needed to survive.  Plants can’t move, so to “mate” with other plants of their species they have to find ways to spread the male sexual cells (pollen) to the female reproductive cells (the ovaries in the female parts of flowers).  Some plant do this with the help of pollinators – the bees, flies, butterflies, birds, etc.  These helpful agents incidentally move pollen around.  Other plants simply rely on wind to move their pollen to other flowers.  This is the case with most “grain crops” like wheat, barley, oats, corn etc.

“Cross pollination” is the accurate, unemotional, term for this process.  GMO crops participate in cross pollination in exactly the same way that non-GMO plants do and always have.

What Do You Get If You Cross A … With A …

Perhaps we have heard too many such jokes, because many people believe that the genes from GMO plants have the potential to “contaminate” all manner of natural species or “Organic” crops The fact is that if you “crossed a chicken with an octopus” you wouldn’t get “drumsticks for everybody.” You would get nothing.  The same is true for plant species.  They do not cross pollinate (or contaminate) other anything except extremely closely related plants.

There are some cases where a very closely related, “weedy” sub-species can cross with a crop (e.g. cultivated sunflowers with wild sunflowers), but those issues were anticipated long before GMO crops were introduced.  For that very reason, no GMO sunflowers have been introduced in the US.

GMO crops have no greater or lesser ability to move genes to other species.  Those sorts of fears are groundless.

Crops Where Cross Pollination is A Management Issue

Long before the advent of GMO crops, farmers of certain crops have had to manage “genetic contamination” issues involving normal cross pollination.  Wheat is wind pollinated and farmers commonly save part of their crop each year to serve as seed for the next (“saved seed”).  Wheat is also a crop with very specific quality characteristics for its various uses (raised breads, flat breads, crackers, pastries, noodles…).  New wheat varieties are bred for those specific uses.  There is a network of dedicated wheat seed growers who produce “certified seed” with enough isolation from other wheat so that the seed they produce is >95% the desired variety.  If a farmer plants that certified seed (usually at a small cost above current grain price), the crop he/she produces will be what is desired for the end use.  If the farmer saves some of that crop and plants it a second year, it will be less pure because of cross pollination from neighboring fields.  After a few years, it is necessary for the farmer to buy new certified seed because his/her own supply is “contaminated.”  There are many more examples like this for “saved seed” crops.

Hybrid seeds are grown by dedicated seed growers and purchased by the farmers every year.  This system insures both genetic purity for specific needs and the extra vigor and yield potential that hybridization enables.

Whether it is a “saved seed” crop or a hybrid crop, GMO versions create no new issues beyond what farmers have always been managing.  It only becomes an issue when someone wants to set a zero tolerance unlike the rational tolerances that have made all of these crops work for a very long time.

Crops Where Cross Pollination is Irrelevant

A few years ago there was a ballot initiative in Mendocino, California to ban GMO crops from that county.  It was driven by concerns about “genetic contamination” of the Organic farms (many supporters didn’t understand the paragraph above).   The fact that there were not even GMO crops that were likely to ever be planted in this particular county was seemingly irrelevant to the debate.  I was talking with a PhD level scientist that worked for one of the wineries there, and asked why that company was supporting the ban.  She said it was because of concerns about how the genetic contamination risk could hurt their sales.  I was stunned because, as a scientist, she certainly knew that grapes are never grown from seed but rather “vegetatively propagated.”  If you take a seed from a Cabernet grape and plant it, you will not grow a Cabernet.  It will be some new variety, just as when humans have children, they are each a unique new combination of their mother’s and father’s genes.  For thousands of years farmers have known how to take cuttings of desirable fruits and get them to root, or how to take buds of the desired fruit variety and graft it onto a rootstock.  The grapes in Mendocino county had been propagated that way for centuries.  A block of Cabernet planted next to a block of Chardonnay is not a “genetic contamination” issue, because the seed is never planted.  This same principle applies to almost all fruit and to other vegetatively reproduced crops like potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes, sugarcane and many others.  GMO versions of these crops would not represent any “genetic contamination risk”  at all.  That is why it is so sad and absurd that activists in France destroyed a GMO grapevine trial because of needless “contamination” fears.

Genetic Contamination: An Intentionally Overplayed Issue?

On several occasions I have written directly to individual, anti-GMO scientists, at Greenpeace and elsewhere, asking specific questions about how they imagine that a particular crop could represent a “genetic contamination risk.”  I have never received an answer with any scientific justification or even a plausible “what if” scenario.  Presuming that these individuals understand basic plant biology, they apparently choose not to acknowledge it in their public campaigns.

What is really going on (“cross pollination”) is a vital, natural process.  Farmers and the plant breeders who serve them have long been able to harness the positive potential of this genetic exchange to breed for improved varieties.  They have also been able to fully manage the cases where cross pollination could cause a genetic purity problem for the crop.  GMO crops have not changed this in any fundamental way that cannot be dealt with by rational decision making and regulation.

You are welcome to comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com.  My website is Applied Mythology

Pollinator fly (bee mimic) image from Savvey’s Photography Photostream

Last week, blogs and twitter feeds were lit up by news that a group of scientists had written a letter to CSIRO, in Australia, criticizing them for proposing a nutritional trial of genetically engineered wheat. It appeared with this article, Scientists reject human trials of GM Wheat, and is part of a new thrust of transparently poor public relations. And it foreshadows more to come. An excerpt:

A group of prominent scientists and researchers from around the world has urged Australia not to go ahead with human trials of genetically modified (GM) wheat.

The CSIRO is carrying out a study of feeding GM wheat grown in the ACT to rats and pigs and could extend the trial to humans.

The modified wheat has been altered to lower its glycaemic index in an attempt to see if the grain could have health benefits such as improving blood glucose control and lowering cholesterol levels.

But eight scientists and academics from Britain, the US, India, Argentina and Australia believe not enough studies have been done on the effects of GM wheat on animals to warrant human trials.

The trials in question appeared to be of the simple kind – the wheat has been altered in a way that should affect its glycemic index, how rapidly the sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream, and that CSIRO is interested in seeing if it has the desired effect when eaten by human beings. These kinds of studies have been done before, such as on calcium-biofortified carrots as described in this post. The letter appeared to be out of place.

While news about this letter was easy to find, the actual letter itself was not, nor were the names of the “prominent” scientists who signed it. The article mentioned only two: Dave Schubert, and Michael Antoniou. I have had contact with Schubert before, so I emailed him to find out what the text of the letter was, and who signed it. He responded promptly with a draft of the letter that he signed. However, when I asked if he knew who signed it (or who to contact), he had this to say:

If i [may] ask, what is your interest?-seems like a typical pro-GM scam to me because they will feed this to people for a few days-much too short of time to see anything happen-and then claim that it is proven safe in a clinical trial!  My belief is that a much better assay is a multigenerational feeding trial in rodents with good pathology.

I explained that I want to put up the letter on our blog for people to comment, and asked again about his co-signatories. It turns out, you see, the signers of the letter did not actually write the letter – it was written by Greenpeace and they sought anti-GE individuals to sign it as part of a larger campaign. He gave me his contacts at Greenpeace, who ignored my request for information. It is strange that it is so hard to find out this information from those who put together the letter and signed it – especially when it is an open letter.

So naturally, I contacted CSIRO, and they readily forwarded me the entire letter with its signers. I will now reproduce the full text of the letter here (PDF) for everyone to see and comment on.

Open letter from scientists and doctors around the world regarding human

feeding trials of genetically modified wheat in Australia

Dear Dr. Megan Clark, Chief Executive CSIRO,

We are writing to express our unequivocal denunciation of the experiments being conducted by your colleagues that involve feeding genetically modified (GM) wheat to human subjects. We are all senior scientists/academics with a professional interest in the health and environmental effects of GMOs. We refer to the trials described on the website of the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR):

• DIR 093 – Limited and controlled release of wheat and barley genetically modified for altered grain starch composition

The biological and biochemical characterisation of the GM wheat being used in these experiments is inadequately described in the publicly available literature. Much of the information required to conduct adequate pre-clinical evaluation is withheld on the basis that it is ‘confidential commercial information’.

Genetically modified products have not been shown to be distinctive, uniform and stable over time. There is a large body of evidence that shows that GM crop / food production is highly prone to inadvertent and unpredictable pleiotropic effects, which can result in health damaging effects when GM food products are fed to animals (Pusztai and Bardocz, 2006; Schubert, 2008; Dona and Arvanitoyannis, 2009).

The feeding trials, as described in the documents from the OGTR, are completely inadequate to assess these risks. Feeding trials on rats, pigs and humans are proposed for a period of 1 to 28 days. The intention of these trials is to assess the altered grain starch composition of the wheat, but not to test for any unintended results. We have seen in the independent research conducted on consumption of GM plants to date that unintended effects may appear in later generations (Velimirov et al, 2008).

The use of human subjects for these GM feeding experiments is completely unacceptable. The experiments may be used to dispense with concerns about the health impacts of consuming GM plants, but will not in fact, address the health risks GM plants raise.

The feeding trials should not be conducted until long-term impact assessments have been undertaken and appropriate information released to enable the scientific community to determine the value of such research, as against the risks.

Yours sincerely,
The undersigned signatories:

Dr Michael Antoniou
Gene expression and Therapy Group
King’s College London School of Medicine
Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics
8th Floor, Tower Wing
Guy’s Hospital
Great Maze Pond
London
SE1 9RT, UK

Dr Vandana Shiva Ph D
Navdanya
Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology
105 Rajpur Road
Dehra Dun, India

Dr George Crisp MBBS MRCGP
General Practitioner
Western Australia

Professor Andres Carrasco
Lab Molecular Embryology
School of Medicine UBA – CONICET
Argentina

Professor Carlo Leifert
Res Dev Prof of Ecological Agriculture
Newcastle University School of Agriculture,
Food and Rural Development (SAFRD)
Nafferton Farm
Stocksfield
Northumberland, NE43 7XD, UK

Professor David Schubert
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
10010 N. Torrey Pines Road,
La. Jolla, CA 92037
USA

Dr Benjamin Ticehurst BSc(Med) MBBS MPH FRACGP
General medical practitioner & senior lecturer
School of Medicine, Sydney
University of Notre Dame Australia

John B. Fagan, Ph.D.
Professor of Molecular Biology
Maharishi University of Management
(Maharishi International University 1971 to 1995)
1000 North Fourth Street
Fairfield, Iowa, 52557-10

References:

1. Pusztai A. and Bardocz S. (2006). GMO in animal nutrition: potential benefits and risks. In: Biology of
   Nutrition in Growing Animals, eds. R. Mosenthin, J. Zentek and T. Zebrowska, Elsevier Limited, pp. 513-
   540.
2. Schubert D.R. (2008) The problem with nutritionally enhanced plants. J Med Food. 11: 601-605.
3. Dona A. and Arvanitoyannis I.S. (2009) Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods. Crit Rev Food Sci
   Nutr., 49: 164–175.
4. Velimirov, A., Binter, C., and Zentek, J. (2008) “Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810
   fed in long term reproduction studies in mice” Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, Familie und Jugend
   Report, Forschungsberichte der Sektion IV Band 3/2008, Austria

So what do you think, should the trials be halted? My first comment is that this team of prominent scientists is not only small (8), but not very prominent outside of the debate over genetic engineering. Some are not scientists (such as Shiva, Crisp, and Ticehurst). Although the original article indicated that only 8 people signed it, Schubert seemed to think that a lot of people had. Contrast this to a previous, similar letter criticizing Golden Rice, that garnered 34 signatures. (And compared Golden Rice to Nazi experiments, I might add. Also, the letter said 22 signers so math was not one of their strengths).

You will not only see some overlap in the top signers, but the top 3 references are spot-in identical, even in precise punctuation. Was that letter also written by Greenpeace, or did they just copy the references? Indeed, the wheat letter appears to be plagiarized from the Golden Rice letter. To investigate this further, I put them both in a file and color-coded the language that was identical between the two, revealing that whoever wrote this letter for Greenpeace has indeed plagiarized the Golden Rice Letter to do so. Take a look at a comparison in this PDF.

This is on top of the fact that the letter does not indicate that Greenpeace had anything to do with it – when it was their letter to begin with.

It appears they just cut and pasted what they liked about the first one, copied the references, and added another reference (that seems to be a poorly conducted experiment that lost too many control mice and was not peer reviewed). So one way to take this is that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel on trying to drum up criticism of this genetically engineered wheat experiment. The letter also expressed the same sentiment that Dave Schubert also echoed – that the research must be stopped in order to prevent its results from being mis-used by someone else. So I asked Schubert if this was a valid reason for halting the research. This is what I sent.

I did want to ask, though, as you mentioned in this email to me that you believe that a 28-day human study like this would be mis-used to prove clinical safety. It sounded to me from what little I have read about this that their interest in a human study is primarily to determine if it has the desired glycemic index effects in people as they are expecting. There have been other human eating studies published, notably one on calcium bio-fortified carrots – and the purpose of that one was clearly to determine the bioavailability of the enhanced levels of calcium. A short study period is sufficient for determining effects such as that, although I am no expert on these matters.

My question is, supposing that the purpose of this study is to test the effects of the GE wheat trait in question and not to give it an overall ‘clinical’ pass – is the idea that a short narrow study would be mis-used by someone (to say it was proven ‘clinically safe’ a valid reason to prevent the study from occurring?

I just received his response,

I was not aware of the stated reason for the short trial, but you are correct, to look at bioavailability, a short trial is all that is necessary.  In the FDA drug approval process, the phase 1 trial is something seminar, only much shorter-a few days.  That is what is odd about the 28 days, because if they only want to look at the effect on glycemic index, then one day would be sufficient.  I have not seen the details, but i would bet that they will eventually mention something about humans and safety down the line.

I asked if he still supported the letter, since he was not aware of the reason for the trial when he signed it. He responded,

I do believe that no GM crop should be fed to humans without proper safety testing in rodents-this would be unthinkable for a ‘real’ drug!  And with the advent of the new so called nutritionally enhanced plants, the distinction is not so great.

Note that he didn’t answer the question about whether his stated reasons were valid or not. But I think we can discern his opinion well enough from these comments. And in case there is any question, No, the idea that someone could misuse a study to mean something it doesn’t is NOT a valid reason for preventing the research from being done. I should also think that knowing the details of a study to be criticized should come before signatures are applied. Greenpeace only just filed a freedom of information request to find out information about it. I have to wonder if they really wanted more information about it, if there was a better way to go about it.

CSIRO has indicated that they are testing the wheat in rodents and pigs before conducting human trials, and who knows what the future holds for this particular trait. It may not work, but then again it may work really well – and we won’t know that until the results of this trial are analyzed and published. Greenpeace, however, has indicated that this is the first salvo in a war they plan to wage against genetically engineered wheat, with a particular focus on CSIRO. They have announced that they will be releasing a bombshell of a report on GE wheat on Thursday (which it will be in Australia in just a few hours), which promises to push back the tide of research on these horrible potential health-improving traits.

And this is already unraveling a bit, even before it has been published. According to The Land, (Australia), they carefully chose which reporters to give the report to in order to try to control media coverage.

Industry members have also questioned why Greenpeace sent the report, titled Australia’s wheat scandal: The biotech takeover of our daily bread, to selected reporters, suggesting they had cherry-picked “susceptible journalists” to increase the likelihood of favourable media coverage.

Rural Press journalists were not among those presented with the report.

Sounds like someone’s trying their hand at a concerted media campaign – let’s change the narrative to pointing out how Greenpeace can’t even write their own ghost-written letters. I thought they were supposed to be good at this stuff?

Here is an example of the claims made in the piece.

Between the U.S. and European countries, which has more instances of food allergies? Which has more instances of asthma or autism? Which has more instances of cancer and heart disease? Yes, I understand many factors play a role in these distinctions. However, I think it would be unwise to ignore the relation between the introduction of GM foods and higher instances of food-related allergies. Do you honestly believe major corporations care more about the health and safety of the public over their ability to make a profit?

His words only got a brief mention, and his response is a model for how scientists should respond to these kinds of claims. We have received permission to republish his spot-on commentary. (He has asked that I obscure the name of the young reporter who wrote the column so that it is about the information and not the person. So only the name has been edited.) Enjoy!

Column regarding genetically modified foods was one-sided and misinformed

This author’s column on Genetically Modified (GM) foods  is a thinly-veiled hatchet job, repeating a mixture of half-truths, lies and grossly misinformed opinions about this technology. This was disappointing, as she interviewed me (I’m an “NIU Expert” on plant genetic engineering) at some length during the preparation of her column.

Judging from the content in her column, she came to this subject with a pre-formed agenda, and wasn’t interested in accuracy or real science. Let me be absolutely clear that I am not upset or concerned that she used little if any of the information she and I discussed. This was an opinion piece and she was perfectly within her rights to use or not use any information that I provided to her. I have no ego involved here.

What I found disappointing, however, is that the author gave enormous credibility to anti-GMO advocates, when for the most part those opinions have little, if any, real scientific credibility.

When reporters are writing about science-related issues, whether that be GMOs, vaccines, Global Climate Change or E. coli from German organic farms that has recently killed at least 40 people, they have an obligation to do their best to understand the science and to realize that when experimental evidence is involved, not all opinions are equal.

Having been interviewed on the basis of what seems to me to border on false pretenses, I would like to provide a different perspective on several of the points raised in her article. As an example, she lifts (verbatim) a statement from the website of the official-sounding American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) about the “serious health risks associated with GM food consumption.”

Quackwatch.org lists AAEM at the top of a list of questionable organizations and explains that AAEM was founded by Theron Randolph in 1965 to promote the now-thoroughly-discredited idea of “multiple chemical sensitivity.” AAEM lists several studies in its bibliography that it claims point out the danger of GM foods.

Had she bothered to check these out she would have found that the few peer-reviewed, scientifically-vetted articles quoted showed marginal (and often statistically insignificant) differences in studies of animals fed diets of GM food vs. non-GM food, with the authors of the articles stating that the few differences shown might well be due to factors unrelated to the GM protein present in the food.

This is a typical tactic of extreme advocacy groups: take an inconclusive study, with a couple of data points that might suggest some difference (whether biologically significant or not), blow it all out of proportion from the conclusions of the actual scientists and trumpet it as showing dangers to health and well-being.

What about Dr. Oz, “a surgeon acclaimed for providing health advice”? The author conveniently left out of her piece other statements from the doctoroz.com website such as: “Overwhelmingly…studies indicate that GMOs are safe to consume.”, “Easier farming means more food which, in turn, means less expensive food…less expensive food makes it easier to feed hungry populations around the world,” and “GMOs can be modified to have greater nutritional value…scientists…have genetically modified rice to contain significantly higher amounts of vitamin A.” (More on that in a bit.)

OK, how about the “Institute for Responsible Technology”? Well that turns out to be the personal website of Jeffrey Smith, an anti-GMO agitator with no scientific credentials. Mr. Smith’s self-published anti-GMO books and claims have been thoroughly refuted by academics, including Professors Bruce Chassy and David Tribe (www.academicsreview.org). As they say, consider the source.

Let me briefly return to the genetically modified “Golden Rice” referred to above. This rice variety has been genetically engineered by the non-profit Golden Rice Project (www.goldenrice.org) to produce Vitamin A in the rice grain, something that is not possible to attain by conventional breeding. Vitamin-A deficiency contributes to over 500,000 cases of blindness in children in countries with rice-dependent poor populations (Nature 29, July 2010, p 561). Seventy percent of these children will die within a year of going blind. Golden Rice was developed over 10 years ago, will be provided free of charge, and has the potential to save millions of lives.

Yet Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other anti-GMO organizations have consistently opposed and delayed its introduction. Why? I don’t know, but to me it says that the political agendas of these organizations are more important to them than the lives of millions of poor children, and that’s tragic.

“when experimental evidence is involved, not all opinions are equal”

Right on.

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.

The graph above shows the relative production of these major US row crops comparing the years 1993-1995 (just prior to the introduction of biotechnology enhanced crops) and 2008-10 (the most recent available data which covers a a span which comes 12-15 years after biotech.  Soybean production has expanded 47% in this time-frame while corn is up 58% (far more than the quantity now being diverted for biofuel).  Both of those crops are predominantly planted to “GMO” varieties, while the various segments of the wheat crop remain non-GMO.  Until 2004 it looked as if North American growers would also get to plant biotech wheat, but a vigorous campaign led by Greenpeace succeeded in blocking the technology.  Many major European and Japanese grain buyers were concerned about potential consumer push-back (based on Greenpeace efforts), so they made a coordinated threat to boycott all North American wheat exports if any commercial GMO wheat was planted in the US or Canada.  This was based on the “precautionary principle.”

The wheat industry, particularly the Canadian Wheat Board, asked Monsanto and Syngenta not to go ahead with their plans to sell the improved wheats, and so those often vilified companies put their programs on the shelf at the request of their customer base.  GreenPeace then declared Victory.

The Traits That Didn’t Happen

Monsanto had been developing a “Roundup Ready” version of wheat which would have helped the wheat growers who have grass weed issues.  It was also shown to increase yields and it would have aided in conversion to no-till, and  increased genetic purity for specialty uses.  Syngenta was developing wheat with resistance to a disease called Fusarium Head Scab.  That particular fungus is difficult to control with fungicide sprays, but it can severely hurt yields, and it can diminish the value of what grain is harvested by contaminating it with the mycotoxin, DON or “vomitoxin.”  A major reason that farmers include less wheat in their crop rotations than would be optimal is because of the risks associated with this disease.  The fact that these traits would have increased grower income and reduced a dangerous toxin in the food supply were listed in the Greenpeace internal literature of the day, not as “pros,” but as “campaigning challenges.”

What The Farmers Thought

In the late 1990s, I had the opportunity to sit down with dozens of wheat farmers in Kansas, North Dakota, Minnesota, Indiana and Kentucky to talk about these coming traits.  These growers had experience with GMO soy and corn and were very much looking forward to these new products.  I was testing various “business models” for how the traits would be made available because, like soybeans, much of the wheat crop is planted with “Farmer Saved Seed.”

With non-hybrid crops, farmers have the option to simply save some of their previous grain harvest to use as seed.  Typically they buy new, “certified” seed every few years.  With Soybeans, Monsanto took the risky and controversial step of getting growers to sign a “technology agreement” in which they promised not to save the biotech seed but rather to purchase it new every year.  I, and many in the industry doubted that growers would be willing to do this or that the system could be enforced well enough to prevent free-loaders.  After a few, high-profile lawsuits, the new system was widely accepted and no mainstream soybean farmer even questions it today.

Much More Was Lost Beyond The Traits

Before biotech, the soybean seed industry existed mainly as a “price of doing business” for corn seed companies.  Much of the breeding advancement was still happening in Universities (though with precarious funding).  When soybeans became an every-year purchase, the overall investment in the improvement of that crop went up dramatically.  This helped extend the range of the crop into colder Northern regions and dryer Western areas.  We are also now beginning to see the pay-off of the investment in genomics and Marker Assisted Selection – biotechnology enabled updates on “traditional breeding.”  Roundup Ready soybeans were not a “yield trait” as such, but they were far more convenient for busy farmers and easier to “no-till” farm.  So now both soybeans and corn had become much more attractive options for farmers, and in many regions the “loser” has been wheat.

The Wheat That Was Not To Be

The expansion of corn and soy production in the first chart represents a combination of factors.  Growers planted more of their land to those crops, often using their better fields.  They often grew these crops with greater inputs of fertilizer, water because the economic risk was smaller.  In most areas there was a distinct change in the long term trends for these crops that corresponds to the pre-biotech era (before 1996) and the post-biotech era (after 1996).

One way to calculate the real “cost” of the Greenpeace wheat victory is to extrapolate what would have been the production of wheat if the earlier trend lines are extrapolated to 2010.  To do this I took the data from the USDA-NASS at the Crop Reporting District level (usually 9 districts per state) from the years 1984 to 2010.  This allowed me to fit lines for each crop/district covering the Pre-biotech years of 1984-1995 and then a similar 12 year time frame from 1999-2010 as a Post-biotech era.  By comparing what level of production each trend for predicted for 2010, the impact of the non-biotech nature of wheat in a biotech world could be estimated.  Example trend comparisons are shown below for single district examples of corn, soybeans and winter wheat.  Finally those differences are summed for all the districts where data is available over the 27-year time span (238 for corn, 173 for soybeans, 191 for winter wheat, 39 for spring wheat and 6 for durum wheat).

An example of one of many areas where corn productivity increased faster after the introduction of biotechnology through a combination of more acreage being planted and yield progress increasing.

A very typical example of an area where farmers began to plant a great deal more soy when it was improved through biotechnology.

An example of an area where wheat planting and intensity dropped in the biotech era relative to earlier trends.

Many Variables but Major Overall Outcomes

Exactly how trends changed for each crop and region varied widely, but in very few cases did the pre-biotech trend continue unchanged. For every crop some areas were up and some down, but the net effect was an overall shrinkage of US wheat production at a time when global wheat demand is constantly increasing.  The chart below shows that the biotechnology enhanced crop options saw substantial production increases vs earlier trends, + 437 million bushels/year for soy and a whopping + 4.03 billion bushels for corn. Winter wheat overall declined slower than it had prior to biotechnology for a net trend change of +35 million bushels.  Spring wheat, which was much more in the geographic path and time of year of the soy and corn “locomotives,” lost 315 million bushels of “potential” production.

Would Things Have Been Different With Biotech Wheat?

Would that have been different if Greenpeace didn’t “win?”  It is difficult to know because there were other factors in that time frame such as the Freedom to Farm Act of 1996 which changed the nature of government crop subsidies and set-aside programs.  Delays in biotech trait approvals for import to the EU and Japan altered global market dynamics as did the wide-spread pirating of Roundup Ready soybeans by South American farmers.

Would Monsanto and Syngenta have cross-licensed their wheat traits to allow an attractive package for farmers?  Would the transition away from a “saved seed” market for wheat have offset the declining public breeding support which continues even today?  It is impossible to know, but the wheat industry has now decided that they don’t want to be denied a technological advantage again.  National wheat grower associations in the US, Canada and Australia agreed to a simultaneous launch of any future GMO wheat so that the Europeans and Japanese could not blackmail them again.  Even so, it is likely to be at least a decade until that happens because the other thing that was lost in 2004 was the continuous years of breeding effort that it takes to incorporate a biotech trait in the complex world of wheat (winter, spring, red, white, hard, soft…..).

How Much Lost Wheat Is That?

The theoretical 315 million bushels of wheat not being produced as of 2010 represents 8.6 million metric tons (in the units of global trade).  That is roughly equivalent to the crop in each of the wheat producing countries Argentina, Egypt, or Italy.  It is more than the total wheat imports that go to each of these major, net wheat importing countries (Japan 5.8MMt, Algeria 6.9MMt, Egypt 8.3MMt, Italy 5.4 MMt, Indonesia 4.5 MMt, Brazil 6 MMt, Iran 5.2 MMt).

Putting This In The Context Of The Current Global Food Price Spike

We just finished seeing a severe spike in prices on the global food trade scene in 2007/8 and a new spike is underway and appears to be continuing - particularly for cereals like wheat which is now within 3% of the previous record (see chart below).  India is considering a wheat export ban this year.  Global wheat demand is expected to double by 2050.

.

Then, just to add insult to injury, the US congress cut funding for the Global Wheat Genomics Center at Kansas State .  That happens as a new strain of the dreaded Wheat Stem Rust pathogen is threatening wheat crops in more countries every year.

We probably won’t ever be able to make up for what has been lost for one of the world’s most important human food crops.  The catch-up on biotechnology will not be in time to help many poor people survive or to prevent the political instability implications of food shortages.  These are the true “Costs of Precaution,” but they will not be borne by the Greenpeace activists in rich nations.  These very real costs will be borne by poor families in places where wheat can’t be successfully grown.  Greenpeace was happy to take credit for stopping this technology.  I wonder if they are willing to take credit for these consequences.

Norm Borlaug said:  ”If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.”

I’d go with Norm’s “Peace” agenda, not that of Greenpeace.