Sex and death in the cornfields, Part II- Why rootworms?

Written by Stephanie Gorski

Hi, I started this series to explain a little more background behind the news and opinion articles you may have seen about Bt-resistant corn rootworms, with scary titles like Voracious worm evolves to eat biotech corn engineered to kill it and Evolution one-ups genetic modification. I started out talking about the system as it was originally developed for moths, but I wanted to come back to talk about why rootworms are so good at developing resistance to Bt crops. Part I of this article talked about refuges and how they are used to slow insect resistance, so I’m assuming you know how a refuge works. If you don’t, check out Sex and death in the cornfields: What is a refuge?

Diabrotica virgifera virgifera — Western corn rootworm. Image by S Gorski.

There are several different pestiferous species of rootworms, but they are often lumped together because their larvae are difficult to tell apart. The Western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) is the most damaging and most studied.
As you may recall, transgenic Bt-expressing corn targeting rootworms has only been around since 2003, and there are already reports of resistance. Resistance has been confirmed in Iowa. Reduced susceptibility has been reported in Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota. (Reduced susceptibility is basically the same idea as resistance, but is defined more loosely; there is a lower standard of evidence to meet.) So it looks like there will be more resistance occurring in the near future.
It looks like we haven’t been as effective in slowing resistance development with rootworm-active transgenics as with moth-active transgenics. Why? There are lots of things about the rootworm system that make it less simple and less elegant than the moth system. Continue reading →

Biological Pest Control Basics

Written by Mike Bonds

Managing pests is an important part of cultivating plants whether you are tending a small garden in your yard or several fields of crops. Insect predators can make short work of healthy plants, particularly if insect predators are in abundance. The good news is that there are natural ways to combat these pests that growers have been utilizing for many years. Granted, not all solutions are created equal. There are a number of reasons why biological control efforts may fail; including breeding being out of sync or the countermeasure not being strong enough.
The primary points of biological pest control are:

Classic Biological Control
Conservation
Augmentation

Each offers its own pros and cons with success hinging on a large number of factors that is impossible to completely define. Even still, these methods have traditionally been effective for a number of growers and have been used since the dawn of farming. Continue reading “Biological Pest Control Basics” →

Why novel dsRNA molecules in GM food are of little to no concern

Written by Alexander Huszagh

Recently, concerns were raised about the potential risks of dietary double stranded RNA (dsRNA) and microRNA (miRNA) molecules silencing human genes, after research by Zhang et al. showed the presence of plant miRNA in human blood plasma, as well as providing evidence that this plant miRNA enters the system by dietary uptake in mice. The group then demonstrated that this plant miRNA could silence genes in the mice, leading other researchers to separately raise concerns that diets consisting of genetically modified organisms could lead to the uptake of novel dsRNA molecules that could silence human genes.
Gene-silencing by RNA interference, or RNAi, typically occurs by way of short sequences of RNA which bind to a target messenger RNA sequence (mRNA) and inhibit it, either signaling the mRNA for deletion or inhibiting its expression. This occurs through perfect or near-perfect base pairing of the sequence to a short segment on the mRNA strand. Uptake of dsRNA or miRNA at levels that would lead to gene silencing would therefore be an important consideration in food safety, including the safety of GMOs. Continue reading “Why novel dsRNA molecules in GM food are of little to no concern” →

GM debate: scientists and protesters aren’t polar opposites

Written by Rebecca Nesbit

Editor’s note: Republished with permission from The Birds, the Bees, and Feeding the World.
My excitement of today was to attend the anti-GM protest organised by Take the Flour Back, joining the group of bystanders wearing ‘Don’t Destroy Research’ badges. Take the Flour Back (I don’t get the name – apparently it’s something to do with Rage Against the Machine) objects to a trial of GM wheat, and they organised a day to do some ‘decontamination’. That’s vandalism to you and me.
The trial at Rothamsted Research is of genetically-modified wheat which contains an aphid-repelling gene normally found in peppermint plants. The aim is to reduce the use of pesticides.
Take the Flour Back say it is too risky to do the trial in the great outdoors. However, trials in the lab have been very promising and the necessary lab tests have been completed to ensure it is ready to test in the field. Continue reading “GM debate: scientists and protesters aren’t polar opposites” →

GE Survey: More believe safe than not, most undecided

In 2010, Thompson Reuters released a survey* (PDF) of public attitudes toward genetically engineered food in the US. They had several significant findings, some of which should be fairly obvious, but some are real eye-openers. The questions were straight-forward and the raw data was posted online, but there was a distinct lack of visual representations of these results. I thought we could all use a good look at some simple graphs that demonstrate facts that many studies have shown consistently over time – that there are more people who believe that GE crops are safe than not, while most people are still undecided. It also showed that most people say they would eat GE plant-based foods that are currently on the market.
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 analysts from Swagbucks notice that, 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:

Continue reading “GE Survey: More believe safe than not, most undecided” →

Want to study relative risks of GE?

Last Thursday, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) posted a new grant – one that readers of Biofortified might be interested to read about. Called the Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grants Program, (PDF) this grant for up to $1 million for each project is for scientists who want to study the environmental risks of genetic engineering in agriculture.
What kinds of environmental risks? Things like basic genetics research, comparing breeding to biotechnology, and downstream effects of environmental release. There is even a section for it you want to submit a research proposal to study co-existence between GE and non-GE crops. You could even study pyramided, or “stacked” GE crops and compare them to single-transgene varieties. So many possibilities. Continue reading “Want to study relative risks of GE?” →

Myths about eggplant (brinjal) as medicine are holding up Indian release of GM brinjal, but brinjal is not a medicine

Book available as pdf for free download (see link below)

Previous posts at GMO Pundit have covered GM insect protected eggplant being developed as a new crop variety in India. This insect-protected crop, making use of Bt protein trait, could avoid a large amount of current synthetic pesticide spraying in India and prevent many poisoning risks to farmers and their familes. The Hindu newspaper story quoted below highlights how concerns about GM eggplant (brinjal) potentially interferring with ayuvedic medicines in India have delayed governmental approval of insect-protected brinjal.

The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Agriculture : Lab test report to pave way for Bt brinjal release NEW DELHI, August 8, 2011

The government has ordered a laboratory test of to find out if genetically modified brinjal is fit for preparation of ayurvedic medicines, with a senior official saying its report in next two months could pave the way for commercial release of Bt brinjal.“Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under Ministry of Environment and Forest has ordered for lab test to assess compositional analysis to find out if ayurvedic principles are disturbed in Bt brinjal,”, the official said.P. Anand Kumar, Principal Scientist, National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology (NRCPB) under Ministry of Agriculture told reporters here that the test is being conducted in National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad.
Continue reading “Myths about eggplant (brinjal) as medicine are holding up Indian release of GM brinjal, but brinjal is not a medicine” →

Genetically modified plants as fish feed ingredients

There has been a long and tortuous discussion of Steve Savage’s post Way Too Much Angst about GMO crops covering many of the usual topics. But among the hundreds of comments there is at last some gold. Fishy smelling gold.
A new paper has been kindly unearthed in the comments by (a commenter): Genetically modified plants as fish feed ingredients by Nini Hedberg Sissener, Monica Sanden, Åshild Krogdahl, Anne-Marie Bakke, Lene Elisabeth Johannessen, and Gro-Ingunn Hemre (2011).
Abstract:

Genetically modified (GM) plants were first grown commercially more than 20 years ago, but their use is still controversial in some parts of the world. Many GM plant varieties are produced in large quantities globally and are approved for use in fish feeds both in Norway and the European Union. European consumers, however, are skeptical to fish produced by means of GM feed ingredients. Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of GM plants, including potential toxicity and (or) allergenicity of the novel protein, potential unintended effects, and risk of horizontal gene transfer to other species. This review will present the current state of knowledge regarding GM plants as fish feed ingredients, focusing on fish performance and health as well as the fate of the GM DNA fragments in the fish, identifying limitations of the current work and areas where further research is needed.

And then commentator Allan goes to town interpretating this paper. Many thanks to Allan and to (commenter).

Allan’s comment:
Continue reading “Genetically modified plants as fish feed ingredients” →

Real progress on EU E. coli outbreak: An Egyptian fenugreek seed source to European food disaster?

European Food Safety agency EFSA has traced the food chains from the seed sprout associated E. coli food illness in the EU that has killed 48 people. The evidence is pointing to imported Egyptian fenugreek seeds at this moment in the investigation. CIDRAP provide a good commentary on this, reposted here**.

The problem may be invalid seed sanitisation and seed supplier auditing.
If this common source of contamination is confirmed, it would demonstrate that all of the following are true:
1) Organic* seed sanitisation procedures at the farm linked to the German outbreak are faulty and unsafe.
2) Quality and safety standards for seed supplies used at the same organic farm are inadequate.
and
3) Legal standards for farm food safety compliance in Germany are faulty.

Egyptian fenugreek seeds suspected in E coli outbreak**

Lisa Schnirring Staff Writer
Jun 29, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – New trace-back investigations in German and French Escherichia coli outbreaks are pointing to two lots of fenugreek seeds that were imported from Egypt, according to the latest threat assessment from European officials.
Continue reading “Real progress on EU E. coli outbreak: An Egyptian fenugreek seed source to European food disaster?” →

Oxfam should get serious about malnutrition: Africa needs roads and nitrates

A recent UK Times opinion piece by rational optimist Matt Ridley has really hit the nail of the head about food security, linking together many issues that are repeatedly tackled at this website.
The value of fertiliser.
The needs of Africa.
The tragedy of NGOs that harm people they want to help.
Problems and delays caused by of tying up innovation with over-zealous regulation.
Even the dangers of manure, with the risk of diarrhoea and death from faecal germs like pathogenic E. coli, as exemplified by the dreadful disaster playing out in Germany at the moment.
Oxfam are indeed trying genuinely hard to tackle the big and complex issue of food security. At least they understand there is a problem with the supply of food. Others chant incessantly the inane phrase “but the world has plenty of food”, as if the food supply automatically keeps pace with the ongoing growth in global food demand driven by population and wealth increases.
But Oxfam get things so wrong about technology and innovation.The bigger tragedy is that they are not alone in this, but that’s another story.
Matt Ridley: Why Oxfam Is Wrong On Food The Times, 2 June 2011, UK
Continue reading →