Page 281 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

TABLE 10.2 Several Notable Examples of Genetically Modified Food Technologies
CROP DESCRIPTION AND STATUS CROP DESCRIPTION AND STATUS
Golden rice Engineered to produce beta-carotene to Bt cotton Engineered with genes from bacterium
fight vitamin A deficiency in Asia and the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that kills
developing world. May offer only insects. Has increased yield, decreased
moderate nutritional enhancement insecticide use, and boosted income for
despite years of work. Expected to be 14 million small farmers in India, China,
marketed in 2013. and other nations.

Virus-resistant Resistant to ringspot virus and grown in Roundup-Ready One of many crops engineered to
papaya Hawaii. In 2011 became the first biotech alfalfa tolerate Monsanto’s Roundup
crop approved for consumption in herbicide (glyphosate). Because the
Japan. crop can withstand it, the chemical can
be applied in great quantities to kill
weeds. Unfortunately, many weeds are
evolving resistance to glyphosate as a
result. Planted in the U.S., 2005–2007,
GM alfalfa was then banned because a
lawsuit forced the USDA to better
assess its environmental impact.
Reapproved in 2011.
GM salmon Engineered for fast growth, large size. Roundup-Ready Tolerant of Monsanto’s Roundup
Would be the first GM animal approved sugar beet herbicide (glyphosate). Swept to
for sale as food. To prevent fish from dominance (95% of U.S. crop) in just 2
breeding with wild salmon and spreading years. As with alfalfa, a lawsuit forced
disease to them, company AquaBounty more environmental review, after it had
promised to make their fish sterile and already become widespread.
raise them in inland pens. Reapproved in 2012.
Biotech potato Resistant to late blight, the pathogen Biotech soybean The most common GM crop in the
that caused the 1845 Irish Potato world, covering nearly half the cropland
Famine and that still destoys $7.5 billion devoted to biotech crops. Engineered
of potatoes each year. Being developed for herbicide tolerance, insecticidal
by European scientists, but struggling properties, or both. Like other crops,
with EU regulations on research. soybeans may be “stacked” with more
than one engineered trait.
Bt corn Engineered with genes from bacterium Sunflowers and Research on Bt sunflowers suggests
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that kills superweeds that transgenes might spread to their
insects. One of many Bt crops wild relatives and turn them into
developed. vigorous “superweeds” that compete
with the crop or invade ecosystems.
This is most likely to occur with crops
like squash, canola, and sunflowers that
can breed with their wild relatives.

that offspring would inherit those traits (p. 217). Early farm- However, as critics are quick to point out, the techniques
ers selected plants and animals that grew faster, were more geneticists use to create GM organisms differ from traditional
resistant to disease and drought, and produced large amounts selective breeding in several ways. For one, selective breeding
of fruit, grain, or meat. mixes genes from individuals of the same or similar species,
Proponents of GM crops often stress this continuity with whereas scientists creating recombinant DNA routinely mix
our past and say today’s GM food is just as safe as selec- genes of organisms as different as viruses and crops, or spi-
tively bred food. Former USDA head Dan Glickman once ders and goats. For another, selective breeding deals with
remarked: whole organisms living in the field, whereas genetic engi-
neering works with genetic material in the lab. Third, tra-
Biotechnology’s been around almost since the beginning ditional breeding selects from combinations of genes that
of time. It’s cavemen saving seeds of a high-yielding plant. come together on their own, whereas genetic engineering
It’s Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, cross-pollinating creates the novel combinations directly. Thus, traditional
his garden peas. It’s a diabetic’s insulin, and the enzymes in breeding changes organisms through the process of selection
your yogurt. . . . Without exception, the biotech products on (pp. 50–53), whereas genetic engineering is more akin to the
280 our shelves have proven safe. process of mutation (p. 50).

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