Evolutionary breeding, just like weeds

September 2022

Despite all the toxins, genetic devices, and shear physical destruction we throw at them, pests of all kinds continue to thrive in our fields. As climate change imposes all manner of unusual stresses on the environment, farmers and their crops struggle, while pests go from strength to strength.

It's not too difficult to see why. 

The patent mania of big protein

August 2022

There's a new concentration of power looming in the food system: Big Protein.

The bulk of our protein needs comes from animals, but apparently "animals have just been the technology we have used up until now to produce meat ... What consumers value about meat has nothing to do with how it's made. They just live with the fact that it's made from animals." (Impossible Foods CEO).

Now, it seems, we need to learn to live with the fact that the technology we use to produce 'meat' is shifting from the fields to the factories. That is, to mega-facilities which will extract and purify protein from plants such as soya, wheat, and peas [1], or which will brew animal muscle cells in giant vats [2]; or which will grow bacteria in huge bio-fermenters [3]. The missing meat-like qualities, such as taste, micro-nutrients, texture, fat and blood will be produced in supporting factories. Indeed, "A radically reshaped future is rushing towards us" (Fassler).

If all this sounds like a niche market for wealthy, middle-class animal-lovers who don't mind how processed their food is so long as it doesn't make them feel guilty, be assured that there are big players who expect Big Protein to be a big game.

Fake meat: real pressure on government

August 2022

Make no mistake, your government will be under a lot of pressure to jump on the fake real 'cultured' meat bandwagon [1]. Westminster won't risk being seen as an old-fashioned, backward-looking government, scared to grasp the lab-meat nettle while other governments race ahead.

Fake real meat is being presented as inevitable by companies planning to market it. GOOD Meat, for example, is confidently predicting that its product "will replace conventional meat at some point in our lifetimes" as "consumers increasingly recognise the environmental impact of their diet choices and search for healthier and more sustainable products". 

Who benefits from alternative proteins?

August 2022

What problem is the burgeoning market for alternative proteins from plant-based meat [1] and cell-based meat [2] trying to solve?

Manufacturers of imitation meat stress that their product is one we can "feel good about". It's healthier, it will solve the rising protein needs of our increasing global population, and it will save the planet from the crippling effects of our unsustainable, greenhouse gas-gushing food system.

The problem presented is the need for more protein-rich food at the same time as the need to reduce the greenhouse gases produced by meat production. We can only solve this contradiction by building factories for mass-produced plant-based and cell-based meat substitutes.

Or, are we being lead up the garden path?

Fake real meat - or a bunch of hooey?

August 2022

The latest food-like substance trying to transition from the laboratory to the factory, and hence to our dinner-plates, is fake real meat. That is, real animal cells, whose many-times-great grandparents were part of a real animal and which have been persuaded to multiply themselves in a great big tank, are squished together to make pretend mince-meat.

A better class of fake requires that the cells are exercised on a mini-muscle-gym to make them develop physically more like the real thing, and a scaffold for the cells to grow on to give them a muscle-like shape and texture.

Fake real meat is also known as 'lab' meat, 'cell' meat, 'cultured' meat, 'vat-grown' meat, 'lab-grown' meat, 'lab-cultured' meat, 'in-vitro' meat, and oddly 'cultivated' meat (although ploughs and weed-suppression do not feature in its production).

Government public relations drive on gene edited food

July2022

Analysis

Westminster is pulling out all the stops to force gene-edited foods down UK throats. Its tactics are very reminiscent of those employed a quarter-of-a-century ago, when first-generation GM foods were imminent. However, a couple of lessons have been learned from that first PR disaster.

Gene-edited tomatoes

July 2022

According to media headlines, the UK government has declared gene-edited tomatoes could be in our supermarkets in 2023.

Gene-edited mushrooms

July 2022

In 1932, a legal issue which started with a tenacious Scottish single-parent shop-assistant, who took exception to being served up a decomposing snail in her ice-cream float and pursued her complaint all the way to the House of Lords, ended with the creation of a consumer rights law which became established throughout the world.

The significance of this case is that manufacturers of "articles of common household use" have a legal duty of care to ensure the safety of their products for anyone likely to use them.

From a GM food perspective, novel foods have never been comprehensively tested to ensure their safe, life-long, consumption by any likely consumers.

GM sceptics might suggest that the failure to carry out human trials or use up-to-date analytical techniques on GM foods is to make sure the manufacturer doesn't know about any potential problems.

What better way to avoid that pesky duty of care to ensure safety?

Natural gene editing just doesn't happen

July2022

Under intense industry lobbying, regulators around the world are being persuaded to by-pass safety testing of gene-edited foods [1]. The main argument for ignoring such a basic safeguard of human health is that the genome changes inflicted "could happen in Nature".

This claim is based on a century-old theory that genetic mutations are 'normal', ongoing, random mistakes arising in the inherited "factors or elements"* in cells during reproduction, leading to natural evolution.

* The 1964 Oxford English Dictionary's definition of a 'gene' is "One of the factors or elements of which a germ cell contains a pair transmitted each from one parent"

Throughout the subsequent discovery of chromosomes, DNA, epigenetic modifications to the expression of DNA, and gene-mobility, -families, -linkages, -duplications and -networks, scientists have been unable to let go of the age-old dogma.

Gene-edited crops: controlling, unjustifiable and unnecessary

July 2022

Governments are being persuasively lobbied by the biotech industry to rubber-stamp gene-edited crops with claims that they are democratising, sustainable and necessary.

Democratising?

Herbicide tolerant GM soya is insecticidal too

June 2022

Glyphosate-tolerant GM crops aren't something that usually bring insecticides to mind.  Indeed, historically, US soyabeans were only sporadically challenged by insect pests.  Things changed around 2000 with the arrival of the soybean aphid which can only be controlled by foliar spraying.  Hot on the heels of this pest invasion came dramatic increases in bean leaf beetle which prompted the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue an emergency exemption for neonicotinoid insecticidal seed treatments. 

GM crops adding to ecosystem collapse

June 2022

A key selling-point for 'Bt' insecticide-generating GM crops is that they reduce the need to spray chemical pesticides on the crop. It is claimed this makes them 'environmentally-friendly'.

Indeed, a study published in 2014, which combined data from 147 studies world-wide, showed a significant 42% reduction in the quantity of pesticide applied on Bt crops compared to conventional ones. This was much hyped as proof of the benefits of GM in agriculture by the pro-GM lobby and by the UK government committee which reported it. The study was, however, narrowly focused on comparisons of the weight of pesticide applied in kilograms per hectare or per year. Pre-emptive systemic insecticides, put on the seed but not sprayed onto the crop in the field, were not factored in.

Microbes on the chopping block

June 2022

It's being increasingly recognised that the diversity and stability of the microbial community in our gut (our gut microbiome) are closely linked to health [1]. For example, some bugs create important nutrients from our food, while others detoxify undesirable elements in our food: both are necessary for our health.

"... reductions in microbial diversity are directly associated with altered functionality of the gut microbiome, and are thought to represent a major instigating factor behind the growing global epidemic of chronic, non-communicable, metabolic disease. Such metabolic disorders include irritable bowel syndrome, type-2 diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis, and several types of cancer." (Daisley et al.)

Regulators, manufacturers of glyphosate-based herbicides, and suppliers of glyphosate-tolerant GM seed all maintain there are no human health concerns with glyphosate exposure when the products are used as intended. This assurance includes the glyphosate residues in our diet.

Let's hope they're right because glyphosate is the most frequently detected pesticide in food. Also, testing has revealed traces of glyphosate and its breakdown produce, AMPA, in the urine of up to 90% of farmers in one US State, up to 95% of the general public (including children) in America, 30% of babies less than one month old in one US State, and up to 50% of people in Europe. These figures suggest there's a constant daily exposure to glyphosate from multiple sources, and that there may no longer be any unexposed population to use as a comparator.

The approval of glyphosate is based on the absence of acute toxic effects plus the assumption that because the herbicide disrupts an enzyme essential to all plants but entirely absent from animals, it can't possibly harm humans.

Researchers have pointed out that the major source of our exposure to glyphosate is residues in food and water, while the primary route of elimination of the herbicide from our bodies is in faeces. This makes our digestive system the part of our body exposed to the highest concentrations of the herbicide. Moreover, although glyphosate isn't directly active in human cells, many of the microbes in our gut depend on the very enzyme which glyphosate targets: these could certainly be harmed.

Broad measurements of, for example, gut microbe sensitivity to glyphosate, or the prevalence of different types of bugs known to be linked to health or disease, don't reveal any obvious problems. However, recent research using up-to-date, more sophisticated, analytical methods is telling a rather different story:

• A universal finding seems to be that commercial formulations, which have additives to make the glyphosate more toxic to plants, also make glyphosate more toxic to microbes. Because the additives vary between formulations* any research based on a single brand name or on pure glyphosate can't be generalised to any other version of glyphosate-based contaminant in our diet. * In 2010, there were 750 kinds of glyphosate-based herbicide on the market in the US alone. Now, there are probably thousands world-wide
• One study based on chemical glyphosate identified at least four different enzymes which perform the same role in different species of gut microbe but have different sensitivities to the herbicide. It concluded that 54 percent of species of the bugs in the human gut, or up to 25 percent of the total, are negatively affected by glyphosate.
• Rat and human studies of gut microbes have found that, besides the known negative affect on the ability to form essential proteins, it seems glyphosate can be toxic to energy production, and can generate reactive stress chemicals which have been linked to cancer and other diseases.
• Because it blocks a key biochemical pathway, glyphosate causes the accumulation of 'shikimate'. Shikimate can be beneficial in small doses but in high doses has been linked to cancer.
• And, as if all this wasn't enough, it seems glyphosate can imbalance our gut microbes by boosting certain species which are able to use the herbicide as food.

All these effects are part of a vast, interactive community of microbes some of which vie with each other for supremacy and some of which help each other to thrive.

OUR COMMENT

When all's said and done, epidemiological surveys may be the only thing available to tell us what damage glyphosate-based herbicides (and the staple GM crops dependent on their use) are really doing to us. The findings of these so far haven't been too encouraging [2,3].

In fact, lack of regulatory independence, care and common-sense may have dug our health into a hole it will be very difficult to climb back out of.

HINT: The sooner regulators can be persuaded (by you) to look for and at the evidence of harm from glyphosate-based herbicides, the sooner we can correct our glyphosate-damaged health.

Background

[1] A TALE OF MICROBES, YOUR GUT AND DISEASE - December 2019
[2] HOW MUCH DISEASE IS ROUNDUP CAUSING? - December 2014
[3] WHAT GLYPHOSATE HAS ACHIEVED IN ARGENTINA - June 2018

SOURCES:

• Carey Gillam, New glyphosate papers point to "urgency" for more research on chemical impact to human health, USRTK, 23.11.20
• A. H. C. van Bruggen, et al., October 2021, Indirect Effects of the Herbicide Glyphosate on Plant, Animal and Human Health Through its Effects on Microbial Communities, Frontiers in Environmental Science
• Glyphosate and Roundup disturb gut microbiome and blood biochemistry at doses that regulators claim to be safe, GM Watch 27.01.21
• Robin Mesnage, et al., January 2021, Use of Shotgun Metagenomics and Metabolomics to Evaluate the Impact of Glyphosate or Roundup MON 52276 on the Gut Microbiota and Serum Metabolome of Sprague-Dawley Rats, Environmental Health Perspectives
• Brendan A. Daisley, et al., 2021, Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture - the unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life, Microbiome Research Reports
• Lyydia Leino, et al., 2020, Classification of the glyphosate target enzyme (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) for assessing sensitivity of organisms to the herbicide, Journal of Hazardous Materials
• Patrick Holden, Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment? Chemicals in Agriculture, 5.02.21

Photo Creative Commons

Universal microbiome decline

June 2022

" ... there is a microbial component inherent to all known systems on Earth with cumulative evidence supporting that niche-adapted microbial communities ('microbiomes') play unequivocally important roles in total ecosystem functioning

... Emerging ideologies such as "Planetary Health" and "OneHealth" emphasize these fundamental roles of microbial metabolic processes in supporting macroscopic reality at the systems-level, and further suggest that microorganisms should be viewed as unified constituents rather than as separate entities, as they have been historically regarded."

(Daisley et al.)

How likely is it that glyphosate, an agricultural product with the capacity to kill all green plants, except those genetically modified to resist it, will have no adverse effects on the health of other living things?

Because glyphosate disrupts a vital enzyme present in all plants, but entirely absent from animals, it has always claimed a reputation for safety. Indeed, the herbicide appears to have no acute toxic effects on animals (including humans). However, many kinds of micro-organism do have the enzyme targeted by glyphosate, and it is certainly harmful to them. By extension, the individual 'microbiomes' - the functional communities of diverse microbes which live around, on and inside all animals and plants - will be altered by this herbicide: the inevitable adverse health effects of this have never been considered.

We have only recently become aware of the functional interdependence between an organism and its microbiome. Micro-organisms play a key role in making nutrients available, in excluding pathogens, and in the immune systems of all higher forms of life.

Our crops need the support of a healthy microbiome in a healthy soil for their own health. In many GM and non-GM fields, the soil is subject to glyphosate from multiple sources, such as, spraying, GM root exudates, treated plant debris, and in some soils the release of accumulated mineral-bound herbicide residues.

Unaccountably, regulators seem to ignore the fact that fungi are plants and are a vital sector of the soil microbiome. The anti-fungal effects of glyphosate lead to long-term stunting of plant growth and a gradual reduction of crop yields.

Many plants also depend on visits from healthy insect pollinators. Insects with a glyphosate-damaged gut microbiome don't do much foraging, or help much with our food supply.

Since 2000, feed rations of UK farm animals, particularly poultry and dairy cattle, have included significant quantities of GM maize and soya, both likely to be laced with glyphosate which will damage to our livestock's gut microbiome and health. Indeed, the herbicide has been detected in the urine of up to 96% of farm animals.

Shockingly, animals have been exposed to glyphosate and other microbe-killing chemicals for so long that we no longer have access to any baseline healthy microbiomes with which to compare and investigate the extent of the damage. It's possible that there's already been a mass-extinction of the microbes essential to health.

Indirectly, humans are on the receiving end of all the glyphosate-induced disruption to the health of our plant- and animal-based foods.

Modern industrial-age populations have undergone a systematic depletion of their essential microflora due to the use of antibiotics and disinfectants. Pesticides in our food and water are just another nail in the microbiome coffin.

Glyphosate and its derivative, AMPA, were found frequently in the urine of dogs and cats too, reflecting the GM components in pet food brands. How healthy are our pets?

Regulators have defined an 'acceptable daily intake' (ADI) which is the amount of glyphosate judged safe to ingest on a daily basis over a lifetime. The ADI is one hundredth of the largest dose at which no adverse effect has been observed (i.e. the 'no observed adverse effect level' or NOAEL). Perplexingly, the US 'no adverse effect level' is three and a half times that in Europe.

The amount of glyphosate residues legally allowed by US regulators in food has increased dramatically over the years. These approved increases seem to be in response to commercial farming demands rather than any science-based safety considerations.

A recent study on rats fed three regulatory-relevant doses of glyphosate (the ADI, the EU NOAEL, and the US NOAEL) and using up-to-date analytical methods ('omics'), found alterations in the gut microbiome at all levels of the herbicide tested.

Glyphosate is not, of course, the only suspect but, with its use boosted by the widespread growing of herbicide-tolerant GM crops, is the most frequently applied agrichemical in the world. Much the same issues arise for all the other GM-linked weed-killers now emerging on the market [1,2,3].

Canadian scientists, Daisley et al., who have carried out a detailed analysis of the "Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture" due to the "unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life", conclude there is a pressing need to reassess the use of agrichemcials "through the lens of microbial ecology and the ... effects on host (animal and plant) physiology". This reassessment should include the updating of the legislative framework and long-term studies to reveal subtle, accumulative consequences.

OUR COMMENT

To protect your long-term health , you might like to draw your regulators' attention to the call for legislative improvement to include all levels of microbiome damage.

If you're interested in knowing more about the effects of glyphosate on people, check out MICROBES ON THE GLYPHOSATE CHOPPING BLOCK - May 2022 (coming up next).


Background

[1] DICAMBA - WORSE THAN GLYPHOSATE - October 2021
[2] ISOXAFLUTOLE - THE NEXT HERBICIDE HEADACHE? - October 2021
[3] 2,4-D ON THE MENU TOO - October 2021

SOURCES:

• Brendan A. Daisley, et al., 2021, Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture - the unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life, Microbiome Research Reports
• Patrick Holden, Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment? Sustainable Food Trust, 5.02.21
• Robin Mesnage, et al., January 2021, Use of Shotgun Metagenomics and Metabolomics to Evaluate the Impact of Glyphosate or Roundup MON 52276 on the Gut Microbiota and Serum Metabolome of Sprague-Dawley Rats, Environmental Health Perspectives
• Carey Gillam, New glyphosate papers point to "urgency" for more research on chemical impact to human health, USRTK, 23.11.20
• A. H. C. van Bruggen, et al., October 2021, Indirect Effects of the Herbicide Glyphosate on Plant, Animal and Human Health Through its Effects on Microbial Communities, Frontiers in Environmental Science
• Glyphosate and Roundup disturb gut microbiome and blood biochemistry at doses that regulators claim to be safe, GM Watch 27.01.21
• Don M. Huber, AG chemical and crop nutrient interactions - current update, Fluid Fertilizer Foundation Proceedings Fluid Fertilizer Forum, Scottsdale, February 2010

Photo Creative Commons

GM - an unsustainable, pro-rich technology

May 2022

Indian farmers first embraced GM cotton in 2002. 'Bollgard' cotton with its very own 'Bt' insecticide-generating gene, was heralded as a sustainable, pro-poor technology which would provide substantial benefits to smallholders. It promised reduced pest-damage, reduced chemical treatments, and increased yields.

In a country which contributes a quarter of global cotton, and has seven million smallholder farmers, Bollgard was a silver bullet to combat a key pest.

Within five years, however, the silver bullet was getting tarnished and the pests on cotton were ignoring it. Enter Bollgard II with two varieties of Bt toxin generated at higher levels and combatting more pests.

Breeding Bt crops breeds healthy pests

May 2022

In the first decade of 'Bt' insecticidal GM maize growing, it was noted that aphids unexpectedly thrived on them. Aphids are sap-sucking insects which can reproduce prodigiously under the right conditions, but don't usually cause economic damage to maize crops. It was suggested that these overwhelmingly 'right conditions' in the Bt maize plants might be their slight, but significantly, increased levels of amino acids*, dismissed by regulators as of 'no biological significance'.

Weak skinned Bt plants with Bt unfriendly viruses

May 2022

'Bt' insecticide-generating GM crops are sold as a major weapon in the battle against key species of pest without the need for chemical applications.

The initial benefits of Bt are eroded within a few years, not only by the evolution of resistance in the target pests, but by Bt-resistant non-target pests which are happy to fill the vacant seat at the monoculture banquet.

Early on, we had reports of out-of-control mealy bugs on Bt crops in India and Pakistan [1] and mirid bugs in China [2]. These are assumed to be the result of reduced spraying with broad-spectrum insecticides thanks to Bt.

However, there are some much more complicated environmental interactions going on. For example, mirid bugs were previously minor pests on cotton until the Bt GM version came along.

Super toxic Bt cowpeas

May 2022

In 1990, Monsanto scientists published their latest discovery about the new 'Bt' insecticides generated by GM crops which were soon to become every farmers 'must-have'.

Their exciting finding, with an "immediate commercial implication" was that the insecticidal power of Bt could be increased many fold if its degradation was prevented by the plant itself. Many plants produce substances which prevent the breakdown of proteins, such as the Bt toxin, possibly to keep herbivores at bay by interfering with their digestion. The authors suggested this would confer "significant and long-term implications and benefits" on Monsanto's "genetically improved" Bt-generating plants.

Safety assessment of the new Bt crops was based on two strands of evidence.

Self spreading viruses

April 2022

Is there any such thing as a non-self-spreading virus? Or, to re-phrase the question using some of the alternative, interchangeable, technical terms which pop up: is there any such thing as a non-transmissible, non-self-disseminating, non-contagious, non-horizontally-transferable virus?

The answer is no. Viruses only exist by hijacking living cells and forcing them to churn out viral particles. Viruses wouldn't exist if they weren't self-spreading, transmissible, self-disseminating, contagious, horizontally transferable (and uncontrollable).

So, what are we talking about?

COVID theories - part 3

April 2022

COVID theories part III - The origin of Covid-19 better explained

A year on from the start of the pandemic there was still, by all accounts, a near-consensus view among scientists that the causative agent of Covid-19 lay in natural animals, but some free-thinkers were beginning to explore the unfashionable alternative: the laboratory-escape hypothesis.

Further analysis of the Covid-19 virus structure revealed "multiple peculiar characteristics" (Segret et al.). For example:

• The Covid-19 virus is poorly adapted for infecting bats or pangolins. Yet it emerged, apparently without any (natural) intermediate evolution, remarkably well adapted for infecting humans.

COVID theories - part 2

April 2022

Part II - Some key players in the Covid-19 drama

President of Ecohealth Alliance, Dr Peter Daszak, who worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for 15 years, declared long ago that "Most pandemics ... originate in animals". Since the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak he has claimed any suggestions that the virus might have come from a lab are "preposterous", "baseless", "crackpot", "conspiracy theories" and "pure baloney" because such "lab accidents are extremely rare", and "have never led to large scale outbreaks".

COVID theories - part 1

April 2022

Part I - The source of Covid-19: was it animals or scientists?

Ever since the first reports of a coronavirus outbreak in December 2019 in the Chinese megacity of Wuhan, the origins of Covid-19 have been steeped in controversy. Did the virus just pop out of nature by chance? Or, was it a human creation now running amok? The answer is vital to ensure controls are put in place to reduce the risk of this sad, global history repeating itself.

Gene escape is seriously bad news

March 2022

In 2005 the scientific view was that "... the movement of transgenes beyond their intended destinations is a virtual certainty" (quoted in Ellstrand)

Gene escape from GM crops is something environmental activists have done a lot of shouting about. However, although regulatory lip-service is paid to it in risk assessments, the consequences of walk-about genes seem to be swept under the carpet. The biotech mindset is that artificial genes (including edited ones) will only do what they've been constructed to do wherever they end up: for example, herbicide-tolerance genes will be neutral in the absence of the herbicide, pesticide-generating genes specific to a target pest will be neutral in the absence of that pest, and anyway artificial genes won't find their way into a comfortable, alternative plant host often enough for it ever to matter.

In real-life, not all GM plants are growing neatly in fields [1] and, where wild relatives grow within pollinating distance of GM plants, gene-pollution of their weedy cousins has been widely reported. Although studies on the ecological consequences of this are thin on the ground, what little information we have is ominous.

Indirectly GM bees

 March 2022

"Even with the complete genetic information of a synthetic micro-organism, it is beyond the capacity of any existent bioinformatic analysis to fully predict the capability of a synthetic organism to survive, colonise and interact with other organisms under natural conditions, given the uncountable diversity of potential microhabitats and their temporal variability." (European Food Safety Authority, 2020)

By "synthetic micro-organism" is meant GM bacteria, GM fungi and GM yeast*. In their natural form all of these are a permanent feature inside, on and around higher plants and animals where they interact with each other and with their host to play a vital role in health and disease.

Caddisfly non-science nonsense

March 2022

The industry-friendly notion that the by-products of GM crops would somehow remain harmlessly in the fields was proved wrong in 2007 when a team of American biologists went out and did some science.

Escaped genes - a risk assessment minefield

March 2022

While conventional breeding speeds up the evolution of plants and skews it gradually to fit human needs, genetic engineering forces abrupt and disruptive changes in genome structure and function. The artificial gene (or edit) functions as it's designed to within the highly uniform genetic and environmental context of a modern commercial crop. How does it function in any other genome and ecosystem?

Risk assessment of GM plants has always focused on the intended artificial trait coupled to an assumption that if the altered bit of DNA 'escaped' into other plant populations it would fizzle out over time unless it conferred a clear, identifiable, risk-assessable fitness advantage. Now that we've grown GM crops in various environments for over two decades and there's been time for gene contamination incidents to inform the science, this trait-centred risk assessment is proving shaky.

GM safeguards scrapped in the UK

February 2022

As Westminster continues its love affair with high-tech industrial agriculture, the dismantling of GM safeguards in the UK is underway.

Towards the end of 2021, our Environment Secretary announced regulatory exemptions for field trials of "plants produced by genetic technologies where genetic changes could have occurred naturally or could have been a result of traditional breeding methods".

GM cotton in India

February 2022

Once upon a time in India, farmers grew indigenous ('desi') Asiatic cotton.

Desi cotton was grown in multi-cropping systems which provided back-up crops if one of them failed. It could be planted at a high density to increase yield and had a short season which reduced pest exposure. This traditional cotton had good tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, including bollworm, saline conditions and drought. Today, the crop accounts for less than 3% of the cotton area in India.

GM staples in Africa

February 2022

The vast continent of Africa has long been a key target for GM agriculture [1,2]. So far, three GM crop types (cotton, soya and maize) all with the standard insect-resistance or herbicide-tolerance traits have been released across six African countries, the most widely adopted one being 'Bt' insecticidal cotton. These are all commodity crops designed for maximum yield, and are promoted as a tool to boost agricultural productivity and alleviate food insecurity. There has, however, been a clear gap between the promises and the reality.

A study published in 2021 explored this problem.

GM wheat in Argentina

February 2022

In 2004, the US, Canadian and European wheat markets breathed a sigh of relief when Monsanto yielded to pressure and withdrew its glyphosate-tolerant GM wheat from the pipeline.

Predictably, it was just a matter of time before GM wheat popped up again, this time as 'HB4' with combined drought-resistance and tolerance to glufosinate herbicide.

HB4 has now been approved by Argentina: no surprise there, because the country has long been a key route used by the agrichemical industry as a bridgehead to the rest of Latin America for the (legal and illegal) dissemination of its products.

GM animals on the menu

January 2022

As we enter 2022, what happened to the GM edible animals that we've been promised over the years?

Super-fast growing GM salmon have been trying to emerge from the lab since 1989 [1,2,3].

Having gained regulatory approval in America in 2015, GM salmon are now legal to produce and sell there despite being declared unlawful in 2020 due to the absence of any environmental risk assessment.

Gene edited 'healthy' bread

January 2022

One elusive, and potentially very lucrative, holy grail long pursued by the biotech industry is GM wheat. Not just any GM wheat of course, but one which is acceptable to consumers and to their food suppliers.

Realising that the ace to play in winning over a biotech-sceptical public could well be the anti-cancer card, the US market is being sounded out using gene-edited potatoes designed not to give you cancer [1] and cancer-busting GM purple tomatoes [2]. In the UK, the government is forging ahead with a field trial of gene-edited wheat which they claim, like the GM spuds, won't give us cancer. 

'Stress busting' tomatoes

January 2022

In 2021, a Japanese university start-up company, Sanatech Seed, launched the world's first direct consumption genome-edited tomato with "enhanced nutritional benefits".

The novel product was carefully chosen to minimise consumer suspicion: a popular strain of tomato was used and a nutrient that people are "already used to buying in other products" which have naturally high levels.

Sanatech Seed's president explained "This tomato represents an easy and realistic way in which consumers can improve their daily diet" ... "we felt it was important to introduce (consumers) to the technology in a way that was already familiar to them".

This cosily familiar nutrient which Sanatech Seed wants you to want more of is γ-aminobutyric acid (a.k.a. 'GABA').

If you don't recall ever putting GABA on your shopping list, that's because the "other products" referred to are things like cabbage, broccoli, spinach, soya, mushroom and peas.

GM toy tomatoes

January 2022

Genetic engineers have always liked playing with tomatoes.

The first GM food to hit US supermarket shelves was a tomato with a gene for ripening switched off [1]. This was Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato designed by science to last longer on the vine (it did), to be easier to handle during distribution (it wasn't), to taste better (it was pronounced 'mediocre') and to sell at a premium (it didn't). The Flavr Savr tomato's main claim to fame was its inappropriate (some would say absurd) use as a model GMO to set US regulations for all subsequent GM foods. Launched in 1994, the disappointing Flavr Savr finally sank into oblivion three years later.

The first GM food to hit UK supermarket shelves was Zeneca's cheap tinned Californian tomato puree made from GM tomatoes designed for lower processing costs due to their engineered reduced water content. These sank into oblivion in 1999 after two successful years and one disastrous year when consumer awareness caught up with the meaning of its "genetically modified" label.

Fast forward to 2008 when the media went wild reporting preliminary results of a GM 'anti-cancer' tomato produced by GM crop research scientists at the UK's John Innes Centre (JIC). These novel purple-fleshed, high-antioxidant ('anthocyanine') tomatoes were going to "save your life" (Martin).

Hopefully, no one held their breath waiting for their life to be saved by a tomato, because they'd still be waiting.