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.

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.

Glyphosate is damaging our children

September 2021

 

Glyphosate-based herbicides have become ubiquitous in our food chain and in our environment. Their presence has been boosted, especially, by GM glyphosate-tolerant commodity crops such as soya, maize, sugar-beet, cotton, and oil-seed rape.

How much damage are these herbicides doing to our children? Even before they've been born? And even threatening their very existence?

Scientific mindsets clash over GM mozzies

February 2020

At the end of last year, GM-free Scotland reported a study which found a significant presence of offspring of Oxitec's GM 'sterile' male mosquitoes flying around in areas of Brazil where a trial release had been carried out [1]. The object of the trial was to prevent dengue virus by eradicating its mosquito vector. The predicted "barrage of attempts to discredit the scientists and their science which seem to have become routine in response to any biotech-unfriendly research results" duly unfolded.

No surprise there, except that the attack on the study, including a demand for retraction, was led by one of the paper's own co-authors and supported by five of the others.

GM mozzie ethics wanting

November 2019

Manufacturer of GM insects, Oxitec, seems to have had little difficulty persuading Brazilian regulators to approve the commercial release of its first-generation, 'male sterile' GM mosquitoes intended to control the spread of Dengue virus. 

GM mozzies out of control?

November 2019

GM 'sterile' male mosquitoes are designed to breed with natural, native females, but fail to generate viable offspring.  In theory, these GM insects are supposed to control the mosquito-borne spread of viruses, such as Dengue fever, by suppressing their vector.  

However, a study has been published showing a "significant" emergence of hybrid, GM-strain/native, mosquitoes in a Brazilian city after releases of Oxitec's 'sterile male' GM mosquitoes.   

Gene-driven pollution

February 2019

When the notion that "site-specific selfish genes" (able to copy themselves into a particular target DNA sequence) suggested the possibility of gene drives, a technique to rid the world of malaria immediately presented itself. The author who described this warned that the technology "is not to be used lightly, and that containment issues and the desirability of eradicating or genetically modifying a wild species "ought to be addressed during development" with "wide-ranging discussions".

Then came CRISPR [1], which can be designed to target any desired section of host DNA to bring about any desired molecular alteration there, and can be coupled to a gene drive.

Cost-cutting in Brazil

November 2018

In 2016, organic food sales in Brazil were mushrooming by 20 to 30 percent a year.  At the same time, some 70 percent of organic produce was being exported to Europe.  Farmers there recognise that "Growing organics is the future", and the people are increasingly "wanting healthier food free from pesticides".

Were it not for the alliance between the government and Big Agriculture, which is driving the economy, and the supermarkets, which are controlling the food supply system, organics would be a key growth industry.  Instead, it remains a tiny fraction of the whole, swamped by Big Ag's desire for GM crops and their supporting chemicals.  Supermarkets, of course, promote cut-throat competition amongst their suppliers, and the 'winners' are the unrestrained fraudsters passing off conventional pesticide-laden food as 'organic'.

Faced with this scenario, the Brazilian government is busy pushing through two far-reaching pieces of legislation.

GM sugarcane

July 2017

Brazil has been a major supplier of non-GM soya to Europe. While huge tracts are planted with GM soya, the country has a very large land area and is confident it can keep GM and non-GM separate.

Last year, saw reductions in several GM-growing areas around the world: two countries (Romania and Burkino Faso) discontinued GM agriculture, India dropped GM cotton cultivation due to pest problems, one of China's biggest provinces implemented a 5-year ban on growing, processing and selling GM crops, Chinese GM cotton planting dropped 24%, while Argentina moved to crop diversification and away from GM. However, globally, the hectares planted to GM crops continue to edge upwards because the reductions have been offset by continuing increases in North and South America where 90% of GM plantings take place.

In Brazil there has been a rise in GM crop area, most of which will be soya, accompanied by reports of the deforestation of nearly 2 million acres of the Brazilian Amazon, the first in a decade.

This renewed environmental destruction may portend something more ominous than just more GM soya.

Regulators in Brazil have approved the commercial use of GM sugarcane.

GM trees on the march

July 2017

GM trees are coming on in leaps and bounds.  The fruit of the Arctic Apple-tree is making its appearance in American Midwest stores [1], but the big GM tree event is 'short-rotation woody crops'.

Short-rotation woody crops are fast growing trees which can be harvested in just a few years for industrial purposes such as paper and biofuels.  Eucalyptus, which escaped from its native Australia when Captain Cook arrived there, has become one such major crop since the 19th Century.  Because different species are adaptable to many local climates, plantations are now found on every continent.  The next wave, just beginning to gain momentum, is GM eucalyptus.

Oxitec business

September 2016

Photo: Creative Commons

From its August beginnings as a commercial spin-off from Oxford University's Innovation management subsidiary, 'Oxitec' self-destruct GM mosquitoes have never quite fulfilled early expectations.

Even the rosy vision of an end to major world killers like malaria, and dengue fever didn't manage to sell Oxitec mozzies.

However, Zika virus with its horrific connections to birth defects, provided a much better PR platform to generate the will to spend cash and annihilate mosquitoes at any cost [1].

In the meantime, the rights to Oxford's GM mozzies have been sold into the tender care of US-based Intrexon Corporation, and continue to be mired in controversy.

Zika and super-zika

April 2016

One of the big health issues to emerge in 2016 is the Brazilian epidemic of babies tragically born with 'microcephaly' (undeveloped brain) and other deformities.  Between October 2015 and January 2016, some 4,000 cases of malformation were reported, with 49 deaths.  Health officials were quick to blame Zika virus which had been first identified in Brazil in April/May 2015.

GM crop failures 2015

February 2016

GM in Europe

There's only one kind of GM maize being grown in Europe, and it isn't doing too well.

Syngenta found guilty of murder

December 2015

Swiss biotech giant, Syngenta, has been found  guilty of murder and attempted murder by a Brazilian court.

The judge described the incident, which was a direct result of a bad outsourcing choice of security services by Syngenta, as a "massacre".

Long-term followers of GM-free Scotland may remember the original shocking report of deaths and serious injury to peasant GM-protesters in Brazil (MURDER IN BRAZIL - December 2007).

The violence erupted in a Syngenta-owned GM experimental field centre, which had been the scene of anti-GM activism for over a year, and which the State Governor had unsuccessfully tried to turn into an agro-ecological research centre to benefit poor farmers.

Germany shows the way to GM-free soya

December 2015

We're at last beginning to face up to the reality that the world's natural resources are finite and that we're choking to death in waste of our own creation. The buzz-word du jour is 'sustainability', because without it, we're doomed.

Sustainability of our food crop production is of course a multi-dimensional issue.

Suicide-bomber organisms

Image Creative Commons

July 2015

In 2000, 193 governments signed up to a moratorium created at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity which specified that Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTS) would not be field tested nor commercialised.

GURTS, also known as 'terminator technologies', span any genetic trick used to prevent reproduction of GMOs.

The first GURTS were used to produce GM plants with sterile seed which farmers couldn't 'steal' to grow the next year's crop, and which provided very cost-effective in-built protection for industry patent rights. Concerns were raised, and never resolved, that the artificial fertility-damaging genes could spread into conventional crops and cripple yields.

Things went quiet for a while, but then terminator trees loomed over the horizon and, this year, the Brazilian government began to wrestle with idea of embracing crops with GURTS.

It's also emerging that some very fancy genetic systems for self-destruction are under development.

Fast fat GM eucalyptus trees

December 2014

 

Eucalyptus trees. CC Photo by Victor Camilo on Flickr

An application to plant transgenic eucalyptus trees in Brazil is underway. If successful, this will mean vast monocultures of GM trees spreading across the country. Eucalyptus is not a food, but its products and presence have huge impacts on humans.

 

Details about the artificial DNA construct in the trees are sparse, but the gene is based on one found in a tiny fast-growing weed. The novel enzyme generated by the gene seems to disrupt the cellulose (woody material) around plant cells and induce faster cell division and growth rate. As a result, the GM eucalyptus has a thicker trunk and is big enough to harvest in only five-and-a-half years, instead of the seven years needed for current commercial conventional varieties.

 

The primary purpose of all that extra eucalyptus wood is to produce paper, but other uses are being explored such as bioplastics and renewable fuels; one particular suggestion has been pellets for export to the UK to co-fire with coal in our power stations. 

Bt soya feeds pests

November 2014

Recognising the “critical” need to “improve our knowledge of the bigger picture of 'Bt' crop impacts, a Brazilian team has published a study on what seems to be an increasing problem in biotech crops in their country. 

The latest thing in GM soya is Monsanto's 'Intacta'. This crop generates a 'Bt' insecticidal protein, 'Cry1Ac', which is effective against moths, but doesn't work against 'armyworm', another key pest of soya. 

Bt GM crops aren't very insect reststant

September 2014



Bt brinjal (aubergine) protest. CC photo Joe Athialy on Flickr

Is the biotechnology industry vision of perfect GM crops, untouched by pests, falling apart?

Is the grand US vision of its GM technology saving farmers in developing countries getting shaky?

Reports coming from around the world in suggest the dreams are not all they're cracked up to be.