The future of potatoes

December 2018

GM potatoes with a little extra something for everyone are wending their way into American supermarkets. To please the potato processors, these wondrous spuds don't get black spots when bruised [1]. To satisfy French fry aficionados, they don't turn brown when they're old and fried.

To coax consumers, GM relieves them of the dread threat of 'acrylamide' carcinogen in their fries [2]. To suit farmers, they promise blight-free crops. These spuds are very novel and very uniform. They come at a cost, and with more than a few risks [3].

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.

Enogen contamination concerns

April 2017

In 2011, the first GM maize created solely for industrial purposes was approved for cultivation by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

'Enogen' maize has incorporated a bacterial enzyme, 'alpha-amylase', which digests starch to produce sugar. Conveniently, this enzyme can be used at the high temperatures. This makes it useful for the production of ethanolic fuel to make American cars greener.

Up until the introduction of Enogen, the first stage of converting maize to ethanol was to mix in liquid amylase under carefully controlled conditions. Now, as little 15% of Enogen maize in the feed-stock is enough to efficiently decompose all the starch present* without further ado.

All maize is wormy now

March 2017

If you've been following the GM issue for a while, cast your mind back to 2006. A long-standing, respected British science journal gave its "Outstanding Paper Award for Excellence" to a study which could be better described as a pro-GM PR initiative dressed up as science.

To assess what influenced consumer purchasing decisions, the study offered 'Bt' insecticide-generating GM sweet corn for sale in a Canadian farm shop beside conventional sweet corn. One of the more blatant exercises in propaganda used during this 'study' was the descriptors attached to the two types of sweet corn: the conventional one was labelled 'wormy' followed by a list of the pesticides sprayed on it; the GM one was labelled 'quality' with the 'Bt' (insecticide!) part kept separate.

Fast forward ten years and check out how these two sweet corns would truthfully be labelled today. The wormy one is still wormy and still sprayed with multiple pesticides. And the quality one?

Real-life GM alfalfa contamination

April 2016

The GM alfalfa grass saga continues ... [1]

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has long maintained that GM crops can co-exist with conventional and organic agriculture.  To keep GMOs in the field where they've been planted, all that's needed is for neighbouring farmers to sort things out between themselves, follow "best management practice", and sue each other if things go wrong. 

But, GM alfalfa, is blowing that narrative apart.

A constant supply of GMO contamination

June 2015

Photo Creative Commons

Switzerland has never allowed the cultivation nor import of GM oilseed rape. Despite this, in 2011 and 2012, GM rape was found to be growing wild along railway lines near the freight station and in port areas in Basel.

The following year, further more detailed sampling was carried out to investigate how this has come about.

Maize pollen travels a long way

January 2015

Field of corn. CC photo by Joel Dinda on Flickr

German scientists have come up with a large and well-controlled data-set which suggests that the management of 'Bt' insecticidal maize (the only GM crop grown on any scale in Europe) is fundamentally flawed.

America: one vast outdoor GMO experiment

November 2014

Prairie road through canola. CC photo by Jeff Franklin on Flickr

In 2010, a US specialist in plant populations found GM canola thriving widely along North Dakota roadsides. It was genetically transformed to resist proprietary herbicides and had been sprouting for generations. Recently, she gave an update:

“It's still there, and it's always going to be there. When you're driving down the road, and the only thing standing is herbicide-resistant canola, biodiversity has taken a hit.”

Commercial strains of herbicide-resistant canola growing where they shouldn't be are easy to spot. But the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the body responsible for promoting and protecting US agriculture, has approved nearly 20,000 field trial permits covering some 100,000 plantings of experimental GM crops.



Are these crops already joining the roadside GM canola which is "always going to be there"?

Meaningless prohibitions

October 2014

Anti-GMO protester

So far, America has single-handedly contaminated the world rice market with an experimental GM variety (herbicide-tolerant LL62, illegal at the time but legalised in a hurry by the US administration), permanently contaminated its own commodity maize supply with a GM variety (insect-resistant StarLink, legally grown for a short time and since banned on safety grounds), and is grappling with two inexplicable contamination-incidents involving two different GM wheat varieties (both herbicide-tolerant, one in Oregon and one in Montana, neither legal anywhere).

Are these real-world warnings being taken to heart?

After recurrent contamination problems from experimental trials of GM pharmaceutical plants APHIS* was stirred into action.

*Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture

Biotech company, Prodigene, was fined a modest $3,500 for the infringements, but the Company and its “successors in interest” were also prohibited from carrying out any future GM releases.

GM crops in Europe - game on

July 2014

Photo credit "Épône - récolte du maïs01" by Spedona - Own work
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%89p%C3%B4ne_-_r%C3%A9colte_du_ma%C3%AFs01.jpg#mediaviewer/File:%C3%89p%C3%B4ne_-_r%C3%A9colte_du_ma%C3%AFs01.jpg

The Westminster GM plot, hatched in 2012 and nurtured along by former UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, seems to be reaching fruition [1].

 

EU ministers have been persuaded to agree to the planting of two new GM maize crops. This has been made possible by a concurrent decision to allow Member States with on-going concerns to opt out of growing GM, rather than blocking their approval. The proposal also includes a clause on liability for damage caused by the biotech crops, and a clause which makes it compulsory for Member States to implement rules for the prevention of contamination.

 

Around half of EU Member States have indicated a wish to opt out. But will it be that easy?

GM crop decontamination in Oregon

August 2013

Sugar beet. CC photo by USDA on Flickr

Something's happening in the US State of Oregon that we, in Europe, have been led to believe Americans don't do. People are pulling up GM plants: 6,500 GM sugar-beets to be precise.

It's not too hard to understand why such anti-American behaviour should emerge in this particular State. The State has already had more than its fair share of awareness-raising events.

Earlier in 2013, another GM-impossible happened there: rogue GM wheat was found growing on an Oregon farm (see CONTAMINATION DÉJÀ VU - June 2013). Such genetic pollution by a GM plant not approved anywhere in the world could cost American farmers billions of dollars. Despite Department of Agriculture scouring of grain elevators, fields and research stations, the source of the contamination hasn't been found: it could happen again any time, anywhere.

GM contamination déjà vu

June 2013

Wheat field in Oregon. Photo by Gary Halvorson
Oregon State Archives [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

GM Freeze has repeatedly pointed out that the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops without contamination is almost impossible. GM pollen, GM seed and inevitable human error conspire to spread artificial DNA around no matter how rigorous the prescribed containment procedures.

In May 2013, US regulators announced that Roundup(herbicide)-resistant wheat had been found growing on a farm in Oregon: analysis confirmed it contained Monsanto's modified genes.

GM cotton - here, there... nowhere

February 2013

Cotton field. Picture by Aileen's Pics on Flickr

Mexico is the centre of origin of domesticated cotton. Clearly, steps to protect wild cotton's natural diversification are critical for conservation and future breeding.

Despite this, GM cotton has been cultivated in the north of the country since 1996, and 21 gene transformation events have been approved there (5,985 permits to sow GM cotton were issued in the first 12 years).

Genes can escape through pollen and seeds. Because cotton plants are mainly self-pollinating and the two species grown commercially in the USA can't hybridise, there's little opportunity for gene movement through pollen. However, seeds have plenty of potential for dispersal: they survive much longer than pollen and can be moved far and wide by water, weather and birds; once the cotton fibre has been removed, the seeds end up as truckloads of animal feed (on their way into the human food-chain) travelling the highways.

Why 'co-existence' is impossible

January 2013

Canola. Photo Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives [Attribution]
via Wikimedia Commons

1. GM canola flows along roads

A year ago, we reported that GM canola (oil seed rape) was being found everywhere.

This “everywhere”, referred to the well-established and happily inter-breeding GM plants now widespread on roadsides in Canada and America.

Australian organic farmer in first GM contamination lawsuit

October 2011

Canola field in Australia
Picture by sachman75 on Flickr

Australia is lagging many years behind America in the GM game, but its government is trying hard to play catch up.

With polls showing a majority of Australians are 'uncomfortable' with GM plants and more so with GM animals, the government seems to be resorting to spin and subterfuge.

In 2010, the Western Australia (WA) agricultural minister, Terry Redman, ended his state's ban on the growing of GM canola. At the time, he declared confidently that the crop could be controlled, and quoted scientific trials which “proved GM and non-GM canola can be segregated and marketed separately. The report on the trials indicated there were 11 minor events (on 18 sites) and all were managed appropriately and segregation from paddock to port was achieved”