Keep hidden gene-edited crops out of the food chain

September 2018

Biotech scientists in the UK have successfully fooled themselves and their regulators into believing that artificial mutation is somehow a "natural phenomenon", and that the outcomes of new mutagenesis techniques could somehow happen in nature. Earlier this year, encouraged it seems by the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), our Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was happy to give consent for field trials of GM Camelina*. These experimental crops include two lines produced using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing [1].

Both scientists and regulators were so convinced that the preliminary opinion issued by the European Court of Justice Advocate General in January this year had said that all mutagenesis techniques should be exempt from regulation instead of what it did actually say [2], that they forged ahead with the development of gene-edited crops. The field trials have, therefore, not been subject to any GM-related safeguards.

Fish oil from a plant

March 2014

Camilina sativa. Picture from Creative Commons

A major English GM research facility, the John Innes Centre (JIC), has applied to DEFRA to field test a new GM crop, 'false flax' (Camilina sativa) which has been genetically transformed to accumulate omega-3 long-chain fatty acids in its seed. 

Since Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, will ultimately be responsible for approving the trial, permission is unlikely to be denied [1]. 

Omega-3 long-chain fatty acids in the form of 'EPA' and 'DHA' (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexanenoic acid), are only synthesized by primitive plants, such as algae, and are a vital part of the diet of fish.  They are also credited with important health effects in the humans who eat the fish, especially oily fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, and sardines.  In particular, the JIC cites “strong evidence” that these fatty acids are linked to a lowered risk of death from coronary heart disease.  For this reason, official health advice is to eat two portions of oily fish a week.  All fish are, of course, a valuable source of protein.

In the wild, EPA and DHA in algae are passed up the food-chain from algae-feeders to the fish which eat them.  Farmed fish are fed on fish oil and meal from species of fish not suitable for food.  This production process is now reaching its limit and is unsustainable. 

The GM answer is an oilseed crop which generates 'fish oil' substitute to feed fish to feed us. 

The New Year GM pep talk

February 2014

No New Year would be complete without a GM pep-talk from our Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, at the influential annual Oxford Farming Conference [1].  

As before, Paterson's seven paragraphs on GM buried in a sixty-paragraph speech became a major headline in a major national newspaper.  This seems to have been assisted by a particularly histrionic sound-byte suggesting that “Europe  risks becoming the Museum of World Farming as innovative companies make decisions to invest and develop new technologies in other markets”.  

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.

The day of the Triffid flax

Archive news - November 2009 (Please note links may no longer be active)

Triffid genes have been found contaminating imported flax in Europe, where they risk contaminating cereal, bakery goods, bread and omega-3 fatty acid supplements.

On September 8, 2009, the EU issued a Rapid Action Alert closely followed by four others when a German food processing company detected GM genes in its products. Contaminated shipments may have been distributed to 10 EU countries and 28 countries world-wide.

Waves of gene pollution

January 2011

A land-mark federal court case in the US in 2010 has, at last, formally recognised the existence of real dangers from gene pollution, and at the same time highlighted the irresponsible attitude of regulators and industry.

So, no one has been harmed by GM food?

January 2011

There's no doubt that GM foods have been part of the typical American diet for many years. This is hardly surprising when an estimated 70% of all foods on US supermarket shelves contain genetically modified ingredients, including most things bulked up with starches, sugar syrups, vegetable oils, 'protein' in various guises, imitation meat, and a host of additives. Over and above this 70% of processed food, the majority of animal products come from livestock given GM feed.

US consumers, we are told have a high degree of faith in the food-safety oversight carried out by their regulatory agencies (the FDA, EPA,and USDA), and are happy to accept GM, even if most of them don't know they're eating it. The oft-repeated basis for this confidence is “We can't argue with the record: no one has been made ill from eating genetically modified foods”.