Emma Cooper

At the FoGroBloMe 09 blogger meet-up, Ben Gable from Real Seeds gave a presentation on why he thinks GM plants are a bad idea. Ben trained as a scientist (microbiology, iirc) and put forward a series of convincing arguments that GM crops pose a threat to long term food security and are, anyway, inefficient.

Since then I have studied genetic modification for myself, as part of my Plants and People Open University course (which I can thoroughly recommend if you’re interested in botany and ethnobotany). Thus I can explain a bit about what is involved in genetic modification and why it is done.

Traditional plant breeding relies (like traditional animal breeding) on sexual reproduction. Individual plants from the same species are allowed to pollinate each other, so the offspring that result from their seeds share a combination of characteristics from both parents. You can then select the offspring you think are better, and allow them to cross with others so that – after several generations – you have a new variety of the plant with the characteristics you were hoping for.

It’s a time-consuming process, and can be a bit hit-and-miss, although it has served humans (and plants!) well for thousands of years.

Genetic modification is a short-cut, aiming to add a specific gene to a plant to change the characteristics it displays. There are three ways to do this, all of which are lacking in subtlety.

The first way is to use a bacterium that has the ability to insert genes into plants. It’s possible to mess with the bacterium so that it inserts the gene you want. Job done.

The second way is to literally fire the gene into the plant and hope that some of it gets stuck in the right place. As you can imagine, it’s not an exact science.

With those two methods, the inserted gene ends up in the plant’s own DNA sequence and can be passed onto its offspring.

In the third method, a virus is used to transfer the gene, but it doesn’t get to the right place to be passed on, so you’ve only created one genetically modified generation.

Some of the things plant researchers have tried to do via genetic modification include making plants resistant to specific pesticides or herbicides, so that they are not affected when a field is sprayed with chemicals. They can also add a certain amount of pest resistance (although pests and plants are locked into an arms race, so pests are likely to overcome this eventually). They can create fruits that ripen more slowly (for longer storage and easier transportation) and they can make plants that manufacture extra vitamins (vitamin A being the obvious one) and are therefore ‘more nutritious’. They can also make things glow in the dark.

There are numerous concerns about genetic modification, which can insert genes from one species into another (something nature is generally very reluctant to do). There are concerns about whether the resulting plants are safe for human consumption, and about whether the inserted genes stay put or escape into the natural environment (there is evidence that they do escape) and cause unexpected contamination.

On the flip side, proponents of GM technology insist that it is the only way we will be able to feed our increasing population in the long term, although most problems with the food supply at the moment are about distribution and access rather than sheer quantities.

There is mud slinging from both sides, with the scientists portrayed as blind to the consequences, the corporations involved thought to be soulless and money grabbing. Opponents are generally thought to be lacking the mental ability to understand the process and the benefits it may bring.

As I have mentioned before, I am a trained scientist, but I am also an organic gardener. As such I would hope that I understand both sides of the issue. Personally I am concerned about the contamination issues and the new species we may release on the planet. I am happy to support the moratorium on GM plants we have in the UK, wouldn’t grow them myself and hope to be able to avoid eating them.

How about you?