Face the future and dance. (GM and cloning)

Member Name: pooky

Product:	GM and cloning
Date:	24/01/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Will help feed millions, if we learn how to control it.

Disadvantages: Currently we don't understand it in nearly enough depth.

There are two major problems concerning attitude towards genetic modification. Firstly, on the whole the general public are not educated enough about science and secondly the scientists who do understand it are bad communicators. This leaves communication between the two to travel via journalists who may also not really understand the science, may miss out key points or slant the source material. The press have had a field day with GM, no pun intended, and have undoubtedly skewed the public?s opinion away from GM and towards organic produce. Genetic modification is merely a technique and just like the over-quoted example of nuclear fission, it can be used for harm and good as the following two examples illustrate.

Case One: The flavour saver tomato, now unavailable in all good food shops.

A simplified, but still accurate, description of the production of the flavour saver tomato is as follows. A tomato needs two different proteins to ripen normally. The first protein is produced early on in the ripening process whilst the second is turned on later. Flavour saver?s key is that only the second protein is actually necessary to form a perfectly ripe tomato. Without the first protein the tomatoes don?t ripen early but when the second protein kicks in it finishes the job completely.

The genetic engineers turned off the production of the first protein. They did not add any genes, just turned one off. The upshot of this was that the tomatoes took longer to ripen. Tomatoes grown commercially have to be picked unripe because the sorting and packing would bruise ripe tomatoes. But once picked, tomatoes stop developing taste. The new GM tomatoes could be picked a lot later because their ripening was delayed, allowing them to build up much more taste.

No genes were added and if this tomato ever escaped to the wild it would not be able to compete with natural tomatoes because of its late ripening causing other tomato plants to get eaten first a
nd dominate (there were two proteins there in the fist place for a reason).
Although it is impossible to say something has zero risk, this GM food has a very low risk which is why it found its way onto our shelves.

Case Two: Herbicide resistance.

Case two is somewhat more hypothetical, as we have had no GM disasters, but is still within the realms of possibility. A herbicide resistance protein is added to a strain of wheat. The wheat grows without needing to be sprayed with chemicals that could harm the environment and possibly the consumers. But the wheat breeds with a wild grass and in doing so the grass gains the herbicide resistance gene. This gives the grass a much greater advantage over other local plant life which slowly die off resulting in a landscape where the grass is by far the dominant plant. Not only plants but also animals are affected as one by one their foods of choice disappear, leaving them to starve.

If you consider case one to be the white of GM and case two the black then there are also a million and one grey areas in between. So assuming that genetic modification can be used safely here?s why I think the world cannot do without GM foodstuffs. Population is increasing rapidly and whilst this increase is slowing in the developed world, in the developing world it is out of control. Unfortunately this is also where the poor environment causes difficulty in growing crops. In a recent example, a Mexican biologist created a GM maize plant. It contained an enzyme allowing it to grow in the Mexican soil, which contained high amounts of usually toxic aluminium. If everyone is to be fed we either need to slow or even halt population growth or find a way to increase food yields. As the former looks an unlikely prospect, increasing food production is the only solution. Standard intensive farming can only go so far towards this increase, and is also often prohibitively expensive due to mechanical, chemical and labour costs. r>
Genetic modification holds the key to feeding the world if only we can learn to control it. There is no doubt that the technology is in its infancy and we do not yet understand its complexities enough to become complacent. But the media, and the current trend for organic food, are causing the write off of GM before it has come of age. Hopefully the arrogance of some biotechnology companies will be replaced with a more understanding and questioning attitude, together with increased acceptance amongst the general public. Then perhaps we can make start to make good use out of one of the most potentially exciting and useful tools ever created.