It should be recalled from this point of view that not-aimed insertion of DNA into the receiving genomes is the main reason of the unfortunate failure of gene therapy in humans. The real danger being, also in this case, glyphosate and its adjuvants.
As far as the future is concerned, I am really extremely worried about open air cultivation of plants which are transgenic for pharmaceuticals, because in that case cross-pollination with vaccines or other proteins could be really dangerous, as it could lead to unneeded pharmaceuticals in food.
Of course, on the other hand, plants transgenic of proteins not liable to be produced by prokaryotes, if the plants are not to be grown in open air, may certainly be interesting.
When judging a novel technology the first question to be answered is whether the technology is really innovative and successful.
Which are the major technical advancements in plant genetic engineering since the release into the market of the first genetically modified products? The first GM crops on the market were engineered for herbicide tolerance; these were soon followed by plants engineered for pest resistance. More than 15 years later, almost all commercially approved GM crops still have one or both of these traits, and for the first time in —, plants stacked with multiple traits were grown more widely than those with single traits.
Smartstax corn, jointly developed by Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, combining eight different herbicide and pest resistance traits. Despite the rather limited scope of current commercial GM crops, the development pipeline is incredibly rich and diverse. Innovations in the development of GM crops fall into four major areas, which can be described as improved first-generation crops focusing on input traits but using innovative approaches , novel second-generation crops delivering better output traits , third-generation crops delivering value added products and technical developments such as the control of transgene expression Farre et al.
In the first category, several new approaches have been developed to achieve pest resistance in addition to the current reliance on Bt genes, because Bt genes do not exist to counter the effects of all known pests. Also, there is the potential for pest populations to evolve resistance to single Bt toxins Christou et al. As well, there are alternative protein toxins such as lectins that work against recalcitrant sap-sucking insects; novel approaches include the expression of toxin fusions Mehlo et al.
A small number of commercial crops are resistant to diseases, such as virus-resistant papaya, squash, plum and bean plants, and rice plants resistant to bacterial infections. Many additional GM crops resistant to various viral, bacterial and fungal diseases are under development, using a vast number of different approaches, such as enhancing natural plant defenses, the expression of pathogen proteins, the expression of plant-proteins that repel specific pathogens and even the expression of mammalian antibodies that neutralize pathogens inside the plant Collinge et al.
Many concepts have also been developed that will help crops withstand harsh environments, especially drought, high levels of salinity, waterlogging and poor soil quality Cominelli and Tonelli Although first-generation crops benefit farmers mainly by allowing them to overcome biological and environmental extremes biotic and abiotic stresses , the next breakthrough in GM agriculture will be the deployment of second-generation crops, where the benefits are targeted at consumers.
In multivitamin corn, three distinct metabolic pathways are modified to simultaneously enhance the levels of three key vitamins. There has also been remarkable progress in the development of third-generation GM crops, which are not intended for human consumption but instead have valuable industrial uses Naqvi et al.
At the forefront are pharmaceutical crops producing proteins or small-molecules of medical relevance Ma et al. In our laboratory we have achieved the production of an HIV-neutralizing antibody in corn which could be used as a microbicide component to help prevent the spread of the virus Ramessar et al. The value of producing such molecules in plants rather than mammalian cells or bacteria as is usually the case is the reduced costs, the better safety profile no human or animal pathogens, no endotoxins and the massive production scale that can be achieved with little additional effort Stoger et al.
Also in this category are plants used to produce industrial raw materials e. In both cases, it is important to avoid competition with food crops. Finally, a variety of novel technologies have been developed to control transgene expression, e. Some might argue that the development pipeline discussed above is misleading because only four cultivated crops with the same two modifications have reached the market.
Does this then mean that all the others have been failures? I would say that the answer is emphatically no. First, there are other products on the market that do not receive as much attention, e.
On top of this, the activity of NGOs that oppose GM crops is often supported by public administrations and welcomed by the media, resulting in approved GM crops like Bt potato being rejected by the food industry to avoid campaigns against their brands. We can define them as technical and regulatory successes, but marketing failures, as happens in many other areas of the economy. Golden Rice will soon be grown on a large scale in the Philippines.
It has taken years to obtain regulatory approval and funding for this was raised only recently. Because Golden Rice does not directly benefit farmers, there was no incentive for industry to cover the approval costs. My opinion is that these costs should have been covered by government public health authorities, as they stand to lose the most from a population riven by vitamin A deficiency and they have the most to gain from the health benefits derived from this crop.
After the development by M. Chilton in of the first method of plant genetic engineering through the usage of Agrobacterium tumefaciens, the first transgenic plant tobacco , was produced in and a few years later Bt genes for resistance to insects and genes for the resistance to herbicides were introduced into crops.
The first transgenic cultivar to enter the market was the Tomato Flavr Savr, resistant to rotting, in , but it was very soon withdrawn, because of unexpected negative side effects of the transformation. In both insect resistant maize and RR soybean herbicide resistant plants were introduced into the market. As reported by Clive James in the annual review of cultivated GMPs in , only four cultivated crop plants, still bearing the same two modifications, are in the market and have been widely commercialised soybean, maize, cotton, canola.
In the meantime, research intensity on the part of the leading companies has been decreasing as discussed by Schimmelpfennig et al. Obviously, this speaks very little for an innovative technology whose first products have been on the market for almost 15 years.
Of course this does not mean that new useful and efficient products could not be obtained, but this can occur only if new, reliable methods of control of the dynamics of the plant system are developed. Apparently and unfortunately, the leading companies do not seem interested in following this process, probably because, as discussed further in the answer to question 6, incomes of leading companies derive from the control of the market, the intellectual property rights of the commercialised products, the stock exchange etc.
This supply is allowed by EC approval and supported by positive case by case EFSA Scientific Opinions and up to 16 years of environmental compatibility. Since EFSA has issued a positive Opinion on the cultivation of GM crops in the EU, what reasons can be provided to discriminate against European farmers who are not allowed to cultivate the same GM crops that are imported and consumed from other continents?
As discussed thoroughly also in the answer to question 6, this question is misleading when it states that livestock farmers need GM-soybean They need soybean, but it need not necessarily be transgenic. A soybean production per acre steadily increased from to and the speed of increase did not change with the introduction of GM plants in The reasons most of world wide soybean production stems from GM plants is the economic advantage coming from a reduction in the needed manpower for herbicide spraying on herbicide resistant cultivars and the control of the market by the three large holdings: Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta.
In our case the average size of farms is of 5—6 hectares; the farms with the extant GMPs may be up to more than hundred thousand. So, while in large farms airplanes can be utilized to spray herbicides, certainly our farmers have to rely on manpower working directly in the field. So here and in most anti-GMO European regions there is no manpower advantage. The EC has recently proposed to give Member States the freedom to veto the cultivation of GM crops on their own territory without needing to provide any scientific evidence relating to new risks European Commission b , ostensibly to prevent tactical voting leading to EU-wide bans Casassus However, although the proposed amendment will allow member states to adopt measures against the cultivation of GM crops, they will not be allowed to prohibit the import or marketing of authorized GM products from elsewhere , which means that EU markets are likely to be flooded with imported GM products that could just as easily be home-grown.
This is clearly a ludicrous position, which simultaneously restricts the freedom of EU farmers to grow the crops they choose and forces them to accept GM animal feed from abroad Sabalza et al. A critical point is that if the EU continues to obstruct GM agriculture, it will force farmers to use environmentally hazardous, expensive and unsustainable agricultural practices, spend unnecessary resources on fossil fuels and agrochemicals, while at the same time importing GM products from the Americas.
This policy will also discourage research and drive researchers overseas where the value chain can be realized in terms of released GM crops.
Within the EU, researchers working on GM plants know that the best they can expect for their products is greenhouse cultivation, and that despite their benefits, GM crops are unlikely to be deployed in any setting where they could perform a useful function.
Here the EU policy on GM crops is attacking its own foundations as a competitive bioeconomy because with one hand the EC offers funding for innovative biotech research and values or even requires the participation of small- to medium-sized enterprises SMEs and large industry partners, while with the other they prevent the same companies from realizing the value of their development pipeline.
Many individual scientists and large companies with ambitious GM research projects have moved abroad to continue their work, and promising European SMEs have been unable to find investment partners The Guardian , The attitude of European policymakers reveals the immense divide between the rational evaluation of science and business, and the panicky, expedient politics pandering to a populist media and activists Farre et al. It is known that uncontrolled attacks of corn borers Ostrinia , Sesamia facilitate the growth of Fusarium moulds in corn grains leading to the accumulation of dangerous levels of fumonisins.
Of course there are more conventional methods to stop the attacks both through the use of chemicals and of biological agents, but certainly insect resistance may be a valid one when and if the plant is resistant to all corn borers at the same time and not only one of them, and of course the borers are not naturally selected for resistance to Bt toxins.
This is happening in the case of maize in the USA and induced the Government to rule the maintenance of areas with susceptible plants to partially overcome this problem. In the case of cotton in China, the resistance to the boll worm induced the multiplication of more than a hundred competitor species, and therefore the amount of insecticides rose to levels never reached with non-boll worm resistant crops.
Fumonisins are mycotoxins produced by Fusarium molds when they colonize cereal grains. They are toxic to humans, particularly affecting liver and kidney functions, causing esophageal cancer, increasing HIV transmission rates Williams et al.
Many nations have established regulatory standards stating maximum tolerance levels for mycotoxins in food and feed. Therefore, aside from the health risks described above, mycotoxin contamination can also reduce the price paid for food crops, or in extreme cases, can cause market rejection of entire food or feed shipments Wu et al.
This is not a recommended practice, nor is it consistent with other EC decisions including the application of the precautionary approach, because several corn herbicides have been banned in the EU at contamination levels far lower than allowed for fumonisins Wu There is a clear relationship between corn borer damage and unsafe levels of fumonisins in raw corn, reflecting the penetration of damaged corn kernels by the fungus Munkvold et al.
Any method that reduces insect damage in corn also reduces the risk of fungal contamination, but foliar Bt sprays are not sufficient because the corn borers are protected inside the cob Sanahuja et al. Bt corn confers resistance to corn borers and therefore reduces mycotoxin contamination. Similar indications come from import checks in Italy where contamination in Bt corn is consistently registered as lower than conventional corn.
The benefit of Bt corn in terms of the reduction of mycotoxin damage has been virtually ignored in policy debates, despite its positive economic impact in the US and its effect on both health and the economy in developing countries Wu et al. In my opinion its cultivation should be mandatory in EU regions where corn borers are endemic, but the cultivation of Bt corn is subject to a de facto ban across large areas of the EU and particularly for nations such as Italy Table 1 and France where fumonisin toxicity is prevalent Pietri and Piva ; Masoero et al.
Given this picture, economic and social concerns present critical challenges to agriculture in the next decades. Farm profitability, viability of rural communities, fair trade and agricultural labor represent significant issues. Which are the advantages of GM crops for agriculture from the economic and social points of view?
GM crops provide tools that are compatible with many of the other approaches used currently to increase food production, while reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture and increasing the affordability of crops Christou and Twyman The socioeconomic advantages of GM crops are demonstrated by the consistent growth in adoption since the first commercial releases James combined with ample evidence of greater farm profitability in both developed economies like the US Smale et al. There has been considerable debate about economic potential of GM crops in developing countries Park et al.
In the case of Bt crops, these benefits include yield improvements, higher revenues and lower pesticide costs, which more than compensate for the higher seed prices. The increase in income to small-scale farmers in developing countries can have a direct impact on poverty alleviation and quality of life, a key component of sustainable development. Bennett et al. Even where economic issues of coexistence come into play, smallholder farmers usually trade their GM and non-GM crops together, using cooperatives or local dealers that also provide seeds and other inputs.
The social impact of GM agriculture is intertwined with the economic benefits because the higher margins generated by GM crops help efforts to alleviate poverty, and therefore provide better access to food, medicine and education, enhancing the social dimension of sustainability Yuan et al. Second- and third-generation GM crops have been developed to address these issues directly by improving nutrition or providing inexpensive drugs, but even the first-generation crops have indirectly led to improvements simply by increasing the profitability of farms and empowering the smallholders in a socioeconomic context.
There have also been more direct health benefits of GM agriculture by reducing exposure to pesticides Brimner et al. Work is also well advanced in the development of GM crops that will have a direct impact on health, e.
GM agriculture can therefore have a significant impact on both industrialized and developing economies by increasing farm profit margins, as well as by contributing to the social dimension of sustainable development by reducing the handling and use of pesticides, exposure to adventitious mycotoxins and, ultimately, by directly addressing the causes of hunger and malnutrition.
As I mentioned before, the productivity of maize and soybean, according to USDA data from to , did not increase from the introduction of GM-crops but probably from the improvements in management and conventional breeding. Moreover, in the case of Bt, the advertised reduction in the usage of insecticides did not happen because of the selection of Bt resistant insects and the fast reproduction of other parasite species than those killed by Cry toxins, as we shall discuss later.
Also the cost of herbicides has not been obviously reduced, the very aim of herbicide resistant plant introduction being an increased number of treatments also during plant growth. Therefore, as already mentioned, the economic advantage of the introduction of herbicide resistance traits is the reduction of manpower costs, all this favouring farms of large dimensions with an increase of the input of capital and a decrease of labour leading to the exit from the systems of subsistence agriculture due to lack of capital.
The reasons of the outstanding success of GM crops particularly in the USA, Canada and Latin-American countries can be understood only if we look at the structure of the market for the four mentioned crops. Nowadays, three companies, through IPRs, have the control not only of GMPs but also of innovations related to other steps of the food production chain. That follows from the fact that all the leading companies, before GMO production, were agro-chemical industries and since the s acquired control of chemical, pharmaceutical and seed companies.
Dupont, on the other hand, has acquired the seed company Pioneer High Bred, while Syngenta derived from the fusion between Novartis agriculture and Zeneca. The power of the leading companies is also based on the presence in public control agencies and in the editorial boards of international scientific journals, as thoroughly discussed by Glover , on behalf of the British E.
For this reason, according to Glover, it is not widely known that in China BT cotton is useful only in the case of heavy presence of the boll-worm, that insecticide consumption does not decrease Wang Nor it is known that in India, in the regions of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, the presence of different species of insects obliged the farmers to increase the input of pesticides while the price of cotton was decreasing Ramasundaram et al.
In Latin America, on the other hand, problems derived from the transformation of local subsistence agricultures based on the production of food into industrial farming, aimed at the export of soybean for animal feeding in developed countries.
In Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and, lately also Uruguay, many small farms were purchased and replaced by large ones, up to For this reason, in Argentina, soybean production rose from to by Of course, in all these cases the economic and social disasters deriving from the introduction of GMPs were not due by any means to genetic engineering techniques as such, but by the structure of the market where for the first time living objects could be covered by industrial patents through economical and political agreements between the producer companies and governments and under the rules of the WTO.
However, it is worth stressing here that, as mentioned before, the advantages of GMPs only favoured large farms and the multinational companies, small farmers leaving the fields and the seeds of a number of relevant crops and losing languages and traditional knowledge in the favelas of several countries see the data in the website of Terralingua, an NGO working on bio-linguistic problems.
The possible economic advantages of GMOs in an agricultural context have been discussed extensively. In this respect GMOs have been viewed by some as an effective way to meet the energy needs of the most vulnerable, malnourished populations in developing countries. Do the available results provide indications for a possible role of GMOs in improving food quality, therefore providing specific nutritional advantages also in wealthy population groups?
The improvement of nutritional quality of crops has been one of the main objectives of plant genetic engineering as, in theory, the modification of metabolic pathways could lead to the qualitative and quantitative improvement of specific nutritional components. Rather unfortunately, due to the network structure of plant metabolism implying that a change in one node will affect other components, the results have been far from successful.
This happened a few years ago and we are now waiting for new cultivars with improved production. Unfortunately, as already discussed, the research intensity of GMO producers has been lower and lower, thus slowing the release of really innovative cultivars in all fields.
GMOs certainly have the potential to provide nutritional advantages for wealthy population groups, despite the controversy about GM agriculture in Europe discussed elsewhere in this article.
One of the important benefits of transgenic crops is the ability to generate more nutritious varieties, and although these are currently targeted towards developing countries with the worst malnutrition levels, they offer clear benefits to all sectors of the population.
Even in Europe there is a surprisingly large malnourished population, which has arisen not only through the impact of poverty but also through ignorance and poor lifestyle choices. Malnourishment is particularly rife in the elderly population because one of the consequences of aging is a progressive loss of the ability to absorb nutrients Ljungqvist et al. The fortification of processed food and agronomic biofortification using nutrient-rich fertilizers have been applied successfully to overcome the lower levels of nutrients in the UK and Finland Lyons et al.
The most significant is the biofortification of cereals, legumes, fruits and vegetables with iron to combat anemia resulting from iron deficiency caused by poor dietary habits Lucca et al. Another interesting example is the potential to increase the carotenoid levels in cereals such as maize to address macular degeneration in the elderly.
A diet rich in these molecules has been linked with eye health in the ageing population and biofortification at source would be an advantageous way to address this growing problem Hammond et al. Another valuable approach is the fortification of staple foods such as cereals with polyunsaturated fatty acids currently only found in fish.
The metabolic pathways that lead to omega fatty acids are understood and can be recreated in plants Ye and Bhatia The development of cereal products enriched with these essential fatty acids would increase the general health of the population by providing essential nutrients to those who rarely eat fish, and would also reduce pressure on fish stocks as a sole source of this nutrient.
The controversy surrounding mycotoxin levels in maize is discussed in another section, but it is worth pointing out here that this is a problem that faces all consumers, not just those in developing countries, so the ability to grow Bt maize commercially in Europe would, again, provide consumers from all population groups with higher quality food and would at the same time remove the need to import exactly the same products from abroad Folcher et al. Finally, there is a great deal of interest in the development of functional foods that provide added-value health benefits to consumers as well as calories e.
A few crop varieties, specially created through biotechnology, can improve yields, but biotechnology alone cannot solve the problem of hunger in the developing world. Nevertheless, the potential advantages that biotechnology can confer across a wide range of agricultural applications are in areas such as livestock management, storage of agricultural products and sustaining current crop yields, while reducing the use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
The real challenge is whether we are smart enough to harness the benefits of biotechnological solutions. But what are these solutions? Biotechnology offers a very promising alternative to synthetic foods and an improvement on conventional plant-breeding technologies. Combined with other advanced agricultural technologies, it offers an exciting and environmentally responsible way to meet consumer demand for sustainable agriculture.
When the benefits of GM crops reach small and marginal farmers, more Green Revolutions may become a reality. Combating Hunger and Malnutrition Malnutrition is the related term in medicine for hunger. The most recent estimate of the Food and Agriculture Organization says that million people worldwide are undernourished.
This is Many of the million that are undernourished, children being the most visible victims, live in developing countries. Undernutrition magnifies the impact of every disease, including measles and malaria. One example tells us how biotechnology can contribute to combating global hunger and malnutrition.
Golden Rice Approximately million children in low-income groups in countries, especially in Africa and South-East Asia, are deficient in Vitamin A. This situation has compounded into a public health challenge. The World Health Organization reports that an estimated , to , Vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight.
Golden Rice, created by researchers in Germany and Switzerland, contains three new genes -- two from the daffodil and one from a bacterium -- that helps it to produce provitamin A. This rice is available as a possible option for mass distribution, in part due to the waiving of patent rights by biotechnology companies.
This is just one among the hundreds of new biotech products, which point to the contributions of biotechnology to society. Intellectual Property and Food Security There are concerns about a technological landscape controlled almost exclusively by the private sector and defined by patent protection. Patents allow large, private firms substantial control over plant genes, which has worrisome implications. So, improving photosynthesis would increase how much food we produce.
In the 17th International Congress on Photosynthesis Research , the obvious discussed target to improve photosynthesis was the step that captures carbon dioxide, as it sometimes mistakes oxygen for carbon dioxide in a wasteful set of reactions called photorespiration. These species are known as C4 plants , which can make more use of sunlight at higher temperatures and need less water. Plants are not just being genetically altered to increase their quantity but also their nutritional status.
In developing countries, , people become blind every year, mainly children, and 50 percent of them die within a year of becoming blind. Nearly nine million children die of malnutrition each year.
This deficiency is more common in populations whose diet is heavily dependent on rice. Recently, a research study reported that malaria deaths in children younger than five years of age had been linked to deficiencies in the intake of protein, vitamin A and zinc.
Golden rice is the most significant GM crop. This approach not only helps to cope with vitamin A deficiency and related diseases, which cause , deaths per year but also improve rice productivity. Protein malnutrition is also a leading challenge of the modern age, which is mostly caused by poor-quality diets that include high consumption of staple crops with less protein or low-quality proteins in terms of amino acid profile.
Protein deficiency delays physical growth and development and lowers resistance to disease. And it may cause permanent impairment of the brain in young children and infants. A promising approach is the genetic engineering of genes encoding proteins with high nutritional value into food crops. Recently, scientists developed a new generation of potatoes with enhanced nutritive value. Cassava is the principal source of calories for an estimated million people worldwide, the prevailing focus of the Gates-funded project.
But the abundant crop has various shortcomings. It is composed almost totally of carbohydrates, so it does not provide complete nutrition. Several people and authorities are still suspicious over the consumption of foods and other goods acquired from genetically altered crops instead of traditional plants and other utilization of genetic engineering in food generation.
The disputes involve consumers, governmental regulators, farmers, biotechnology companies, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. Advocacy organizations, such as the Organic Consumers Association, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Food Safety, and Greenpeace, say GM foods risks have not been appropriately recognized and managed, and they have challenged the objectivity of regulatory authorities.
Despite multiple concerns, people and animals have now been consuming GM crops for more than 20 years without apparent harm to their health.
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