Rachel Carson’s dream of a science-based agriculture

[frigidmagi]

Scienceblog

The ‘Frankenfoods’ debate is coming to your dinner table. Just last month, a mini-war developed in Europe, when the European Union’s chief scientist, renowned biologist Anne Glover, said that foods made through genetic engineering, such as soy beans—about 80 percent of US grown soybeans have been genetically engineered —are as safe as organic or conventional foods.

It’s a wholly uncontroversial comment—at least among scientists. But it set off the usual scare mongering from Friends of the Earth, and other like-minded advocacy groups that finds all genetically engineered (GE) foods and crops to be, in their words “stomach turning.”

The incident is also adding fuel to the California wildfires—no, not the ones caused by the drought—but the incendiary debate over a fall ballot initiative that would require warning labels on all foods with GE ingredients, despite the fact that all established health and science groups such as the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences and the World health Organization have rejected claims that genetically engineered crops or foods pose additional risks or have altered nutritional profiles as compared to foods derived from conventional genetic alteration.

This debate is particularly poignant because fifty years ago this September, with the publication of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson launched the modern day environmental movement by shining a harsh light on the over use of technology—in that era it was chemicals–in farming.

Although Carson never used the term, her passion was “sustainability.” She envisioned harnessing the knowledge of diverse fields of science—entomology, pathology, genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and ecology- to shape a new science of biotic controls that would help control weeds, diseases and pests without further damaging the environment. Her dream of a science-based agricultural system may come as a surprise to those who believe that sustainability and technology are incompatible.

“A truly extraordinary variety of alternatives to the chemical control of insects is available. Some are already in use and have achieved brilliant success. Others are in the stage of laboratory testing. Still others are little more than ideas in the minds of imaginative scientists, waiting for the opportunity to put them to the test. All have this in common: they are biological solutions, based on the understanding of the living organisms they seek to control and of the whole fabric of life to which these organisms belong. Specialists representing various areas of the vast field of biology are contributing—entomologists, pathologists, geneticists, physiologists, biochemists, ecologists—all pouring their knowledge and their creative inspirations into the formation of a new science of biotic controls.”

(Rachel Carson 1962, p. 278)

Together with colleagues, my laboratory at the University of California, Davis has genetically engineered rice that tolerates flooding and resists disease. As a scientist committed to sustainable agriculture, I have to believe that if Rachel Carson was alive today she would reject the anti-science fear mongering of anti-GE campaigners.

For 10,000 years, humans have altered the DNA makeup of our crops. Conventional approaches were often quite crude, resulting in new varieties through a combination of trial and error, and without knowledge of the precise function of the genes that were being moved around. Such methods include grafting or mixing of genes of distantly related species, as well as radiation treatments to induce random mutations in the genetic makeup of the seed. Today, virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that have been genetically altered in one way or another.

Over the last 20 years, plant breeding has entered “the digital age of biology”. Just as software engineers tinker with computer codes to improve machine performance, scientists and breeders are altering the “DNA software system” of plants to create new genetically engineered crop varieties, often called “GMOs”, that thrive in extreme environments or can withstand attacks by pests. Like the older conventional varieties, GE crops are also genetically altered, but in a manner that is much more precise and introduces fewer genetic changes. GE crops often contain genes from non-crop species.

To understand why farmers have embraced GE crops and how they benefit the environment, take a look at genetically engineered cotton. These varieties contain a bacterial protein called Bt that kills pests, but does not harm beneficial insects and spiders. Bt itself is benign to humans, which is why organic farmers have used Bt as the primary method of pest control for 50 years. Today, 70-90% of US, Indian and Chinese farmers grow Bt cotton.

Last summer a team of scientists reported in the prestigious journal, Nature, that widespread planting of Bt cotton in China drastically reduced the spraying of synthetic chemicals, increased the abundance of beneficial organisms and decreased populations of insects that damage the crop. Planting of Bt cotton also reduced pesticide poisonings of farmers and their families. German researchers reported that farmers in India growing Bt cotton increased their yield by 24%, their profit by 50% and raised their living standards by 18%.

And consider GE papaya, engineered to withstand a devastating viral infection. First developed in 1998, it is now grown by 99% of Chinese and 90% of Hawaiian farmers. There is currently no other method-organic or conventional- that can adequately control the disease. Only the most ideologically driven would choose to let this nutritious and tasty fruit die for the sake of an ephemeral concept of genetic purity.

These stories, which have been repeated around the world, appear to be precisely the kind of triumph of biology over chemicals envisioned by Rachel Carson and by organic farmers, who have long dreamed of reducing the use of synthetic chemicals and enhancing biological diversity on farms.

Considering our long history of plant genetic manipulation and the success of modern GE cotton seeds in enhancing the sustainability of our farms, why do some consumers still express grave unease over the planting of GE crops?

Part of the skepticism may be due to the tendency of consumers to group all “GMOs” together without regard to the purpose of the engineering, the needs of the farmer or the social, environmental, economic or nutritional benefits. They may be unaware that the U.S. National Research Council and the European commission have concluded that the process of genetic engineering is no more “risky” than conventional genetic modification and that all GE crops currently on the market are safe to eat and safe for the environment.

Another reason for suspicion is that a person’s willingness to accept scientific consensus often correlates with political affiliation. Just as 81% percent of college-educated Republicans discount the broad scientific consensus that human activities contribute to global warning, many Democrats disregard the decades of scientific studies that have piled up in technical reports indicating the safety and wide-reaching benefits of GE crops and instead absorb the misinformation proliferating on the internet, which is untethered from peer-reviewed science or agriculture.

In the last few months, however, scientists and journalists have launched communication efforts that are helping make the science behind plant genetics and breeding less remote.

For example, British researchers recently published a moving YouTube clip, appealing to protestors to reconsider their planned destruction of a publicly funded GE research trial intended to reduce the use of insecticides on wheat. Plant biologists in Sweden asked opponents of GE crops to listen to the scientific community without ideological earplugs, likening the seemingly endless discussion about the purported risks of GE crops to the famous Monty Python sketch in which a customer tries to return a dead parrot to a shopkeeper, who despite all evidence insists that the bird is well, alive and pining for the fjords.

Farmers are speaking out too, explaining why they use GE seed and extending invitations to well-known television personalities, such as Oprah Winfrey, to visit and find out why they choose to grow biotech crops. Local farmers roll their tractors into town to tell us that they need modern seed varieties with built in resistant to pests and tolerance to environmental stress.

As more information is made available demystifying what farmers and breeders actually do, will the public dialog become more sophisticated? Will the campaign against modern crop genetics diminish as consumers learn of the benefits to the public good? Some journalists think so and have even speculated that the GMO debate is growing up in Europe.

A strikingly similar story of consumer skepticism played out in the 1970s in California’s Silicon Valley. As described in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, many viewed the early computers suspiciously, believing they would only benefit large corporations. As the broad usefulness of the technology became apparent, opposition faded. Today such technologies are credited with toppling decades of dictatorship and launching revolutions.

Despite the safety and benefits of the GE crops, it is clear that seed is only one component of sustainable agricultural system. Even the most productive crop varieties must be integrated with ecologically based farming practices to maximize their potential.

For example, there is ample evidence that insects can develop resistance to BT, if it is used as the sole method of pest control. Effective methods for slowing the spread of insect resistance include crop rotation, intercropping and planting refuges of non-BT cotton and non-crop species.

In the face of a rapidly growing population, the need to produce more food and fiber without further destroying the environment is one of the greatest challenges of our time. A key to building a sustainable agriculture in the 21st century is to integrate the science of agricultural ecology with modern genetic technology. Just as few today would trade in their iPad 3 for a Mac1, few farmers will give up their modern seed varieties. We can’t and shouldn’t run away from ‘digital agriculture’—let’s embrace and leverage it so all humanity can benefit.

You this never fails to amaze me. For all the smugness I get from some Euros about how much America hates science, they're the ones freaking out over this and it's ridicilous. Look, unless you picked up your berries in the deep woods where man rarely trods... All your food was gene modded. The new stuff is just done faster and more effectively.

[Josh]

People typically stake a position on emotion and then formulate rationales to defend it. As much as either side in a debate likes to accuse the other of being unrealistic or illogical, it's often both sides.

Just wait until we're growing our meat in vats.

[Comrade Tortoise]

You this never fails to amaze me. For all the smugness I get from some Euros about how much America hates science, they're the ones freaking out over this and it's ridicilous. Look, unless you picked up your berries in the deep woods where man rarely trods... All your food was gene modded. The new stuff is just done faster and more effectively.

It kinda depends. The european attitude toward regulation is far different. They want you to show reasonable certainty that what you are putting into the market/ecosystem is not harmful, and if it turns out that it may be after it is already there, they will pull the product until studies are complete. This is why the pesticide Atrazine (you know, the one that causes frogs to turn into sweet transvestite transexual transylvanians) is banned in europe.

Out regulatory culture is the exact opposite. In order to get a pesticide or GMO crop on the market, our regulatory agencies just have to show that it wont immediately kill people or beneficial insect adults. Any long term consequences are tested on the population itself post-market--with a very high resistance to pulling something from the market due to regulatory capture. This is why that same Atrazine is still on the market here, and why the insecticides that cause Colony Collapse Disorder in man's best friend (the honey bee) is still on the market. Hell, Roundup, the most common herbicide on the planet, really really needs be yanked from the market while better environmental safety tests are performed.

So how does this affect GMOs? Well, stuff like BT cotton (or even food plants) where a protein is created that has a nice metabolic effect that we understand really well? No problem. We know what BT does. We can even target specific strains of the toxin to particular insect genera. It is the chemical version of a much more sanely run US drone program :P

The problem comes when there is shit the genomicists are just beginning to understand that are patented and put into crops. There is one GMO that has a gene that creates a microRNA that messes with the regulation of an insect's nervous system. This is not a protein. This is an RNA regulatory element, something that will survive digestion in mammals and get to work in our own cells. It can potentially bind to multiple sites in our own genome. We do not want to eat that. We have NO idea what it will do. And yet, if it was being tested in the US (it was made in Australia and has yet to get through their regulatory bodies), all that would be done is an acute toxicity test, which is completely inadequate for this sort of modification. The regulations have simply not caught up with the kinds of things we can actually do to an organism's genome.

[frigidmagi]

Ben that's not the argument I'm hearing. The argument I'm hearing is "OH MY GOD FRANKENFOODS WILL DO WHO KNOWS WHAT TO YOU! IT'S NOT SAFE." They are arguing that it's not safe to eat. These foods are. Their own scientists are telling this only to be ignored. I mean read the article.

[General Havoc]

Moreover, I'm sorry CT, but where was this enlightened European attitude to regulation when it came to the great Thalidomide scandal? You know, the morning-sickness pill that caused horrible birth defects? The one that was fast-tracked through sixteen different European nations' regulatory agencies while the US FDA refused to authorize it, drawing massive heat in the process until it came out that it was killing and deforming children? I'm certain that the Europeans' eagerness to let that one through had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Thalidomide was developed by a German company.

The Europeans tolerate this anti-GMO scare-mongering because the majority of GMO foods are developed in the US, and as everyone knows, everything ever produced in the United States is evil. It's a handy way to impose artificial tariffs to buttress their own horrendously inefficient agriculture (such as French farm-bribery system), and it's a nice way to pretend to the rest of the world that their standards for keeping tainted food and drugs out of Europe are somehow higher than ours. Which they're not. At all. If German companies were producing the majority of GMO crops, then there would be no European regulation of them whatsoever.

[Comrade Tortoise]

I did. I was responding to this:

You this never fails to amaze me. For all the smugness I get from some Euros about how much America hates science, they're the ones freaking out over this and it's ridicilous. Look, unless you picked up your berries in the deep woods where man rarely trods... All your food was gene modded. The new stuff is just done faster and more effectively.

Not all (or even most) Europeans I know who are uneasy about GMOs rant about Frankenfoods. Some do, I would not hazzard to say most (though they are certainly the loudest). For the most part, the concerns I see stem from the difference in risk-evaluation I mentioned above.

What you did was to lump all Euros into one group: the ones who are smug about our hating science and the ones who ramble about frankenfoods are the same people. That is disingenuous and you blood well know it. There is certainly some overlap, but the best one can say is that the Frankenfood ramblers are a subset of the smug.

Extremes of left wingnuttery and right wingnuttery lead to some sort of Luddism. The form it takes is just different (rejection of whole scientific theories on ideological grounds, vs rejection of technological applications of those theories. Stalinism...was both), in much the same way as right wingnuts tend to kill ethnic minorities, while left wingnuts tend to guillotine rich people.

I'm certain that the Europeans' eagerness to let that one through had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Thalidomide was developed by a German company.

Yes. Let us select one case that occurred back in the 1950s/1961 as a refutation of the more generalized approach to regulation found within European countries since the Rio Declaration, and Formalized in the EU itself only since 2000ish

Thalidomide was also in clinical trial stages in the US at the time. It was not that they refused, it was that they had not gotten around to it yet when the birth defects started. Then the FDA refused approval--which was right and sensible. The argument could be made that yes, various European countries bowed to industry pressure... but that was 60 years ago. Do I need to elaborate on all the fucked up and stupid shit people did in the 50s because they did not really know any better? No one has a very good track record on agricultural chemicals or medicine back in the 1950s.

If we want to play the cherry-picking game, we can play the cherry-picking game.

Do you have evidence to back the rest up (specifically with regard to anti-US sentiment driving the legal non-rejection of GM crops... or event that the population at large holds this view)? Because as I see it your initial argument regarding Thalidomide does not hold water. It was 60 years ago, the legal and regulatory framework I am referencing did not exist then. Your conclusion does not follow from that argument.

There are also plenty of GMOs authorized by the EU.

http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm

It is searchable.

[General Havoc]

Excuse me, but you don't get to play the cherry picking card when you yourself are using generalities. Statements like "The european attitude toward regulation is far different." invite counter-examples, and declaring those to be cherry-picked is to miss the point. Of course they're cherry-picked, they're counter-examples. I was not stating that the European regulatory agency is non-existent, or completely corrupt, or controlled by lizard men from Mars, I was stating that its vaunted high standards are circumstantial and often downright mythological. And speaking of cherry-picked examples, given that Thalidomide wasn't pulled from UK shelves until thirty-four years after it was released, I refuse to discount it as not relevant to the conversation, especially when you are lauding the enlightened European attitude towards harmful drugs and food. The guy who denied its release in the US got a Presidential Award. The guy who tried to do the same in West Germany was fired.

Yes, Thalidomide happened a long time ago. But this is like claiming that the US has never fought a war with Germany because WWII also happened a long time ago. If you don't want people dredging up old examples, maybe you shouldn't make blanket claims with no time limits on them.

Do you have evidence to back the rest up (specifically with regard to anti-US sentiment driving the legal non-rejection of GM crops... or event that the population at large holds this view)?

Yes, as it happens, I do have some evidence lying around. What I do not have is the time required to write a seven-page dissertation on the history of French (and by extension, European) food policy. Suffice to say that French agriculture is a complicated topic riddled with protectionism and state-mandated inefficiencies to buttress employment figures and the so-called "way of life" preservations. I'm not qualified to debate the merits of this policy, but it is deeply rooted in efforts to preserve French agriculture against foreign competition, primarily, though not exclusively, from the United States. This policy, which dates back to the 1920s, has a heavy influence on the "GMO" debate within Europe, as the vast majority of GM crops are developed by US biotech companies, and the economics of planting them in Europe (to say nothing of importing the food directly) are thus perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a threat to indigenous agriculture. I never claimed it was the only objection, and neither can I (or you) possibly speak with authority as to what the population at large believes. I do know that it's a major element to the continuing creeping pace of GMO approvals in Europe.

But you want data? Between 1994 and today, the EU has authorized the use of 48 genetically modified organisms, the majority of them animal feed. Of those 48, 45 (or 93%) were from European biotech firms, despite the fact that somewhere between 85 and 90% of all GM produced crops are from American biotech firms, and by the EU's own accounting, 90% of the organisms awaiting evaluation are American in origin. Moreover, the three American organisms that were finally authorized (MON 910, Amflora, and a potato breed that I couldn't find the name of) took four and a half years on average to make it through the approval process. The 45 European breeds? One year each.

Protectionism certainly isn't the only reason the Euros are so paranoid against GMO, but it does rather seem that they don't mind as much when it's their own companies producing the stuff.

Oh and by the way, if we're going to start demanding evidence?

This is why that same Atrazine is still on the market here, and why the insecticides that cause Colony Collapse Disorder in man's best friend (the honey bee) is still on the market.

This is a fascinating claim to me because to my understanding nobody in the world has yet been able to determine what causes Colony Collapse Disorder. There are ten cited possible causes in the articles I have read, including parasites, selective breeding, malnutrituion, Electromagnetic radiation, and yes, pesticides. Yet apparently I'm wrong because according to you, not only do we know what causes the disorder, but we've made an active decision to let it keep happening over here, because... well... because the FDA is evil and Americans are stupid? Because General Zod told us to? If only the enlightened Europeans would swoop in and save us from our own foolishness, and ban the chemicals that are killing our bees.

Oh wait...

Colony Collapse Disorder is raging in Europe right now, despite these enlightened standards of pesticide control. There is zero scientific consensus on what is causing it that I've been able to find. I grant that pesticides are probably a factor, but given that the disorder dates to 1918, before the development of most modern pesticides, and given that these enhanced regulatory standards you cited have done absolutely nothing to stem the disorder in Europe, I seriously doubt that's the entire subject. I'm not an expert in biology, and I concede that you are one, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that maybe the situation with CCD and the mystery pesticides you're citing is a little more complicated than "Evil Americans use bad poison. Good Europeans do not." You know, like every other issue ever?