GMW: Against the grain - GM cottons, golf courses and plastics aren't safe either.

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GMW:_Against_the_grain_-_GM_cottons,_golf_courses_and_plastics_aren't_safe_eithe\

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" GM_WATCH "

Wed, 5 May 2004 10:22:42 +0100

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Against the grain

 

Consumers don't want to eat GM products, so researchers are looking for non-food

ways to use the crops. But cottons, golf courses and plastics aren't safe

either, warns Sue Mayer

 

The Guardian, Wednesday May 5, 2004

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1209123,00.html

 

The biotechnology industry needs to find other uses for its GM crops - uses

which it hopes won't upset the public. Billions of dollars have been invested in

developing crops, and intellectual property rights have been put in place that

should allow the profits to roll in, but the resistance of people in Europe and

many other parts of the world has upset the industrial dream of a GM future.

 

Prime targets for GM are the so-called " non-food " uses: grasses, flowers, trees,

cotton, and a range of different crops being modified to provide the raw

materials for the industrial production of biofuels, oils, starches and

plastics.

 

So, if you don't have to eat them, are there any real reasons to worry? In a

word, plenty. Non-food uses are likely to bring in contamination of non-GM crops

and nature by the back door. This much is clear if you consider what may be on

the market soon.

 

Perhaps the most alarming development is GM herbicide-tolerant amenity grasses.

Particularly in the US, there is a search for the perfect lawn - one which is

low-maintenance, weed-free, uniform and that can survive stressful environments,

such as prolonged periods of drought. Monsanto, in partnership with Scotts, a

lawn and garden products company, is seeking to commercialise a GM herbicide

tolerant creeping bent grass in the US. The original application was withdrawn,

but a decision on a new application, filed in 2003, is expected shortly.

Experimental GM golf courses have already been planted.

 

The problem is that grasses are difficult to contain. They are freely

wind-pollinating, perennial and often reproduce via underground shoots. Grasses

spread internationally on wool, and in lawn and bird seed mixes, so attempts to

isolate GM grasses will probably prove futile over time. Golf courses and

gardens are often close to natural habitats and farmland.

 

No one, it seems, has considered the international implications of this

development. Britain has worried about GM forage grasses for animals, but not

amenity grasses. GM herbicide-tolerant grasses could pose weed problems for

farmers and lawn-keepers alike, as well as having a very real potential to

establish themselves as an alien invader.

 

Trees, while less advanced commercially, pose similar kinds of problems in terms

of international contamination, and herbicide tolerance is another favourite of

GM tree producers. It makes economic sense for the owners of the genes to use

them as widely as possible, which is why Monsanto also has a toe in the GM tree

water.

 

But there are also more familiar GM crops looking for a new role in life. The

interest in biofuels to replace fossil fuels has led to the suggestion that GM

herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape and sugar beet could both be used improve

production efficiency. This would open a new market for crops that have been

rejected for food use. However, the contamination threat to non-GM food crops

will be very real, especially with oilseed rape. And both oilseed rape and sugar

beet have wild relatives in Britain with which they can hybridise.

 

Rather unsuccessful attempts have been made to turn oilseed rape and other oil

crops into producers of specialist oils and plastics for industrial uses. The

idea is that a particular oil produced by plants such as jojoba and coriander

could be produced more efficiently in a domesticated crop. However, problems

have arisen because producing the fatty acids that make up oil is much more

complex than was once thought.

 

Fatty acids have at least three roles in plants - as a constituent of membranes,

in cell signalling, and for energy storage. Unfortunately these are not

controlled by separate pathways, and when novel fatty acid synthesis has been

induced by GM it has not been possible to restrict the presence of the acid to

the seed storage sites. There has, for example, been leakage, with the new fatty

acid being found in cell membranes, where it can be destabilising and can

adversely affect their function.

 

Another approach could be to make efforts to improve agronomic performance of

plants like jojoba or evening primrose, but this is patentable and so is not a

profitable avenue for the biotech industry to explore.

Producing plastics has been similarly problematic, with adverse effects on

growth being common. All GM approaches are dogged by yields that are not

economically viable. And the prospect of having industrial oils and plastics in

your food as a result of contamination is not appetising.

 

One notable success in non-food uses has been GM potatoes, with altered starch

production. Amylogene, owned by BASF, has produced potatoes high in amylopectin

starch, which is more useful to the paper industry than amylose starch.

 

These GM potatoes are in their final stages of approval in Europe. They are

unlikely to be grown in Britain, but could be in eastern Europe, the Nordic

countries, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, all of which grow

potatoes for starch production. These are unlikely to pose contamination threats

via pollen, but there will need to be systems in place to maintain their

separation from the human food chain, as the residue after starch extraction is

intended for animal feed.

 

It is the apparent success of GM cotton, however, that encourages the

application of GM to non-food uses. It has attracted little consumer interest

and is grown internationally on many millions of hectares. GM insect-resistant

cotton has reduced the use of some insecticides in a system which is highly

intensive and environmentally damaging. However, the selling of GM cotton as a

cure for the ills of pesticide use is eerily familiar to the way in which the

pesticides themselves have been sold.

 

Short-term benefits and high-cost inputs are being promoted by industry

salesmen. Loans for seed purchase and second-generation GM crops, if the

first-generation cotton fails, are already part of the plan.

 

Developing countries are the targets for expansion of the GM cotton market in

Africa, south-east Asia and South America. So while the prospect of GM food

crops being grown in Britain has receded in the short term, the industry has a

whole new rationale and a raft of new uses for the technology up its sleeve.

 

With some of these, such as GM grasses, there will be little comfort that it is

happening elsewhere. Inevitable, accidental international movement means they

will surely find their way to Britain.

 

Sue Mayer is director of GeneWatch UK, which monitors developments in genetics

technologies. More information: www.genewatch.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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