Dale, P.J. , Irwin, J.A. (1998) in Transgenic Plant Research, p277-285, Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam
Commercialisation
Tomatoe puree launched in February 1996 by Zeneca was the first GM-crop product to be commercialised in the UK. The tomatoes were grown in the USA and marketed by two supermarkets, the GM puree was labelled “made with genetically modified tomatoes”, and a choice of tins containing GM and non-GN tomatoes were provided. The GM tomatoes (which were cheaper than the Non-GM ones) sold well. The next step in the GM product chain was the release of Insect resistant maize and glyphosate herbicide tolerant Soya bean. The scientific risk assessment carried out by the USA regulatory bodies concluded that these two GM crops presented no greater risk than comparable conventionally bred crops. Therefore for sale within the USA these products did not need to be labelled or separated from non-GM crops. It was also argued that because these crops were grown on a large scale by many different farmers across much of North America, it was impractical to segregate the GM harvest from the non-GM harvest.
However, reactions to the U.S. GM crop industry in Europe have been somewhat adverse.
The prospect of plants that could in effect conspire with farmers to produce chemically sterilised fields has sent Europe's conservationists into a flat spin. They have issued dire warnings about the perils of agricultural biotechnology and call for moratoriums on GM plantings. But Smart Canola is not quite what it seems. While European officials agonise over the pros and cons of growing GM crops, they could do little to stop farmers planting this oilseed rape. The reason: Smart Canola is not genetically engineered.
The prospect of plants that could in effect conspire with farmers to produce chemically sterilised fields has sent Europe's conservationists into a flat spin. They have issued dire warnings about the perils of agricultural biotechnology and call for moratoriums on GM plantings. But Smart Canola is not quite what it seems. While European officials agonise over the pros and cons of growing GM crops, they could do little to stop farmers planting this oilseed rape. The reason: Smart Canola is not genetically engineered.
News Article, Unknown Author,
Views of the Biotech Companies Themselves
It is widely believed within the biotech industry that genetically modified food will contribute to a better environment and a sustainable, plentiful, and healthy food supply. We recognise, however, that many consumers have genuine concerns about food biotechnology and its impact on their families.
Those who suffer most as a consequence are not the biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto, but the poorest and most vulnerable of the world's populations, whose future capacity to feed themselves and their families is being seriously undermined. The potential of biotechnology to boost food production, increase the availability of calories, advance human nutrition and meet the challenge of feeding the world's growing population is threatened by foolish and myopic campaigns to curb innovation and human adaptability.
But the real benefits of the technology will only be fully grasped when consumer-orientated products start to appear on supermarket shelves. These will include, for example, soy products with improved flavour, digestibility and obvious gains for healthy eating, including a reduction in the cholesterol levels of consumers. There will be novel oils, soy milks, and soy flours with beverage, food, meat and industrial benefits, possessing reduced anti-nutritional compounds and refined proteins and oils, such as high oleic soybean with 30 percent less saturated fat and zero ''trans'' fats. Soybean margarine will also become a possibility, with the combination of high stearic beans and high oleic beans.
Dennis. A. – benefits of GM Food – http://www.probiotech.com/artic01679.html
Demanding proof that genetically modified foods
are safe is all very well, but without a rational system
for testing conventional foods, we may never get it
Benefits and Concerns
Earlier this year, Britain was rocked by claims that genetically modified foods are dangerous. Arpad Pusztai, a biochemist who used to work at the Rowlett Research Institute in Scotland, said he had shown that GM potatoes were harmful to rats because of their genetic modification alone.
Were the GM potatoes toxic? On the basis of Pusztai's evidence, it's impossible to say. In fact, his results support only one obvious conclusion: rats hate potatoes.
Pusztai fed separate groups of rats on normal or GM potatoes to see if the GM food had different effects. That's good, basic toxicology. Unfortunately he couldn't make the animals eat enough potato, so they were malnourished no matter which kind they were eating.
According to toxicologists who examined the data, changes in their organ weights and immune reactivity showed no unambiguous association with genetic modification (This Week, 6 March, p 13). Starvation or known toxins in raw potato were the most likely culprits for any changes seen in the rats.
These experiments reveal a serious problem that is only now being grasped by the biotechnology industry: standard toxicology tests don't work for food. It is often difficult to feed lab animals enough GM fodder, whether or not they find it palatable, to see if it has undesirable effects compared with unmodified food. Essentially, animal models are not sensitive enough to reveal small differences between modified and unmodified foods.
Even if true allergens do escape detection and make it into transgenic crops, immunologist Yueh-hsui Chien of Stanford University questions whether this represents a new risk to the consumer. "If you regularly eat tomatoes, and then you eat a transgenic one, you know you are eating a few new proteins," she says. "The first time you eat a lobster, you eat several thousand new proteins."
At Nagoya University in Japan, for example, researchers have managed to slash levels of the major allergenic protein in rice by 70 to 80 per cent by inserting a so-called antisense gene to block the protein's production in the plant.
Ribeiro, S.G.; de Avila, A.C.; Bezerra, I.C.; Fernandes, J.J
Future Consequences
GM technology does not simply accelerate conventional selective breeding techniques for stock improvement. It can transfer genes across species boundaries; more importantly, across huge taxonomic divides. It can also enable the incorporation of laboratory synthesised nucleic acids for designer purposes. GM foods can be divided into those that contain tissues and nucleic acids from the GM source organism (e.g. tomato puree) and those that contain purified derivatives that may be chemically indistinguishable from the same ingredients isolated from non-GMO`s (e.g. the phospholipid, lecithin and other specified oils and proteins from Soya). Provided these purified ingredients are chemically identical to those from non-GMO sources, they should not alter existing health risks. Unfortunately, complete purity is unachievable. Foods that contain original GMO tissue may contain unexpected components and alien nucleotide sequences. The Questions arise: can alien nucleotide sequences be transferred to the gut micro-organisms or be absorbed by human tissues, perhaps through phagocytosis or the agency of viral transduction?. If they can, what are the risks to human health generated as a consequence?.
The Biochemist P32 October 1999 © 1999 The Biochemical Society
The technology will allow us to create in
major crop plants materials we formerly had to obtain from
other sources - such as industrial feed stocks or medicines.
Pepper. G. Crop Sciences Dept University of Illinois
Crops that resist drought and disease
promise to transform the lives of poor farmers
-if only they could afford them
Five million Brazilians faced starvation this year. This time it was a drought related to El Niño that halved grain crops in the northeast of the country, but next year it will be something else. Famine is perennial in Brazil.
In September Monsanto, the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds, announced it would invest $550 million in Brazil to build a factory producing its herbicide Roundup. Shortly afterwards the Brazilian government made Monsanto's Roundup-resistant Soya beans the country's first legally approved, genetically engineered crop. The Soya beans will boost profits for the big landowners who grow them to feed beef cattle for export. But most rural Brazilians are subsistence farmers who do not grow Soya. No help will trickle down from Monsanto's beans to the starving millions.
The story exemplifies the limited contribution genetically modified crops have made so far to eradicating world hunger. It is not that biotech companies are uninterested in the developing world. Far from it: Brazil and other newly industrialising countries are in fact prime targets, with their growing demand for agricultural products, little opposition to biotechnology, and farmers who have risen above hard graft subsistence, but have not yet become customers of the world's seed and agrochemicals conglomerates.
Crops that thrive despite drought and salty soils could also let farmers expand production into marginal lands. And the nutritional content of staples could be improved. If maize, for example, can be made to produce more of the amino acids it naturally lacks, the 80 million people who live almost exclusively on maize would get more protein. Ganesh Kishore, head of nutrition at Monsanto, says: "We can make it into a complete balanced meal."
Arber. W. (Article: The Bio industry Association 1999 )
Genetically modified crops are no more dangerous to the environment than traditional crops and could boost corn, rice and other food yields by as much as 25 percent in developing countries http://www.freep.com/news/health/qdiet141.htm
Foods can also be genetically modified to ensure that they last longer by removing or adding certain genes. This process gives them a greater shelf life and means they are less prone to bruising when in transit. They are also less likely to lose their colour and more importantly, retain more of their nutrients. This ultimately gives consumers a better product and reduces the amount of waste for the producers and retailers. Proteins vital to our diets can be added to foods which don't ordinarily contain them, which is important for people lacking them. In time, this will also be true of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
With respect to the information I have studied herein I conclude that genetic modification of foods is not without some induced risk as totally alien genes are being inserted into organisms from unrelated species. This has been shown to possibly alter the new organism’s `properties` as a food substrate either beneficially or adversely. I believe that GM foods have great potential in providing food for an ever increasing population where more traditional agricultural techniques may struggle to cope or fail. However, efficient regulation of the market is necessary and the proactive techniques which have developed to meet this demand may have played a significant part in public rejectance of GM techniques in some countries.
