Spring 2002 - The Food Issue

Spring 2002 - The Food Issue

Beyond Mendel
by Brendan McLaughlin
Photos by Katie Kulla

Overhead lights illuminate the cramped walkway of the produce section at Haggen, while secondary fluorescents light the more perishable goods lining the aisle. Nestled between the bok choy and green beans, a corn display lures consumers with crisp and healthy looking additions to dinner. In all likelihood, however, these delicious-looking ears are the product of a genetics experiment.

Since 1994, genetic engineers have created a number of genetically modified commercial food products. The Monsanto Company and its patented plants are now a ubiquitous part of the agricultural world. Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are subject to both praise and criticism.

Humans have selectively bred plants for thousands of years, making them bigger, faster growing and better tasting. In 1866, Gregor Mendel published his research on peas’ inherited characteristics, describing the biological process through which parents pass traits to their offspring. Scientists would eventually use that research to explain how selective breeding allows farmers to farm more efficiently.

Selective breeding requires careful monitoring of several plant generations to produce the desired result. Biotechnology, however, lets scientists cut and splice DNA strands to change a plant’s genetic composition by inserting single genes from other species, giving it the desired trait and providing more immediate results. Since DNA codes are based on the same four proteins, segments of DNA can be inserted from other species, allowing exchanges between gene species as dissimilar as fish and raspberries. This could never be achieved through selective breeding, which cannot instantly disrupt the plant’s genetic composition.

“When you put a gene into a plant,” said Jeff Young, a plant physiologist at Western Washington University, “you make a new or different enzyme, or up the expression of an existing enzyme.”

Scientists’ knowledge is still limited. Geneticists have confirmed that, while there are relatively few genes, the interactions between them alter their expression, potentially resulting in unknown consequences.

“We know that genes are responsible for more than just one thing,” said Britt Bailey of The Center for Ethics and Toxics, a non-profit environmental group in California, and author of “Against the Grain”, a book on the biotechnology industry. “The agriculture industry has this idea that they can insert a gene into a plant and it’s just going to do this one thing. We have no idea what else it’s doing.”

Biotechnology is still a fledgling industry. In 1990, commercial GM crops did not exist. Today, once a GM product receives federal approval, any product not labeled organic is potentially modified. Unless they’ve been certified organic, the crisp, luscious ears of corn purchased at the grocery store are potentially GM.

Companies like Dow, DuPont, Novartis and Monsanto have been developing their products since the early 1980s. St. Louis-based Monsanto engineered an entire line of products to resist their commercial herbicide Roundup thanks to a gene taken from the common petunia. Soybeans, cotton, corn and canola have all been engineered as Roundup Ready.

One appealing aspect of using Roundup Ready varieties is the ease with which troublesome weeds can be eradicated. For the first time, herbicides can be applied directly to the crops themselves.

“They can spray (Roundup) over the top of the crop,” said Martin Lemon, Environmental Operations manager for Monsanto. “It doesn’t have an adverse effect on the crop, but it does kill the weeds.”

Spraying from airplanes significantly reduces the amount of time required for weed control.

“They’ve been able to improve the convenience of their agricultural life, their work,” Lemon said. “Whereas before they’d use two, three, maybe four different herbicides on a crop, they can use one now.”

Farmers must purchase both the Roundup Ready-crop seeds and the herbicide from Monsanto, because the company owns patents on both products.

To bring its technology to the farmer’s fields, Monsanto formed contracts with numerous seed companies or bought them outright.

Monsanto targeted Midwestern soybean-seed producers, purchasing the two largest companies, Asgrow and Hartz. Monsanto spent $8.3 billion acquiring seed producers, but fell short on its goal of transforming the entire United States harvest of soybeans into GM seeds by 2000, Bailey said.

Even so, 57 million of the total 80 million acres of soybeans on United States soil were Roundup Ready at the end of 2001.

“In 1996 there were 500,000 acres (of GM crops) being planted in the United States,” Bailey said. “Now there are over 100 million global acres committed to genetically engineered seeds.”

Most farmers use the patented seeds for economic reasons, Lemon said.

“Run the numbers from an economic standpoint,” Lemon said. “If they take economics, convenience and the environment into account, the decision will be an easy one to make.”

Farmers growing Monsanto’s engineered crops have to sign a Technology Agreement when they buy the seeds.

“(The Technology Agreement) asks that the growers do not collect and save seed from this year’s harvest and replant,” Lemon said. “There’s no company that, if they only sell their product once or twice, can afford to advance.”

Every time a grower sows a crop of Monsanto GM seeds, they are required to pay for them.

“It’s important to us, it’s important to everybody that likes this technology, that everybody play by the rules,” Lemon said.

The contracts also allow field representatives access to the farm for monitoring illegal seed use. Monsanto even established hotlines where farmers are encouraged to turn each other in for illegal replanting, Bailey said.

Monsanto has successfully sued Canadian canola farmers for patent infringement. In the legal sense, infringement is any act that interferes with a patentee enjoying their monopoly rights.

In the most highly publicized case, Percy Schmeiser, a 68-year-old farmer in Saskatchewan, was convicted of patent infringement even though he never signed contracts with Monsanto. In his judgment, Justice Andrew McKay stated it didn’t matter if Schmeiser knew his fields were contaminated to constitute infringement.

Schmeiser claimed that genetic pollution, a process where GM plants pass an introduced gene to conventional varieties or related species, brought Monsanto’s product to him.

“His claim was that he believed some pollen had drifted into his fields, or some seeds had fallen off a truck and quote ‘contaminated his fields,’” Lemon said. “We know a lot about pollen. It just doesn’t travel that far and seeds don’t bounce that far off the road.”

Many growers like Michael Neuroth, co-owner and operator of Coast Alpine Nursery on Lummi Island, are concerned about these rulings long-term effects.

“It’s almost a form of eminent domain,” Neuroth said. “The corporate seed producer comes in, and since they have the intellectual property rights, if the modified strains contaminate your field you’re accused of stealing.

“You cannot fence this stuff off. Nature just doesn’t work that way.”

Despite the increasing number of legal disputes, regulatory standards remain unchanged by the three federal agencies responsible for the regulation of GM foods – the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration.

In 1992, the FDA announced that as long as the modified food is not more toxic or allergenic, or any less “substantially equivalent” than the standard variety, it doesn’t need to be labeled differently.

Many people believe, however, more safety tests need to be performed on GM foods.

“Genetically engineered organisms were introduced with very few scientific or ecological safety nets,” Bailey said. “All of the pre-marketing tests are performed on very small areas by the companies that produce them. They’re literally two-to-three-acre plots.”

Lemon, however, said sufficient toxicity tests are performed on lab animals to ensure they don’t cause adverse health effects.

“We need to do the kinds of tests that will give us the answer as to whether this protein is toxic at any level, and secondly does it cause an allergic reaction in human beings,” Lemon said. “Those studies are definitely done.”

The tests, however, do not satisfy everyone and some farmers worry that yields may be suffering.

“There’s not a shred of evidence that any of these GM crops are any more productive than conventional ones,” Neuroth said. “If anything, they might be even less productive.”

A study by the University of Nebraska’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources stated that Roundup Ready soybeans yield 6 to 11 percent less than conventional varieties.

“When they do the economics on the overall cost, even if you get a small yield sacrifice, the grower is still making or saving more money on the technology crop than he was on the conventional crop,” Lemon said.

Thus far, the biotechnology companies have only marketed products that are herbicide-resistant or contain a pesticide. Manipulations to increase yields have failed, which casts doubt on the integrity of the forces driving the industry.

Whether viewed as gift or curse, Monsanto and the agriculture industry have opened the door to a seemingly limitless amount of genetic experimentation with America’s food supply.

Junior Brendan McLaughlin studies environmental journalism at Huxley College. This is his first published piece.

Spring 2002 - The Food Issue

Beyond Mendel by Brendan McLaughlin Photos by Katie Kulla

Beyond Mendel
by Brendan McLaughlin
Photos by Katie Kulla