Superb letter from Doug Gurian-Sherman who formerly a scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He later worked for the pro-GM Center for Science in the Public Interest (note) before becoming Senior Scientist at the Centre for Food Safety.
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Frontline (India's National Magazine), Volume 22 - Issue 03, Jan. 29 - Feb 11, 2005
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2203/stories/20050211006812900.htm
Rice
Asha Krishnakumar's informative article raises some serious issues concerning genetic engineering of rice ("Celebrating rice", January 28). Putting genes from species of organisms like viruses, bacteria, and non-food plants into a food crop like rice is another serious unknown for the environment. These foreign genes will transfer through pollen to wild relatives of rice that harbour genetic diversity, often with unknown consequences.
The vaunted regulatory system in the United Stated that is often put forth as a model for assessing the safety of GE crops is seriously flawed. It has been criticised in a series of recent reports by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and by major environmental groups, as having numerous inadequacies.
And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not even approve the safety of GE foods, but instead has a voluntary system of review that is cursory at best, and where the food safety tests are designed and performed by the companies that stand to benefit from the commercialisation of GE crops.
Perhaps the biggest problem for both farmers and the environment is that GE crops are designed to be used in oversimplified industrial agriculture systems that do not promote sound agroecological principles.
In the biggest GE crop, Roundup Ready herbicide-resistant soybeans, that oversimplification is leading to increasing numbers of resistant weeds that can no longer be controlled by the herbicide. A single resistant weed called horseweed now covers millions of acres after just five years.
Finally, GE research is very expensive, and the resources could be better spent on sound ecological approaches to agriculture. And often GE does not even work. For example, after 10 years and millions of dollars of research on GE virus resistant sweet potato in Kenya that was supposed to be a boon for farmers, it was found the GE crop was a failure because the complexity of virus types was not taken into account. In the U.S., there have been over 10,000 field trials of GE crops over 18 years, with hundreds of genes, but just a few (herbicide resistance and Bt insect resistance) have been successful.
Before the world hands over the future of its seed supply to a few multinational corporations and other large institutions, the consequences and alternatives should be carefully considered.
Doug Gurian-Sherman
Senior Scientist
Centre for Food Safety
Washington, D.C.