Food Culture

Genetically modified agriculture holds both the promise of drought- and virus-resistant crops and the peril of unraveling the natural food chain. But like it or not, it鈥檚 one genie that鈥檚 already out of the bottle.

The plum trees growing in an orchard in Kearneysville, West Virginia, look like any conventional variety. Arranged in neat rows, verdant oblong leaves crowding their unkempt branches, they produce respectable yields of sweet purple-black fruit each year. Yet they鈥檙e quite different in one respect: These trees aren鈥檛 likely to succumb to the devastating plum pox virus (PPV). That鈥檚 because they鈥檝e been genetically engineered to resist the disease, which has infected 100 million trees in Europe and surfaced in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York during the past 12 years.

鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 find a gene for plum pox resistance in any plums, so we turned to genetic engineering,鈥 says Ralph Scorza, a horticulturist and lead scientist at the USDA鈥檚 Appalachian Fruit Research Station, walking through the one-acre HoneySweet plum orchard. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had test-field plantings in Europe since 1996 and the U.S. since 1995, and we鈥檝e never had a single tree infected.鈥

Like all genetically engineered, or GE, crops鈥攁lso called transgenic or genetically modified鈥擧oneySweet plums contain foreign DNA that alters them in a desirable way. Beginning in the early 1990s Scorza and his colleagues isolated a gene from the virus, inserted it into a bacterium, and then introduced that into a single plant cell. Adding hormones spurred that cell to grow into a PPV-resistant tree.

Eight years after being submitted for approval, the transgenic plant will clear final regulatory hurdles this year. Not that Scorza expects farmers to start planting it anytime soon. Instead he envisions breeders using it to develop PPV-resistant varieties adapted to their region in case there鈥檚 an outbreak. Pennsylvania spent ten years and tens of millions of dollars eradicating plum pox by cutting down infected trees, and New York is still battling the virus on a small scale. The real fear, explains Scorza, is that it will hit California, which produces all U.S. prunes and half of the world鈥檚 supply. Furthermore, all stone fruits, including peaches and apricots, are susceptible. 鈥淚t鈥檚 preemptive,鈥 says Scorza. 鈥淩ight now growers don鈥檛 need HoneySweet because plum pox is under control. But if it blows up here, farmers can start planting resistant varieties.鈥

Safeguarding orchards might also protect wild plums. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know what would happen if it got into those trees,鈥 Scorza adds. 鈥淲ould they die? And what would that loss of fruit mean for birds or other animals? We don鈥檛 want to get movement from agriculture into the wild.鈥

To date the USDA, one of three regulatory agencies, has approved more than 70 applications for transgenic plants created for commercial use, although HoneySweet is only the second approved GE fruit tree, after a virus-resistant papaya. As with its predecessors, HoneySweet has raised environmental red flags. The transgenic pollen could be harmful to wild pollinators or possibly pollinate non-GE trees. 鈥淢y activist friends might not like to hear me say this, but it鈥檚 not something I鈥檇 lose sleep over,鈥 says Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit alliance of more than 250,000 citizens and researchers. 鈥淵es, there are risks. But I鈥檓 more concerned about other GE crops in the pipeline.鈥

When it comes to genetic engineering, a knee-jerk reaction is more common than Gurian-Sherman鈥檚 nuanced take. On one extreme are groups like Greenpeace, which considers transgenic crops 鈥済enetic pollution.鈥 On the other is U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who calls agricultural biotechnology, including genetic engineering, a 鈥減owerful tool that can be used to boost agricultural productivity.鈥 Vilsack鈥檚 support of genetic engineering was clear in January, when he opted against a controversial proposal that would have restricted GE alfalfa planting and protected organic alfalfa farmers from potential contamination. Instead, he said the USDA would authorize unrestricted commercial cultivation of the plant, although he assured the public that his department would work to ensure that non-bioengineered seeds remain available to farmers.

What鈥檚 certain is that plants and animals awaiting approval hold both promise and peril. The promise is intriguing. Monsanto鈥檚 drought-tolerant corn, for instance, might withstand the drier conditions climate change is expected to cause. Then there鈥檚 the South Dakota biotech company whose cattle are resistant to mad cow disease; an 鈥淓nviropig鈥 that produces low-phosphorous manure (which could reduce water pollution from industrial hog farms); and another pig that produces omega-3, so consumers could get their dose of heart-healthy fatty acids from bacon instead of fish oil or flaxseed.

Yet no one knows exactly what will happen when transgenic products are released into the environment. After decades of dependence on Roundup, an herbicide applied to transgenic crops ranging from sugar beets to cotton, it has come to light that one of the world鈥檚 most popular pesticides is lethal to amphibians. Then there鈥檚 the controversy surrounding the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Organic farmers use it as a natural pesticide against bugs like the European corn borer. Biotech companies have engineered Bt crops that produce the protein themselves, negating the need to spray. After laboratory studies in 1999 indicated that Bt corn pollen is toxic to monarch butterfly caterpillars, extensive field investigations determined that the threat was negligible. 鈥淥ne variety of corn, Bt-176, had high enough toxin levels to cause impacts on larvae, but fortuitously that one wasn鈥檛 commercially successful,鈥 says Gurian-Sherman. A 2007 lab study found that pollen from Bt corn was harmful to caddisflies, leading researchers to posit that it 鈥渕ay have negative effects on the biota of streams in agricultural areas.鈥 Today organic farmers fear that Bt crops will spur pests to become resistant; in 2008 researchers reported some of the first such populations: bollworms in Bt cotton fields in Arkansas and Mississippi. According to the Organic Trade Association, 鈥淲ithout Bt, organic farmers will be left with far fewer effective strategies, while conventional farmers, who also have relied on Bt sprays, will have to turn to pesticides that are more toxic.鈥

 

The debate over genetic engineering鈥檚 ecological dangers has been raging since farmers planted the first transgenic crops 15 years ago. Their use has since skyrocketed; today they account for a whopping 92 percent of U.S. soybean crops and more than 80 percent of corn and cotton. That means that as much as three-quarters of the processed foods in U.S. grocery stores鈥攕oda and hot dogs, bread and frozen pizza鈥攃ontain ingredients from GE plants, the Grocery Manufacturers of America estimates. At the same time, polls show that most Americans prefer not to eat GE foods and support labeling of GE products, which the government doesn鈥檛 require鈥攁 bone of contention with consumer groups, activists, and some politicians. The government, for its part, hasn鈥檛 seen any significant environmental risks to date in approved plants, says Jack Okamuro, one of eight U.S. Department of Agriculture national program leaders of crop production and protection.

Still, there have been mishaps. In 2002 experimental corn plants engineered by ProdiGene to make a pig vaccine sprouted in a soybean field. The USDA fined the company $250,000 and forced it to purchase and destroy tainted crops at the cost of approximately $3.5 million. The agency also tightened its rules on field-testing GE pharmaceutical crops. GE sugar beet planting is restricted until the USDA completes its environmental impact statement in May 2012. Several environmental groups sued the agency, alleging it issued permits without adequate environmental study. (Depending on how they鈥檙e used, all genetically modified organisms must get the green light from up to three agencies: USDA-APHIS, which oversees GE crop planting; the FDA, if the GMOs are food sources; and the EPA, which regulates all GE plants that have resistance to something, like a disease, an insect, or a weed.)

Now GE products that have raised concerns among activists and scientists may be nearing approval, including salmon that grow twice as fast and soybeans that can withstand multiple herbicides. Plenty is at stake鈥攑roducts with traits like these can take more than a decade and $100 million to bring to market.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of debate about the cost and the technology and the need for new products,鈥 says Gurian-Sherman. 鈥淲e need to start with the bigger picture and ask, 鈥榃ill this harm people or animals or the environment?鈥 鈥

 

While HoneySweet plums haven鈥檛 received much attention, 鈥淔rankenfish鈥 have caused a huge stir, in part because they鈥檙e poised to be the first transgenic animal sold as food. This past September hundreds of people gathered outside the White House to protest biotech company Aquabounty鈥檚 fast-growing Atlantic salmon, and more than 160,000 sent comments to the FDA urging the agency not to approve the fish, trademarked as AquAdvantage salmon.

The fish are grown entirely outside U.S. borders. At Aqua-bounty鈥檚 Prince Edward Island facility, millions of fertilized pink eggs sit in vertical incubators reminiscent of the pneumatic tubes at drive-through banks. Spliced into each egg is a promoter from the eel-shaped ocean pout that turns on a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon. Presto: an Atlantic salmon that grows year-round instead of only in the warmer months. The eggs are shipped to a farm in Panama鈥檚 highlands where thousands of fish in green tanks grow to market size in 18 months instead of three years. 

The company has been seeking FDA approval since 1996. It got closer in September when the agency鈥檚 Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee ruled that the transgenic fish are as safe to eat as any other Atlantic salmon. Still, the panel recommended that the government more rigorously assess the health and environmental effects before making a final decision. The FDA hasn鈥檛 set a timeline, but if approved, it will take about two years before any fillets appear in supermarkets. Under the current application, Aquabounty would produce the eggs in Canada and then sell them to a land-locked fish farm in Panama owned by another company. If Aquabounty wanted to sell eggs to other farms producing fish for U.S. consumers, each would require its own FDA review.

Aquabounty considers its land-based approach more eco-friendly than the ocean nets used on most salmon farms. 鈥淗aving fast-growing fish is a benefit to the environment,鈥 says research director John Buchanan, pointing out that transgenic salmon eat about 10 percent less than their traditionally farmed counterparts over the course of their lifetimes. An inland system also allows easier control of the waste and antibiotics coastal farms release directly into marine ecosystems, and reduces the likelihood of escapees. The saltwater would kill any Prince Edward Island hatchlings that somehow made it to the ocean, Buchanan says, and in Panama the water is too warm for runaways to survive. As an extra precaution, they鈥檙e all engineered to be female and infertile. 鈥淎s with any biological process, there鈥檚 some uncertainty, but we think 99.8 percent or better are sterile,鈥 he says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e done a lot of studies looking at fish health and haven鈥檛 found anything unusual. We didn鈥檛 find any differences in fatty acids, minerals, amino acids. It鈥檚 just a salmon that grows fast.鈥

Critics contend that if Aquabounty successfully expands the salmon market, the growth will amplify the industry鈥檚 negative aspects: Pollution from waste. Disease. Increased pressure on wild fish stocks used as feed.

Still, dominating the debate is the fear that the fish might escape and outcompete their wild counterparts. 鈥淎tlantic salmon populations have been in decline for a very long time, and there鈥檚 always a concern domestic salmon will hurt wild populations,鈥 says Carl Safina, head of the Blue Ocean Institute. Every year an estimated two million salmon escape from North Atlantic farms alone. A multiyear study found that the hybrid offspring of farmed and wild salmon are shorter lived than their wild counterparts. Because they鈥檙e raised in ocean nets, diseases and parasites are passed to wild stocks. The results can be profound. Overall, research shows that wild populations drop by half when associated with farmed salmon.

Safina argues it鈥檚 impossible to guarantee that no salmon will escape, especially if more farms are built, but he doubts they could hack it outside. 鈥淲ould they be able to breed? Are they capable of surviving in the wild? I鈥檇 tend to think the answer is no.鈥

Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, questions more than the animals鈥 fitness. 鈥淚 was struck by how poor the science was overall. I鈥檓 shocked that they didn鈥檛 look at disease resistance,鈥 he says of Aquabounty鈥檚 84-page report. 鈥淭hey used six to 12 salmon per study, which is just ridiculous. The testing Aquabounty did doesn鈥檛 represent the population of salmon that consumers would eat.鈥 Furthermore, the panel consisted almost entirely of veterinarians. 鈥淭o have only one scientist that has some fisheries expertise is really troubling,鈥 Gurian-Sherman says. He views the entire process as problematic, starting with the fact that the FDA is evaluating the fish under the new animal drug provision, which is designed to assess medications used to treat animals. 鈥淥ur laws were not designed for this technology. Back in the Reagan and first Bush administration, instead of taking the time to do it right, the government just stuck genetically engineered organisms in wherever they thought they fit with existing laws.鈥

 

Just as GE livestock is wending its way through the regulatory process, new transgenic crops are getting closer to the field鈥攕omething farmer Ken Hartman regards with a mixture of optimism and impatience. His family has farmed in Waterloo, Illinois, since the 1850s. Today they grow corn, soybeans, and wheat on their midsize farm. Hartman isn鈥檛 loyal to one seed company. 鈥淚 see what works, and many of my crops are genetically modified,鈥 he shouts over the whir of a fan circulating air through towering soybean-filled silos. Biotech has provided him with some extra security. Bt corn kills the destructive corn borer, and he uses fewer chemicals than his father did, thanks to soybeans designed to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate (the generic form of Roundup, produced by many companies). 鈥淲e used to use five or six different chemicals, but with Roundup you just need the one,鈥 Hartman says. 鈥淵ou can spray it on the plants without killing them, and you don鈥檛 have to till as much.鈥

Farmers spray glyphosate directly onto crops and surrounding weeds. The weeds die; the crop survives. This approach has had both advantages and drawbacks. On the plus side, the increased reliance on Roundup has decreased overall herbicide use. In corn it dropped from 2.61 pounds per acre in 1995 to 2.06 in 2005. Spread over tens of millions of acres, that鈥檚 a huge difference. It also has allowed farmers to cut back or even eliminate tilling, which curbs soil erosion and fossil fuel use.

Those benefits are the reason the vast majority of U.S. soybean, corn, and cotton crops are glyphosate tolerant. Unfortunately, this practice doesn鈥檛 work as well as it once did. Glyphosate-resistant weeds, like horseweed, are popping up in Hartman鈥檚 fields. And his aren鈥檛 alone. The first ones were found in 2000 in a Delaware soybean field; by 2009, 5.4 million acres were affected. As of June 2010 the 19 immune weed species had infested 11.4 million acres.

As with any herbicide, the more it鈥檚 used, the more likely resistance will emerge. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 particular to genetic engineering,鈥 says Matt Liebman, Iowa State University agronomy professor. 鈥淚t鈥檚 happened throughout the history of pesticides. Resistance develops to one and it becomes less effective, so you create the next one, and so on.鈥 The problem, says Gurian-Sherman, is that 鈥渘o one has developed any new effective herbicides since Roundup.鈥

Monsanto鈥檚 solution is to engineer a trait for resistance to an older herbicide called dicamba. By stacking dicamba resistance on top of glyphosate resistance, one crop can tolerate both herbicides. 鈥淩oundup has been revolutionary in helping farmers control weeds and is still effective on more than 300 weed species,鈥 says Roy Fuchs, Monsanto鈥檚 global oilseed technology lead. 鈥淚f we can give farmers a more dynamic weed-control system, it will ensure the longevity of Roundup.鈥 Only five weeds are resistant to dicamba, he adds. Other companies are developing dual-herbicide products, such as a soybean from Dow Agrosciences that鈥檚 resistant to glyphosate and the herbicide 2,4-D.

Critics say the problem isn鈥檛 the soybeans themselves but rather the chemicals applied to them. Though glyphosate is only slightly toxic to birds and practically nontoxic to fish and honeybees, the EPA concludes, it is deadly to amphibians. Most pesticides don鈥檛 have to be tested on amphibians, and few people looked into the effect, until University of Pittsburgh biologist Rick Relyea.

In 2005 Relyea found that in tanks designed to mimic ponds, recommended Roundup doses caused an 86 percent drop in total tadpole mass. Even at one-third the concentration, it killed up to 71 percent of tadpoles. The culprit is a surfactant added to make Roundup penetrate leaves, not the herbicide鈥檚 active ingredient, says Relyea. Because so little is known about how pesticides affect amphibians鈥攁nd the resulting domino effect through the food chain鈥攊t鈥檚 difficult to predict what might happen as farmers adopt dicamba or 2,4-D on top of glyphosate, says Relyea. 鈥淏ut there鈥檚 often concern when you put more pesticides in the environment.鈥

Penn State weed ecologist Dave Mortensen estimates that if 2,4-D and dicamba-resistant soybeans are widely adopted, herbicide use on that crop will increase by 70 percent in a few years. That鈥檚 what Monsanto is counting on. 鈥淒icamba is older, farmers know how to use it, and it鈥檚 off-patent, so it won鈥檛 be expensive,鈥 says Fuchs. He notes that there are concerns about volatilization鈥攖he herbicide readily converts to a gas and drifts onto nearby plants. To reduce that risk, Monsanto, with chemical company BASF, is developing a less volatile formulation. Of course, it would be patented and would thus cost more. Mortensen has found that dicamba moves 60 to 180 feet from where it鈥檚 sprayed. He鈥檚 also looked at one of the new formulations, which 鈥渁re less likely to move as gas, but they鈥檙e still moving outside the field.鈥

鈥淒icamba is a lot nastier than glyphosate, because of volatilization and its toxicity,鈥 says the Center for Food Safety鈥檚 Freese. It鈥檚 slightly toxic to bobwhite quail and mallards, and may cause developmental or reproductive problems in mammals that feed on plants exposed to it. Any nearby broadleaf plants, including tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage, are susceptible. Steve Smith, director of agriculture for Red Gold, America鈥檚 largest private canned-tomato processor, told Congress last September that 鈥渢he widespread use of dicamba herbicide possesses the single most serious threat to the future of the specialty crop industry in the Midwest.鈥

While frustrated by the weeds, Hartman says dicamba isn鈥檛 an option for him at this point. 鈥淒icamba will kill the weeds, but it could also kill my neighbor鈥檚 grapes. He鈥檚 a friend,鈥 he says, adding with a smile, 鈥渁nd I drink his wine.鈥

It could also hurt habitat just now being recognized for its ecological importance. 鈥淲e鈥檙e realizing that the weedy field edge, the non-crop elements like hedgerows and forest, are really important to habitat provision,鈥 says Mortensen. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important for pollinators like wild bees and other insects.鈥 Colony collapse disorder, which has devastated some commercial honeybee colonies, is spurring research into wild bees as important backup pollinators. Most plants on the fringes are broadleafed, and thus vulnerable to dicamba. 鈥淗erbicide drift will clearly restructure plant communities on the field edges and in these fragmented pieces,鈥 says Mortensen. 鈥淲e certainly expect that the insect populations built on these edges will be affected. And anything eating those insects or nesting in those plants would potentially be at risk, too.鈥

Instead of GE and chemicals, Liebman advocates the 鈥渕any little hammers鈥 approach鈥攅mploying varied management methods that together control weeds. This might mean rotating diverse crops, planting cover crops that suppress weeds and bolster soil health, limiting tilling to prevent erosion, and applying sparing amounts of pesticides. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a panacea,鈥 he says. 鈥淚f you use a range of tactics, each of them is relatively weak, but cumulatively they鈥檙e strong. It works, but it requires more management.鈥

Whether Big Ag would adopt the approach is another matter. 鈥淲e have a whole bunch of pesticides that work,鈥 Liebman says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e convenient, and farmers will start using those in sequence.鈥 As with glyphosate, resistance will crop up, he says. Some weeds already tolerate multiple herbicides, which might lead companies to stack resistance to several herbicides. Asks Liebman, 鈥淭he question is, do you want to be on that pesticide treadmill forever?鈥

 

Monsanto has no intention of getting off the treadmill, but it is diversifying, as a visit to its facility outside St. Louis makes clear. In a sticky-warm sixth-floor greenhouse, dozens of potted, four-foot-high corn plants sit in neat rows. A sign on one wilted stalk reads: 鈥淒o not water.鈥 These plants are being developed for drought tolerance. Their more advanced predecessors are being field-tested on the western Great Plains. Mark Lawson, head of yield and stress traits research, says that as climate change causes arid regions to become even drier, it could become an important crop here and in sub-Saharan Africa, where the company, with funding from the Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, is developing drought-tolerant corn hybrids.

Monsanto expects to introduce the product to U.S. markets after trials in 2012. It鈥檚 something farmer Hartman has been waiting for. 鈥淚鈥檇 love to try it on the drier pieces of land. It seems like every year they say it鈥檚 one year away.鈥 The delay shows how tricky this particular aim is. 鈥淒rought is the most complex trait you can work on,鈥 says Lawson. The crop has to grow well under arid conditions but also produce adequate yields in rainy years. And testing for unintended side effects鈥攍ike increased disease susceptibility鈥攖akes years.

Gurian-Sherman, meanwhile, favors looking to conventional breeding for drought-tolerant corn. In fact, such products are expected to hit the market around the same time as Monsanto鈥檚. It鈥檚 too early to say which will win out, but there鈥檚 a lot of money at stake: Analysts say the drought-tolerant-corn market may top $2.7 billion.

Such crops are just one example of the new directions corporations, governments, and academics are pushing genetic engineering. Not all the products will make it to market, but some certainly will. At the same time, the public backlash against GE isn鈥檛 dying down, as demonstrations against GE salmon show. With so much in motion, Mortensen would like to see broader, science-based discussions that weigh the risks and benefits. 鈥淚n the end, I probably won鈥檛 be on board supporting a lot of genetically engineered crops with stacked resistance,鈥 he says. 鈥淏ut I would really love to see us take a step back and see if this is the best way to go.鈥