Part 2: GMO for the Masses

Dr Abe V Rotor

Two staple crops – rice and corn – are among the first genetically engineered crops. The first one is Bt corn, corn that carries the Bacillus thuringiensis gene that is responsible in controlling corn borer and its relatives that belong to Order Lepidoptera. The second is golden rice that carries the beta-carotene of daffodils. Beta-carotene serves as a building block for Vitamin A, thus potentially carving the effects of Vitamin A deficiency on millions of people, including some 350,000 who go blind every year.

The genetic engineer, Dr. Ingo Potrykus, a Swiss, recently brought to IRRI his golden rice, which IRRI will use in developing tropical golden rice varieties. Whatever happened to IRRI’s original super rice the world had been expecting?

“For whom are GM rice and Bt corn addressed to if not the hungry world?” the genetic engineers stress, presenting these serious problems agriculture is facing today, namely:

1. Low food value of crops
2. Low productivity
3. Crop damage due to pests and diseases, drought, and poor soil
4. Unavailability and non-affordability of food due to high cost
5. Problem of distribution
6. Poor collaboration among public and private sectors

Many scientists believe that biotech could raise overall crop productivity in developing countries as much as 25% and help prevent the loss of those crops after they are harvested.

Engineering a crop, or an animal for that matter, does not end in implanting the desired gene and leaving nature to take her course. In biology as it is in other fields of natural sciences, once a structure is changed or modified, expect that the Domino Theory will set a chain reaction. For example, marcotted, grafted and budded trees live only the remaining life of their parent. Thus seed-grown mango far outlives its grafted counterpart. (100 years versus 25 years) This is a simple picture of cloning to explain why Dolly aged at a rate as fast as her mother.
_____________________________________________________________

An estimated 60 percent of all processed foods contain at least one genetically engineered component” – Mother Jones Magazine
_____________________________________________________________

Some Successful Genetically Modified Crops

1. Corn, soybean, and potato that require fewer applications of herbicides and pesticides.

2. Tomatoes that soften more slowly and remain on the vine longer, resulting in more flavor and color.

3. Soybeans that are lower in saturated fats and offer better frying stability without further processing.

4. Papayas that are virus resistant.

5. Peppers modified to be tastier and remain firmer after harvest.

6. Rice with high vitamin A.

Continued...