“Biotechnology will help us toward more sustainable ways to grow food only if we recognize its, and nature’s, limits. The challenge for researchers is to wed agriculture and nature, so that the world’s people may feed themselves and still preserve the soil and water resources that make possible the agricultural miracle.” – John E. Young, Worldwatch Institute
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Between this year and 2050, farmers all over the world will have to produce more food – more calories, that is – than they have done from the start of agriculture until now. But concerns over the environment will impede the “tools” they can use in crop production.
How can agricultural schemes change in the coming years to resolve this dilemma? How can farmers increase the productive efficiency of cultivated areas, without damaging the planet?
The answer, according to some agricultural scientists, is to invest in and develop new agricultural technologies. Biotechnology has been identified as one of the technologies that may help abet the forthcoming food crisis.
Current biotechnology can increase crop yields and reduce production costs, even for small-scale farmers in developing countries, who make up a large part of the world’s poor and hungry population, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“Biotechnology can help even the landless poor by enriching staple foods, such as through the addition of essential vitamins,” said the FAO report, Biotechnology and Food Security.
Generally, biotechnology is a term used to describe a raft of biological techniques – some new, some updated versions of older technologies – developed in recent years.
The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity defines biotechnology as “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use.”
Biotechnology even covers traditional techniques to make wine and cheese.
However, modern biotechnology generally means modification of living organisms (plants, animals and fish) through the manipulation of genes. A gene is the smallest complete unit of coded information in an organism. This constitutes the “source code” of the organism, just as sequences of 1 and 0 define a computer file or program.
Molecular biology is apparently the most powerful tool of biotechnology. In the area known generally as genetic engineering, scientists can transfer genes between unrelated species endowing such “transgenic” plants, animals and microorganisms with properties that they could probably never have acquired in nature.
Tissue culture, an older technology that has advanced dramatically in recent years, is particularly important in plant research, both as a complement to genetic engineering and in its own right because it allows whole plants to be generated from small samples of tissue. This allows large numbers of seedlings with desirable qualities to be propagated without the lengthy wait for plants to produce seeds or transplantable roots.
But it’s genetic engineering that has opened a new universe of genetic material to plant breeders, no longer restricting them to reproductively compatible species.
“As the science advances, special qualities of unrelated plants will become available for transfer into crop species,” wrote John E. Young, a Worldwatch Institute researcher who works on world food issues. “A possible match: inserting into crops the disease-defense genes of say weeds that thrive in crop fields decimated by disease.”
The UN food agency identifies two main types of biotechnological processes. The first uses genetic information to speed up and improve conventional plant or animal breeding. The second – and more advanced – modifies the genetic pattern of a plant or animal to create a new organism.
Golden rice is a case in point of the first process. Golden rice is one of the nutrient-rich varieties developed by the Philippine Rice Institute (PhilRice) with support and assistance from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Golden rice has been promoted as a staple that can reduce the incidence of malnutrition in the country. Normally, rice plants produce beta-carotene in their green parts, but not the grain that people eat. Golden rice is genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene in the edible part of the plant.
Using genetic modification techniques, scientists developed golden rice using genes from corn and a common soil microorganism that together produce beta-carotene in the rice grain.
The beta-carotene gives the golden color to the cereal (as well as to fruits and vegetables like squash, papaya and carrots). The body converts beta-carotene in golden rice to vitamin A as needed.
The development of insect-resistant crops is an example of the second. Bt eggplant comes to mind. One of the most destructive insect pests that attack eggplants is called the eggplant fruit and shoot borer (EFSB). The moths’ larvae feed on eggplant shoots and fruits until maturity.
“The EFSB can cause as much as 50-75 percent loss of fruits,” said former Science Secretary Emil Q. Javier. “The worm of the insect bore tunnels in the fruit, rendering them unfit for consumption.”
Unfortunately, there is no known genetic resistance to EFSB in cultivated and wild eggplants. “The insects are concealed in the shoots and fruits and are difficult to reach,” Dr. Javier explained. “Thus, in order to protect their crops, farmers spray their plants almost every other day with insecticides.”
But there’s a better way to get rid of EFSB without using pesticides. It can be done by inserting “Bacillus thuringiensis” (Bt) into the vegetable crop. “Bt eggplant was developed by genetically engineering a gene from the bacteria so that the GM eggplants now produce a protein that defends it against insect attacks,” explained Dr. Michael Purugganan, a Filipino plant geneticist who is the Dean of Science at the New York University.
Bt, a common soil bacterium, produces a protein that paralyzes the larvae of some harmful insects, including EFSB. “When ingested by the larvae of the target insect, the Bt protein is activated in the gut’s alkaline condition and punctures the mid-gut leaving the insect unable to eat. The insect dies within a few days,” noted a briefing paper circulated by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications.
Although plant biotechnology was ahead as far as research is concerned, animal biotechnology is also doing its best to come out with commercial products.
“Hormones that speed and increase livestock weight gain and that increase the milk production of dairy cows can now be mass-produced by genetically altered bacteria,” Young reported. In like manner, veterinary vaccines and drugs can be made by microbes.
Genetic techniques are also allowing the brisk and inexpensive diagnosis of many animal diseases. Livestock breeding may be sped up and made more consistent by techniques that involve manipulation of sperm and ova, including the transplantation of test-tube-fertilized – and sometimes genetically altered – embryos to surrogate mothers.
“Animal biotechnology has moved forward relatively quickly because much more is known about the basic cell processes of animals that those of plants and because human health products are usually tested first in animals, which has given researchers an extensive catalogue of animal responses to various drugs,” Young explained.
“Biotechnology was applied early on the production of animal drugs, which are often biologically similar to human pharmaceuticals,” Young added.
But despite the benefits that biotechnology brings, there are still organizations like Greenpeace, an international environmental group. “It’s now possible to do stuff that only writers could imagine before and build up completely new life forms. The argument that we need genetically-modified food to feed the world is complete bull,” Greenpeace deplored.
Most anti-biotechnology groups are urging proponents to stop anything related to biotechnology. Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol of the Department of Agriculture (DA) admitted to some media personalities that biotechnology won’t be a “quick fix” to the problem of food insecurity. “Personally, I’m not really convinced that genetically modified plants are the quick-fix to our shortage of food,” he was quoted as saying.
Dr. Vivencio Mamaril, the officer-in-charge of the DA Biotech Program Office, seems to agree. “Biotechnology is just one of the possible solutions to the problem of the looming food crisis,” he told participants of the seminar-workshop on biotechnology held in Davao City.
Dr. Channapatna Prakash, a professor of plant molecular genetics, has the same view. “(Biotechnology) is not the only way to increase food production but right now represents a major scientific breakthrough to develop better crop varieties in addressing some of the food production problems,” he said.
But the question is: are transgenic crops safe to eat? “Foods produced using genetic modification are as safe as foods produced using conventional breeding techniques,” declares the US Food and Drug Administration. “Genetically modified foods are as safe as other foods available on the market.”
A 2008 review published by the Royal Society of Medicine noted that transgenic foods have been eaten by millions of people worldwide for over 15 years, with no reports of ill effects. Likewise, a 2004 report from the US National Academies of Sciences stated: “To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.”
The 2010 report of the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation on Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs) noted: “The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than conventional plant breeding technologies.” – ###
