Benefits of Biotechnology  excerpt from     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/viewpoints/benefits.html

 

		Here are scientists' views on how GM crops can help the environment (reducing the need for herbicides, pesticides), the farmer (pathogen resistance), and make it easier to feed the world (enhanced crops with vitamins). Critics of agricultural biotechnology say there are other, better options for solving these problems.

 

Charles Arntzen, Ph.D.

			President Emeritus, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University read his interview

We're just at the tip of the iceberg of an enormous number of things that will be technically possible to do with plants. Some folks are talking about how they are going to change the qualities of plants so that they'll be able to do bio-remediation and clean up toxic sites. To some extent, that is a viable technology and it's a sustainable way of dealing with complex issues. ...

We're going to find more examples where [it's going to be much easier to] switch off a gene or an enzyme in a plant, or add some new component. [For instance], if we can just cut down the amount of lignin in the poplar trees that we're growing for paper pulp to make newspapers, [we'll get] less lignin contamination in streams and waterways. That makes a lot of sense. ... [Over time], the power of genetics--[which can provide] a sustainable modification of a biological resource--is going to be the much-preferred avenue over using cost-intensive industrial processes to do the same thing.

Norman Borlaug, Ph.D.

			Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture, Texas A&M University

... If we use high-yield technology, which we have done beautifully in the last 50 years, to increase the food that we need, we leave undisturbed vast tracts of marginal land which, if we opened to cultivation because of lack of rainfall or topography, would erode badly. They would become unproductive in a few years. Instead, [using] high-yield [agricultural practices] on the land [that is] best suited, you leave undisturbed many of these areas for wildlife habitat, for outdoor recreation, and for forestry. ...

There are many other things. Stop to think what would happen to corn production if you could put a gene into it that will withstand 3 or 4 degrees of frost. Corn is one of the most sensitive--it and beans--to light frost. Then you could plant earlier in the spring, when moisture is more plentiful. ... It will increase yield. It will shift corn production to earlier planting. We are just seeing some of the first things that have been useful.

Martina McGloughlin, Ph.D.

			Director, Biotechnology and Life Sciences Informatics Program, University of California-Davis read her interview

[Why use the BT gene to modify crops?] ...

Farmers are incredibly productive, but it does come at a price. There is a lot of contamination of soils and groundwater with the excess use of chemicals that are used to control weeds and insects and pests. So this was an obvious area that biotech could very quickly address issues of interest to the farming community. ... At that point in time, the biotech companies weren't thinking specifically of the consumer. They really were thinking of the farmer. ...

Last year, 55 percent of all soybeans were genetically engineered for another type of resistance gene, and this was herbicide tolerance. What this herbicide tolerance gene does is allow a far more environmentally compatible herbicide--glyphosate--to be used to control weeds. ... A recent report from the U.S. National Food and Ag Council in Washington has shown that using herbicide-tolerant soybeans, there was a savings of $280 million by farmers in 1998. This allowed them to use just a single herbicide. They only had to spray if the weeds emerged. They didn't have to use multiple sprayings or pre-sprayings. Likewise, they didn't have to use complex cocktails of really pretty nasty herbicides. ...

Take corn and cotton. What kind of pathogens attack these crops?

The main pathogen, especially for corn, is European corn borer. That particular pathogen comes up through the stalk of the plant itself, and it's very difficult to get at because it's literally inside the stalk, and you really oftentimes don't realize you have a problem until the ears fall off. That's not very good for farmers, and there's no really good way of being able to control them right now, even using traditional chemical pesticides.

With the BT gene in the corn itself, when the larvae eat [it], they are immediately affected. If you look at the two plants--the control plant and the engineered plant--it's like night and day. The control plant is just completely infected with the European corn borer. The BT plant is completely clean.

Charles Margulis

			Genetic Engineering Specialist, Greenpeace read his interview

Farmers have been among the first beneficiaries [of BT crops]. A cotton farmer uses less pesticides and grows better cotton. He's saving his environment. How do you answer him?

I would say that he's the exception rather than the rule. ... Even the biotech industry's own study on BT crops showed, at best, cotton farmers are seeing about a 12 percent decrease in chemical applications. ... Once those [insects that are resistant to BT] evolve, you're going to be stuck going back to that biotech company, either for more toxic chemicals or for the next generation of genetically engineered crops. They're going to be more and more costly, and keep you more and more dependent.

It's the same kind of treadmill that farmers have seen from the pesticide industry for 50 years. The average life span of an agri-chemical is about 3 to 5 years. Then nature evolves, the chemical doesn't work anymore, and farmers have to go back to the company for the next greatest thing. ...