The agriculture industry worldwide is valued at an estimated $3.2 trillion. In developing countries it accounts for a large share of the GDP and employment. It is believed that chronic hunger affects an estimated 1 billion people. Most of them live in countries with developing economies. Population growth and declining availability of arable land will continue to confound this issue. Modern biotechnology has the potential to be a significant tool in fighting hunger. It has been established that it can be very effective in addressing problems like yield loss from insect infestation, competition with weeds and drought. Biotechnology has been used for more than 20 years now to improve the quality and yield of field crops in many parts of the world.
A GMO is plant, animals or micro-organisms in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.
The definition seeks to distinguish the direct manipulation of genetic material from the traditional practices of improvement in the genetic stock by selective breeding.
GM foods are foods produced from genetically modified plants or animals. The first genetically modified plants, antibiotic resistant tobacco and petunias, were produced by three independent research groups in 1983. Scientists in China commercialized the genetically modified tobacco in early 1990s. In 1994 the US market saw the first genetically modified species of (delayed ripening) tomato approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Since
then, several transgenic crops have received FDA approval. GM foods currently in market include potatoes, eggplants, strawberries and carrots. Many more in the pipeline.
A papaya has been developed by genetic engineering to resist the ring spot virus and thereby enhance productivity. Cooking oil, margarine and fat used for making pastry may also be made from GM crops. A large percentage of canola now produced in the United States is a GM product. Canola oil is the third most widely consumed vegetable oil in the world. The genetic modifications are made for providing resistance to herbicides.
86 per cent of the US maize crop was genetically modified in 2010. Worldwide, its share was 32 per cent in 2011.
Generation of GM crops:
In order to generate GM foods, researchers need to introduce the gene(s) coding for certain traits into a plant cell, and then regenerate the plant through tissue culture. When and where the transferred genes is expressed is usually inherent in the scheme to optimise the property of the product. There are three ways to modify genes in a cell: directly transfer DNA; use a bacterial vehicle; and directly edit the genomic DNA.
Do we need GM foods?
Three major challenges motivate the resort to the new technology. The rate of increase in crop yields by traditional means is less than 1.7 per cent a year. It needs to be at least 2.4 per cent to meet the demands of population growth, improving nutritional standards and decreasing arability.
The standards followed for safety assessment of GM foods are comprehensive and have proven very effective. Countries with developing economies will benefit from key learnings with early generation GM crops and applying them to a different range of field crops for products developed in their own countries
The ability to bring additional acreage under cultivation seems limited. The yield increase must therefore come from better seeds, fertilizers, water, pest and weed control and genetic improvement. The problem is compounded by an increasing demand for bio fuels and feed stock production; accelerated urbanization; land desertification, salinization and degradation.
There have been questions about whether GM foods are safe to consume. By way of an answer the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development stated in 1993 that “If a new food or food component is found to be substantially equivalent to an existing food or food component, it can be treated in the same manner with respect to safety. No additional safety concerns would be expected.”
Safety assessments are currently designed to ensure that the developer does not select a protein to which a sensitive person would be exposed unknowingly. Potential for allergenicity is assessed for proteins to ensure that they are not similar enough to react with the antibodies present in people with food allergies.
The source is an important criterion in selection for protein of interest. This is a component of the safety assessment for individual proteins called History of Safe Use (HOSF). Another key component in the allergenicity assessment is a bioinformatics comparison of the amino acid sequence of the protein with the sequences of known allergenic proteins for similarity using computational methods. Collectively these studies have successfully demonstrated that the methods used to assess the allergenicity of proteins expressed in GM crops are effective. In nearly 20 years following the commercialization of the first GM crop, there have been no reports of allergic reaction attributable to exposure to foods obtained from them.
Proteins used in GM crops are also assessed for potential to cause adverse effects if for no other reason that they too are proteins.
The standards followed for safety assessment of GM foods are comprehensive and have proven very effective. Countries with developing economies will benefit from key learnings with early generation GM crops and applying them to a different range of field crops for products developed in their own countries. GM crops can mitigate several current challenges in commercial agriculture. Current market trends project them as one of the fastest growing and innovative global industries.
However, it is imperative that the agricultural industry and science community invest in better communication and regulation to tackle unethical research and misinformation. With key innovation in precision gene-integration technologies and emerging research in bio fortification and stress tolerance, GM crops are forecast to bring productivity and profitability in commercial agriculture for smoother progress in the future. In the intermediate future, GM foods and feeds will prosper in the Asian and African countries, as is evident from the growth of these product during the last five years.
The mature GM crop markets, such as those in the US, Brazil, and the EU have little scope for expansion. More GM crops may be released soon as the 2015 brief on the subject mentions 85 GM products in the pipeline.
For assessment of health hazards, there will be a need for more precise, animal-specific, organ-specific, and long-term assessment procedures, with special consideration given to novel toxins, dose, potentially toxic mixtures and the combined effect of stacked traits on metabolism and other body mechanisms.
The writer is an MPhil student at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad