On Balance, the Benefits of Genetically Modified Foods Outweigh the Harms

LBRT: On balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms.

Content:

1. Key Articles 2. Additional Resources

ARTICLE 1 HOW GMO CROPS CAN BE GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT November 18, 2014

candidate in just about every competitive race, were foods containing genetically modified organisms. Ballot initiatives that would have mandated the labeling of GMOs on store shelves lost in both in Colorado (overwhelmingly) and Oregon (narrowly). Nobody knows exactly how the passage of those measures would have affected the sales of GMO products over the long run; consumers have shown a tendency to ignore the calorie counts on food labels.

foods containing GMOs less popular and therefore decrease the amount of farmland, in the U.S. and abroad, given over to modified crops. That was the goal of many labeling proponents, and a new study suggests it would have been a bad result.

independent studies have already done so and found that GMOs are perfectly safe to eat. The new research instead looks at the costs and benefits for agriculture and the environment, a question on which there is less consensus. Plenty of research, including this large study from the National Academy of Sciences, has found that GMOs have significantly increased farm yields while decreasing pesticide use and soil erosion. The idea is that because GM crops are engineered to produce insecticides in their tissues or to be immune to particular herbicides, they reduce the man-hours, fuel, and chemical inputs in farming, even while reducing losses to pests and weather. (Anti-GMO groups have looked at the same data and argued that the yield gains are minimal (PDF) and limited to special circumstances.)

The new study, in the journal PLOS One, comes down strongly on the pro- -analysis that aggregates and examines the results of 147 existing research studies looking at GM soybeans, maize , a found that GM technology increased crop yields by 22 percent, reduced pesticide use by 37 percent, and increased farmer profits by 68 percent. A few details jump out from the study. For one, the benefits were greater in those GM crops that produced their own pesticides rather than those engineered for herbicide resistance the latter trait has been

The yield and profit gains were also greater in developing countries than in developed countries. Finally, the studies in the meta-analyses that were published in peer-reviewed journals showed more dramatic effects, both in yield and profit gains, than those published elsewhere. Put another way, the more rigorously vetted a study, the more likely it has been to find benefits for GMOs.

BY: Drake Bennett

SOURCE: Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-18/how-gmo- crops-can-be-good-for-the-environment

ARTICLE 2 THE TRUTH ABOUT GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD Proponents of genetically modified crops say the technology is the only way to feed a warming, increasingly populous world. Critics say we tamper with nature at our peril. Who is right? September 1, 2013

Robert Goldberg sags into his desk chair and gestures at the air.

Goldberg, a plant molecular biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, is not battling psychosis. He is expressing despair at the relentless need to confront what he sees as bogus fears over the health risks of genetically modified (GM) crops. Particularly frustrating to him, he says, is that this debate should have ended decades ago, when researchers produced a stream of exonerat

Across campus, David Williams, a cellular biologist who specializes in didn't know that when you throw any gene into a different genome, the genome reacts to it. But now anyone in this field knows the genome is not a static environment. Inserted genes can be transformed by several different means insists, could very well be potentially toxic plants slipping through testing.

Williams concedes that he is among a tiny minority of biologists raising sharp questions about the safety of GM crops. But he says this is only because the field of plant molecular biology is protecting its interests. Funding, much of it from the companies that sell GM seeds, heavily favors researchers who are exploring ways to further the use of genetic modification in agriculture. He says that biologists who point out health or other risks associated with GM crops who merely report or defend experimental findings that imply there may be risks find themselves the focus of vicious attacks on their credibility, which leads scientists who see problems with GM foods to keep quiet.

Whether Williams is right or wrong, one thing is undeniable: despite overwhelming evidence that GM crops are safe to eat, the debate over their use continues to rage, and in some parts of the world, it is growing ever louder. Skeptics would argue that this contentiousness is a good

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 4 thing that we cannot be too cautious when tinkering with the genetic basis of the world's food supply. To researchers such as Goldberg, however, the persistence of fears about GM foods is nothing short of billions of meals without a problem, we've gone back to b So who is right: advocates of GM or critics? When we look carefully at the evidence for both sides and weigh the risks and benefits, we find a surprisingly clear path out of this dilemma.

Benefits and Worries

The bulk of the science on GM safety points in one direction. Take it from David Zilberman, a U.C. Berkeley agricultural and environmental economist and one of the few researchers considered credible by both agricultural chemical companies and their critics. He argues that the benefits of GM crops greatly outweigh the health risks, which so far less pesticide. It has raised the output of corn, cotton and soy by 20 to 30 percent, allowing some people to survive who would not have without it. If it were more widely adopted around the world, the price

In the future, Zilberman says, those advantages will become all the more significant. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world will have to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 just to keep up with population growth. Climate change will make much of the world's arable land more difficult to farm. GM crops, Zilberman says, could produce higher yields, grow in dry and salty land, withstand high and low temperatures, and tolerate insects, disease and herbicides.

Despite such promise, much of the world has been busy banning, restricting and otherwise shunning GM foods. Nearly all the corn and soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, but only two GM crops, Monsanto's MON810 maize and BASF's Amflora potato, are accepted in the European Union. Eight E.U. nations have banned GM crops outright. Throughout Asia, including in India and China, governments have yet to approve most GM crops, including an insect- resistant rice that produces higher yields with less pesticide. In Africa, where millions go hungry, several nations have refused to import GM foods in spite of their lower costs (the result of higher yields and a reduced need for water and pesticides). Kenya has banned them altogether amid widespread malnutrition. No country has definite plans to grow Golden Rice, a crop engineered to deliver more vitamin A than

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 5 spinach (rice normally has no vitamin A), even though vitamin A deficiency causes more than one million deaths annually and half a million cases of irreversible blindness in the developing world. Globally, only a tenth of the world's cropland includes GM plants. Four countries the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Argentina grow 90 percent of the planet's GM crops. Other Latin American countries are pushing away from the plants. And even in the U.S., voices decrying genetically modified foods are becoming louder. At press time, at least 20 states are considering GM-labeling bills.

The fear fueling all this activity has a long history. The public has been worried about the safety of GM foods since scientists at the University of Washington developed the first genetically modified tobacco plants in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, when the first GM crops reached the market, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Ralph Nader, Prince Charles and a number of celebrity chefs took highly visible stands against them. Consumers in Europe became particularly alarmed: a survey conducted in 1997, for example, found that 69 percent of the Austrian public saw serious risks in GM foods, compared with only 14 percent of Americans. In Europe, skepticism about GM foods has long been bundled with other concerns, such as a resentment of American agribusiness. Whatever it is based on, however, the European attitude reverberates across the world, influencing policy in countries where GM crops could have

genetic modi that would emerge from loosing a toxic, invasive GM crop on the world, GM efforts should be shut down until the technology is proved absolutely safe.

One can only fail to turn up significant risk after trying hard to find it as is the case with GM crops.

A Clean Record

The human race has been selectively breeding crops, thus altering plants' genomes, for millennia. Ordinary wheat has long been strictly a human-engineered plant; it could not exist outside of farms, because its seeds do not scatter. For some 60 years scientists have been using ramble the DNA of plants with radiation and chemicals, creating strains of wheat, rice, peanuts and pears that have become agricultural mainstays. The practice has inspired little

The difference is that selective breeding or mutagenic techniques tend to result in large swaths of genes being swapped or altered. GM technology, in contrast, enables scientists to insert into a plant's genome a single gene (or a few of them) from another species of plant or even from a bacterium, virus or animal. Supporters argue that this precision makes the technology much less likely to produce surprises. Most plant molecular biologists also say that in the highly unlikely case that an unexpected health threat emerged from a new GM plant,

don'

And although it might seem creepy to add virus DNA to a plant, doing so is, in fact, no big deal, proponents say. Viruses have been inserting their DNA into the genomes of crops, as well as humans and all other organisms, for millions of years. They often deliver the genes of other species while they are at it, which is why our own genome is loaded with genetic sequences that originated in viruses and nonhuman molecular geneticist at U.C. Riverside. Pea aphids contain fungi genes. Triticale is a century-plus-old hybrid of wheat and rye found in some flours and breakfast cereals. Wheat itself, for that matter, is a cross-

Could eating plants with altered genes allow new DNA to work its way into our own? It is theoretically possible but hugely improbable. Scientists have never found genetic material that could survive a trip through the human gut and make it into cells. Besides, we are routinely exposed to we even consume the viruses and bacteria whose genes end up in GM foods. The bacterium B. thuringiensis, for example, which produces proteins fatal to insects, is sometimes enlisted as a natural pesticide in organic farming.

In any case, proponents say, people have consumed as many as trillions of meals containing genetically modified ingredients over the past few decades. Not a single verified case of illness has ever been attributed to the genetic alterations. Mark Lynas, a prominent anti-GM activist who last year publicly switched to strongly supporting the technology, has

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 7 pointed out that every single news-making food disaster on record has been attributed to non-GM crops, such as the Escherichia coli infected organic bean sprouts that killed 53 people in Europe in 2011.

Critics often disparage U.S. research on the safety of genetically modified foods, which is often funded or even conducted by GM companies, such as Monsanto. But much research on the subject comes from the European Commission, the administrative body of the E.U., which cannot be so easily dismissed as an industry tool. The European Commission has funded 130 research projects, carried out by more than 500 independent teams, on the safety of GM crops. None of those studies found any special risks from GM crops.

Plenty of other credible groups have arrived at the same conclusion. Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a science-based consumer-watchdog group in Washington, D.C., takes pains to note that the center has no official stance, pro or con, with regard to genetically modifying food plants. Yet Jaffe insists the scientific record is cle

Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences have all unreservedly backed GM crops. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats. Dozens of review studies carried out by academic researchers have backed that view.

Opponents of genetically modified foods point to a handful of studies indicating possible safety problems. But reviewers have dismantled almost all of those reports. For example, a 1998 study by plant biochemist rpd Pusztai, then at the Rowett Institute in Scotland, found that rats fed a GM potato suffered from stunted growth and immune system related changes. But the potato was not intended for human consumption it was, in fact, designed to be toxic for research purposes. The Rowett Institute later deemed the experiment so sloppy that it refuted the findings and charged Pusztai with misconduct. Similar stories abound. Most recently, a team led by Gilles-ric Sralini, a researcher at the University of Caen Lower Normandy in France, found that rats eating a common type of GM corn contracted cancer at an alarmingly high rate. But Sralini has long been an anti-GM campaigner, and critics charged that in his study, he relied on a strain of rat that too easily develops tumors, did not use enough rats, did not include proper control groups and failed to report many details of the experiment, including how the analysis was performed. After a review, the European

Food Safety Authority dismissed the study's findings. Several other Europea

Some scientists say the objections to GM food stem from politics rather than science that they are motivated by an objection to large multinational corporations having enormous influence over the food supply; invoking risks from genetic modification just provides a convenient way of whipping up the masses against industrial a -GM activist Lynas agrees. He recently went as far as labeling the anti-

Persistent Doubts

Not all objections to genetically modified foods are so easily dismissed, however. Long-term health effects can be subtle and nearly impossible to link to specific changes in the environment. Scientists have long believed that Alzheimer's disease and many cancers have environmental components, but few would argue we have identified all of them. And opponents say that it is not true that the GM process is less likely to cause problems simply because fewer, more clearly identified genes are switched. David Schubert, an Alzheimer's researcher who heads the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., asserts that a single, well-characterized gene can go in forward, backward, at different locations, in multiple copies, notes, a genome often continues to change in the successive generations after the insertion, leaving it with a different arrangement than the one intended and initially tested. There is also the phenomenon gene ends up quieting the activity of nearby genes.

True, the number of genes affected in a GM plant most likely will be far, far smaller than in conventional breeding techniques. Yet opponents maintain that because the wholesale swapping or alteration of entire packages of genes is a natural process that has been happening in plants for half a billion years, it tends to produce few scary surprises today. Changing a single gene, on the other hand, might turn out to be a more subversive action, with unexpected ripple effects, including the production of new proteins that might be toxins or allergens. Opponents also point out that the kinds of alterations caused by the insertion of genes from other species might be more impactful, more

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 9 complex or more subtle than those caused by the intraspecies gene swapping of conventional breeding. And just because there is no evidence to date that genetic material from an altered crop can make it into the genome of people who eat it does not mean such a transfer will never happen or that it has not already happened and we have yet to spot it. These changes might be difficult to catch; their impact on the

of proteins with long- It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh even unscientific in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. And even Sralini, the scientist behind the study that found high cancer rates for GM-fed rats, has his defenders. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed. He says that as someone who runs drug-safety studies, he is well versed on what constitutes a good-quality animal toxicology study and that Sralini's makes the grade. He insists that the breed of rat in the study is commonly used in respected drug studies, typically in numbers no greater than in Sralini's study; that the methodology was standard; and that the details of the data analysis are irrelevant because the results were so striking.

Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media. These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for ious or not, it's in their

Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations. Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid

There is evidence to support that charge. In 2009 Nature detailed the backlash to a reasonably solid study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA by researchers from Loyola

University Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. The paper showed that GM corn seemed to be finding its way from farms into nearby streams and that it might pose a risk to some insects there because, according to the researchers' lab studies, caddis flies appeared to suffer on diets of pollen from GM corn. Many scientists immediately attacked the study, some of them suggesting the researchers were sloppy to the point of misconduct.

A Way Forward

There is a middle ground in this debate. Many moderate voices call for continuing the distribution of GM foods while maintaining or even stepping up safety testing on new GM crops. They advocate keeping a close eye on the health and environmental impact of existing ones. But they do not single out GM crops for special scrutiny, the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Jaffe notes: all crops could use more

Even Schubert agrees. In spite of his concerns, he believes future GM rcent of the scientists I talk to assume that new GM plants are safety-tested the

Stepped-up testing would pose a burden for GM researchers, and it could testing standards for GM crops, most conventionally bred crops

That is a fair question. But with governments and consumers increasingly coming down against GM crops altogether, additional testing may be the compromise that enables the human race to benefit from those crops' significant advantages.

BY: David H. Freedman

SOURCE: The Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about- genetically-modified-food/

ARTICLE 3 FEEDING GMO CROPS TO LIVESTOCK March 30, 2016

Summary

Everyone has seen the acronym GMO, whether in a press article or a

-defined, since most domesticated animals and crops

molecular biology and accurately describes the food and feed that is at the forefront of the global discussion. It is important to remember that GE is a breeding method, not a company, application or production system. It is simply one of the methods that can be used to develop improved crop varieties.

Background

Genetically engineered crops have been widely adopted since their introduction in 1996, with more than 95 percent of sugar beet, 94 percent of soy and 96 percent of cotton and corn acreage planted with GE varieties in the U.S. in 2014. As these crops are major components of feedstuffs, livestock populations have been the major consumers of GE crops, and multiple generations of food-producing animals have been consuming 70-90 percent of GE crop biomass for almost 20 years. Science has shown that GE crops do not differ from non-GE crops in terms of composition, and no significant differences in health or performance have been detected in animals that consume GE feed. Additionally, no traces of GE material (rDNA or protein) have been detected in meat, milk, or eggs from those animals.

Discussion

Performance Trends in U.S. Livestock Populations

Sensational stories have been reported in the media based on a handful of highly controversial studies that claim to show deleterious health effects in a small number of animals that have consumed GE feed. Despite the fact that these studies have been widely criticized for experimental design, small sample sizes and methodological flaws, they

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 12 continue to be used by some groups to suggest that GE crops are harmful to animal health. These claims are contradicted by the hundreds of carefully-conducted animal feeding studies that have been performed by independent scientists throughout the world, a list of which is maintained and made freely accessible online by the Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS)

Numerous recent studies with a variety of food-producing animals fed with the current generation of GE crops consistently show no difference in performance and health in comparison to animals fed non-GE feeds. Most of those datasets are reflective of a controlled experimental environment, but what about out in production agriculture? Keeping in mind the significant increase in GE crop adoption rates between 2000 and 2013, and the fact that a very small proportion of the commercial livestock population (< 5 percent in 2011) was raised for certified National Organic Program (NOP) markets, it can be estimated that more than 100 billion animals in the U.S. consumed some level of GE feed in their diets between 2000 and 2011. If GE feed had detrimental effects on animal health or performance, it would have been reflected as a negative trend in the health of these commercial livestock populations during the past decade.

In a 2014 review in the Journal of Animal Science (Van Eenennaam and Young, 2014), an analysis of publicly available data for health and production parameters across commercial poultry, dairy, beef and hogs showed no significant deleterious health or performance trends in any of these industries. Carcass condemnation rates were examined as an important production parameter in beef cattle over this time period. The data show that a total of 0.47 percent of carcasses inspected at USDA-inspected slaughter facilities from 2003 through 2007 were condemned. Cattle fed or finished in feedyards, and therefore typically fed diets rich in corn and soy (the vast majority of which are of GE varieties) before slaughter, made up the majority (82 percent) of cattle at harvest but were the minority (12 percent) of cattle condemned. The condemnation rate for non-fed cattle (typically old cows) was higher than that for fed cattle, but the 2007 rate of 2.49 percent was similar to the reported rate in 1994, before the introduction of GE crops, of 2.6 percent.

These field data, representing billions of observations, did not show any unfavorable trends across any of these animal production industries after the introduction, and during the widespread adoption, of GE feed. In fact, available health indicators actually improved over time and productivity continued to improve, due likely to improved management

GE Animal Feed in Global Trading Markets

In a brief released by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in January 2015, it was reported that in 2014 a record 448 million acres of biotech crops were grown globally. This is an increase of 15 million acres since 2013. The U.S. remains the leader in biotech crop production, with 181 million acres, up 7 million acres since 2013, followed by Brazil (104 million acres) and Argentina (60 million acres). Herbicide-tolerant soybean and maize events continue to have the most approvals worldwide.

Soybeans and corn, the two major components in commercial animal feed, make up two-thirds of the global grain trade. The U.S., Brazil and Argentina, the three countries with the highest levels of biotech crop production, are also the main countries that grow and export these crops. Estimates report that 4 percent of global soybean trade and 7 percent of global corn trade are required to be certified non-GE. For countries that rely on imported feed, sourcing non-GE products is becoming complicated due to the high GE adoption rate in the major feed exporting countries. Some countries that have previously committed to sourcing only non-GE feed for certain sectors have recently abandoned those plans.

Further complicating matters, worldwide grain commerce has experienced trade disruptions due to asynchronous approvals. The amount of time needed to review and approve new GE crops varies considerably across different countries; leading to a situation in which GE crops may be cultivated and marketed in some countries but remain under evaluation in others. Significant trade disruptions have already unapproved events, meaning that even minute traces of unapproved GE crops are illegal and must be withdrawn from the market. In the future, it is likely that trade between countries with asynchronous approvals will be increasingly problematic as countries with zero tolerance policies will be perceived as risky due to the high costs associated with finding even minute traces of unapproved GE material. Non-GE feed for animals in the U.S. is more expensive and the supply is increasingly come from other countries such as China and India.

Genetically Engineered DNA in Animal Products and the Labeling Issue

It has been well-established that it is not possible to detect differences in the nutritional profiles of milk, meat and eggs from animals fed GE feed versus animals that have consumed non-GE feed. No reliable traces of GE DNA or protein have been detected in products from GE-fed animals. Livestock and humans regularly digest DNA and protein without any adverse consequences, and DNA from GE crops is chemically the same as DNA from non-GE crops and broken down no differently during the process of digestion. A freely available publication from the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST, 2006) provides details on the safety of products from animals fed GE crops. Currently, only a small number of livestock producers feed non-GE diets to their animals, meaning that well over 95 percent of the milk, meat and eggs on the US market today come from animals that have consumed GE feed.

Since there are no detectable traces of GE material, labeling of such products would rely on documenting the absence of GE crops all the way through the production chain, a costly and time-consuming proposition for producers and importers. There would be no way to test finished products to guarantee the complete absence of products from GE-fed animals. A 2014 study from Cornell University estimated that the costs to implement labeling based on maintaining product identity, as well as the costs of labeling itself, for a family of four for a year are $348-401 in California, $360-490 in Washington state and $500 in New York. Consumer surveys taken in Europe show that labeled products are likely to be dropped, actually resulting in fewer options on supermarket shelves. In the United States, voluntary, process-based labels, such as Organic and the Non-GMO Project verify that GE crops were not used in the production process and are available for those consumers that choose to purchase such products.

Conclusion

Overall, there have been substantial benefits from the adoption of GE crops in the US and worldwide. These include economic and environmental benefits such as lower production costs, fewer pest problems, reduced use of pesticides, and better yields. The overwhelming consensus of data shows that GE feed is safe for animal consumption and does not result in animal products that are compositionally different from those produced by animals that were fed feed derived from conventional crop varieties. Field data sets representing billions of observations are in agreement with the many

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 15 controlled animal feeding studies that have reported no detrimental health effects in animals fed GE feed and revealed no deleterious trends in U.S. livestock health and productivity data since the introduction of GE crops.

BY: Alison L. Van Eenennaam, Ph.D., and Amy E. Young, Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis

SOURCE: Beef Issues Quarterly - Cattlemen's Beef Board and National Cattlemen's Beef Association. http://www.beefissuesquarterly.com/beefissuesquarterly.aspx?id=5672

ARTICLE 4 GMOs WITH HEALTH BENEFITS HAVE A LARGE MARKET POTENTIAL January 13, 2015

Genetically modified crops with an increased vitamin and/or mineral content have large potential to improve public health, but their availability for consumers is still hampered, as a result of the negative public opinion. Research from Ghent University, recently published in Nature Biotechnology, has demonstrated that these crops have a promising market potential.

Over the last years, various GM crops with health benefits have been developed in which genes, mostly originating from other organisms, have been added. Notable examples include rice enriched with pro- vitamin A (also known as 'Golden Rice') and folate-enriched rice, developed at Ghent University.

Fifteen years after the development of 'Golden Rice', which was the first GMO with health benefits, the developers of such transgenic biofortified crops have little reason to celebrate. To date, none of these GMOs are approved for cultivation, unlike GMOs with agronomic traits. Despite this, six major staple crops have been successfully biofortified with one or more vitamins or minerals. Clearly, these GMOs with health benefits have great potential. In a recent study, from Ghent University, not only the impact of GM crops on human health, but also their market potential was convincingly demonstrated.

Market potential

Research at UGent reveals that consumers are willing to pay more for GMOs with health benefits, with premiums ranging from 20% to 70%. This differs from GMOs with farmer benefits, which are only accepted by consumers when they are offered at a discount.

Especially in regions, such as China and Brazil -- which are considered as key target markets for these nutritionally improved crops -- , where a large part of the population suffers from nutrient deficiencies, the potential market share of these GMOs is high.

Improving public health

Several studies show that these GMOs have positive impacts on human health. As expected, the enhancement of multiple micronutrients in the

Valuable alternative to tackle malnutrition

Although GMOs with health benefits are not a panacea for eliminating malnutrition, they offer a complementary and cost-effective alternative when other strategies are less successful or feasible.

BY: Ghent University

SOURCE: Science Daily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150113090428.htm

ARTICLE 5

July 15, 2015

A new study commissioned by the Norwegian government, and conducted by a nationally recognised scientific authority on the safety of biotechnologies, concludes that available scientific data on GM crops is inadequate to prove their safety.

The scientific report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and completed last year, before being publicly released in June by the Genok Centre for Biosafety, located in the Arctic University of Norway. The Genok Centre is a nationally-designated centre of competence on biosafety issues.

The new study analyses a dossier by giant agribusiness conglomerate, Monsanto, submitted to the Brazilian government, and conducts a comprehensive review of the available scientific literature from other sources.

Its focus is on Monsanto's GM soybean Intacta Roundup Ready 2 Pro, which is grown in Brazil, and also authorised in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and probably also present in Bolivia due to illegal introductions from neighbouring countries.

Major gaps in the scientific literature

The report, titled 'Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops' concludes that due to major gaps in the scientific literature, it is not possible to give a scientific verdict on their safety.

Monsanto's dossier, the report concludes, demonstrates a range of methodological weaknesses, and highlights the problem of incomplete information and research on GM crops in the available literature.

According to Monsanto, genetically modified organisms do not harm human or animal health, and therefore do not have any adverse effects on crops and the environment. But according to the new Norwegian study:

"Contrary to this assertion, the literature provides indications of harmful and adverse effects to the environment and to health (both animal and

The new study is authored by Georgina Catacora-Vargas, a researcher at the Agroecology Centre (AGRUCO) at the Faculty of Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Sciences, University Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Catacora-Vargas was until recently technical biosafety advisor at Bolivia's Vice-Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry Management.

"Statements of the safety of GM crops rely principally on the absence of evidence of harm in specific research tests, rather than actual evidence of safety", said Catacora-Vargas. "Absence of evidence of harm is a too low standard for adequate protection of human and environmental health ...

"Moreover, today, a large portion of the research on GM crops is based on short-term studies that have inherent methodological weakness for detecting subtle yet significant effects that materialise in the long-term. - - sufficient analytical rigour to derive any meaningful conclusions."

According to her report, the large number of studies indicating positive impacts of GM crops are questionable because of such "methodological limitations", which largely ignore "possible long-term effects" and used a "reduced and repetitive set of indicators."

Most of this research does not compare GM crops with other production systems, such as IPM (integrated pest management), organic, and agroecological; focuses exclusively on 'single-trait' GM plants rather than, more realistically, "the combinatorial and additive effects of multiple-trait GM crops"; and is based on experiments which do not adequately consider "real field conditions."

"These limitations", the Norwegian report concludes, "partially explain the kinds of findings reported by the applicant [Monsanto]: all of them showing no possible adverse effects in contrast to a significant body of literature."

Monsanto: GM crops 'in some cases safer'

Mark Buckingham, a spokesman for Monsanto, dismissed the report's findings: "We are confident that GM crops can be and are being properly assessed for safety and that GM crops being used by farmers

According to a compendium of EU-funded research published by the European Commission in 2010, "there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms."

Buckingham added that GM crops are "designed to be safe" by scientists and plant breeders, and that national and international regulators whose job is "to check that a crop is safe and to protect consumers" have certified GM:

"Since GM crops were first grown on a large scale 19 years ago in the mid 1990's, billions of meals including ingredients from these crops have been safety consumed by people around the world. No health effects - safety."

The author of the new study, however, disagreed. At the request of the Norwegian Environment Agency, the report focused on analysing the herbicide tolerant trait of Monsanto's 'Intacta' crop.

"The literature contains a number of recent scientific studies which do indicate potential adverse effects", said Catacora-Vargas, noting that Monsanto's comment solely concerned Intacta's insect resistance. By selectively focusing on studies of only certain impacts of the crop, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are misleading the public.

She added that the EU's 2010 compendium, which is also cited in the new Norwegian study, "is one of the very few with specific research on - - that Intacta is safe to the environment and human health.

"If integral analysis of GM crops' sustainability is incomplete, it is just because the knowledge available on GMO safety and sustainability is also incomplete. There are more unknowns than evidence on the safety of GM crops."

Monsanto's flagship product condemned by WHO

The release of the new Norwegian report coincided with a spate of bad news for the biotechnology food industry. An expensive two-year research trial to test GM wheat's ability to repel aphids (also known as

Most GM crops contain the Roundup Ready trait patented by Monsanto. But in March, an assessment by the World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer arm published in The Lancet, found that Roundup is "probably carcinogenic to humans."

The study evaluated evidence of human exposures to Roundup since 2001, largely for agricultural workers in the US, Canada and Sweden. Alarmingly, it found "limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma", along with "convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals."

According to Dr. Helen Wallace of the campaigning group, Genewatch UK, Monsanto's GM crops "are now failing in the field due to the growth of superweeds resistant to the weedkiller RoundUp which is blanket sprayed on these GM plants."

Despite the "high failure rate of experimental GM crops", Genewatch UK notes ongoing efforts at "collaboration between government-funded scientists, ministers and industry on a PR strategy to try to rehabilitate GM crops in Britain and weaken regulations."

Large quantities of industry and public money therefore incentivises academic scientists to produce research on GM crops that favours the industry, and underplays contrary evidence.

The harder we look, the worse it gets

The author of the new Norwegian study, Catacora-Vargas, said that given the current level of knowledge, "it is premature to assert that GM crops are safe. Currently, the more research we do on GMOs the more questions and uncertainties arise."

She added that non-GM based forms of agriculture such as low input agriculture, agroecological approaches and even peasant and family farming are receiving insufficient attention from governments.

These non-GM production systems "have shown their capacity to produce adequate volumes of healthy and safe food and feed, besides being less energy and resource demanding. We still have a long way to go in designing scientific research that will provide the evidence needed to make justifiable claims of safety of GM crops, and their benefits in comparison to other production systems."

These findings will add to growing public concerns over the addition of GM crops into the food-chain, and the role of the industry in suppressing scientific research that contradicts its claims.

BY: Dr Nafeez Ahmed

SOURCE: The Ecologist http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2948747/gmo_stud y_finds_indications_of_harmful_and_adverse_effects.html

ARTICLE 6 GMO HEALTH RISKS: WHAT THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SAYS March 30, 2013

Many Americans are concerned about the spread of genetically modified organisms throughout agriculture -- and the perception that some members of the U.S. Congress are in the pocket of the Monsanto

But just what are GM crops, and what evidence do we have to suggest that they are dangerous to human health?

saccharine. By the middle of the 20th century, Monsanto had expanded into the manufacture of many other chemical products, including plastics, herbicides and insecticides, including DDT, now largely banned from agricultural use worldwide. From 1965 to 1969, Monsanto produced Agent Orange for U.S. military use in the Vietnam War -- as did several other companies, including the Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE:DOW) -- and has since been subject to numerous lawsuits related to the herbicide's contamination with a toxic dioxin compound.

ly innocuous Roundup, a weed killer made from the chemical glyphosate. Roundup kills plants by mucking with their ability to synthesize certain essential amino acids. It accomplishes this by inhibiting an enzyme called 5- enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase, or EPSPS.

In 1996 -- expired in 2000 -- the company began introducing genetically modified farmers to use the herbicide without fear of harming their plants. Roundup Ready crops contain a version of EPSPS that is unaffected by glyphosate, as noted in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. This pesticide-resistant enzyme was taken from a bacteria growing on the waste at a Roundup factory.

Genetic traits used to be literally shot into plants with a gun, using little metal bits coated with DNA. Nowadays, Monsanto employs a slightly different process, using a bacterium called Agrobacterium tumefaciens to infect plant cells with pieces of DNA containing the desired traits, as

Monsanto also makes corn, potatoes, cotton and soybeans that can synthesize their own insecticide called Bt toxin, a trait grabbed from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Other GM crops are being developed to resist drought via the introduction of genes from other plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana, aka thale cress; moss; and yeast.

Genetic modification is the cornerstone of agriculture -- through generations of breeding, humans took one species, the wild cabbage Brassica oleracea, and turned it into a host of different foods, including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kale. Now, biotechnology has accelerated the process and allowed breeders more precision in designing their crops. There is much disagreement about the cost of these advances.

currently on the mar California at Davis professor, wrote for Scientific American in 2011. But the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has warned of ects of GM foods.

And much of the public is convinced that genetic modification is a health danger -- hence the fierce push to label GMO food and broad restrictions on GM crops in Europe.

Some of the health concerns of food-safety advocates are warranted. There is plenty of scientific evidence to recommend caution with respect to certain kinds of genetic modification, especially if there are genes involved that confer antibiotic resistance. But some of the studies that portray the most dramatic health effects of GM crops have been called out by other scientists as deeply flawed.

One of the first major concerns that arose with the birth of GMOs was the possibility that grafting genetic traits from different plants onto other crops could be dangerous to people with food allergies. If you would you also have to keep away from GM crops that contain nut genes? And how would you know which GM crops to stay away from?

In 1996, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper that identified a possible allergic reaction to GM soybeans. A team led by University of Nebraska scientists found that a Brazil nut protein

However, this problem can likely be nipped in the bud with proper safety testing. U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Eliot M. Herman noted in the Journal of Experimental Botany in 2003 that the

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require biotechnology companies to do premarket safety testing, including allergen testing (although the agency does recommend it). Calls for making premarket safety testing mandatory have come from numerous groups, including the American Medical Association, as reported by the Chicago Tribune. The prospect of hidden allergens could also be an arrow in the quiver of those who are pushing for labeling GMOs in the U.S.

Another health concern related to GMOs rests on the possibility that genes might be transferred elsewhere. The nightmare scenario would be an antibiotic-resistance gene getting inadvertently passed to been done indicates that the rate of horizontal gene transfer from plants to animals and bacteria is probably very low. But, admittedly, there's a real gap in our understanding of how genes may or may not be transferred from GM crops -- or other crops, for that matter -- into the cells of the gut and the bacteria that live in the digestive tract.

Authors of a 2012 report on animal-feeding studies in the journal Critical amount of DNA from the diet can survive digestion, we have yet to see evidence that such dietary DNA can be integrated into the genome of an animal or even into the genome of a bacterium residing in the gut.

mechanistic aspects of [horizontal gene transfer] calls for methodological improvements and further studies to understand the researchers at the University of Milan wrote.

The one major study of GMO feeding in humans that looked at horizontal gene transfer was published in 2004 in the journal Nature Biotechnology. Researchers looked to see if the Roundup Ready transgene -- the one that codes for the herbicide-resistant enzyme -- showed up in waste collected from seven volunteers who had had their

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 26 large intestines removed for medical reasons. While a small amount of the transgene was found in bowel microbes in three of the seven subjects, the gene-transfer rate did not increase after they ate the transgenic soy, leading the researchers to conclude that whatever gene transfer occurred did not happen during the experimental period.

In subjects with fully intact intestinal tracts, the transgene did not survive passage. The results indicate that while horizontal gene transfer after eating GM crops might be feasible at low rates in certain medically compromised people, it would probably be quite rare in most consumers.

A 2008 paper in the journal Environmental Biosafety Research by an Australian researcher who reviewed the risks of GMOs associated with horizontal gene transfer concluded the potential danger was

move from GM crops into the animals or humans who eats them.

Meanwhile, some individual studies have conclusively found GMOs to be harmful. But many of these have been harshly criticized for loading the dice.

Gilles-Eric Seralini, a researcher at the University of Caen in France, took a second look at Monsanto data on experiments feeding GM corn to rats in three papers, and claimed the numbers actually showed the animals organ weights. But several European Food Safety Authority reviews within an acceptable range, and that his team's conclusions were not supported by the evidence.

A 2012 paper by Seralini and other researchers purportedly found that a GM corn diet led to cancer in rats. But the study was released under extremely odd circumstances -- Seralini made reporters sign confidentiality agreements that prevented them from asking other scientists to give their opinions on his research before an embargo lifted. And once other scientists got a look at the paper, the reaction was almost universally condemnatory, as exemplified by the European Food Safety Authority.

One main objection stemmed from the fact that the rats used in the study belong to a strain called Sprague-Dawley, which is extremely prone to tumors later in life. While Monsanto did use Sprague-Dawley

Many critics also said the number of rats used for such a long experiment -- 10 rats for each experimental condition -- was far too small, as Discover noted. In addition, there were curious gaps in the developing tumors.

A 2011 paper by Canadian researchers supposedly found Cry1Ab, an insecticidal protein made in certain GM crops, in the blood of women and in the cord blood of fetuses. But the study, examining just 30 pregnant women (and their fetuses) and 39 non-pregnant women, also came under attack for its methods and conclusions by critics such as Food Standards Australia New Zealand. The method the researchers used to detect Cry1Ab in the blood has been called into question, and the authors provided no dietary evidence on any of the study subjects. anything found in the blood and GM crops.

-food debate, generalizations and extremism lead to sterile public and political discourse that obscures key issues: what sorts of GM crops might bring true benefits to agriculture and consumers; how to avoid monopolization of farming choices; and what

BY: Roxanne Palmer

SOURCE: International Business Times http://www.ibtimes.com/gmo-health-risks-what-scientific-evidence- says-1161099

ARTICLE 7 CANCER ROW OVER GM FOODS AS STUDY SAYS IT

EARLY DEATH IN HUMANS September 20, 2012

Rats fed a lifelong diet of one of the bestselling strains of genetically modified corn suffered tumours and multiple organ damage, according to a controversial French study published today.

Scientists said the results raised serious questions about the safety of GM foods and the assurances offered by biotech companies and governments.

The first lifetime trials involving rats fed on GM corn found a raised incidence of breast tumours, liver and kidney damage.

number of tumours developing earlier and more aggressively particularly in

The research was carried out by Caen University in France, and has been peer reviewed by independent scientists to guarantee the experiments were properly conducted and the results are valid.

It is the first to look at the impact of eating a GM diet over a lifetime in rats, which is two years. To date, safety assessments of GM crops have been based on rat feeding trials lasting 90 days.

The corn was genetically modified to withstand spraying with glyphosate, the main chemical in the weedkiller Roundup, developed by Monsanto. The idea is that the corn can be sprayed without being damaged, while weeds are destroyed.

The tests looked at the impact of several scenarios including eating the GM corn (NK603), eating the GM corn sprayed with Roundup, and consuming Roundup at low doses in water.

The results were compared against those for a control group fed a

The researchers found:

 Between 50 to 80 per cent of female rats developed large tumours by the beginning of the 24th month, with up to three tumours per animal. Only 30 per cent of the control rats developed tumours  Up to 70 per cent of females died prematurely compared with only 20 per cent in the control group  Tumours in rats of both sexes fed the GM corn were two to three times larger than in the control group  The large tumours appeared in females after seven months, compared to 14 months in the control group. The team said the

making it difficult for the rats to breathe and causing digestive problems.

Significantly, the majority of tumours were detectable only after 18 months meaning they could be discovered only in long-term feeding trials

The study led by molecular biologist Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini, a critic of GM technology, and published yesterday in US journal Food and Chemical Toxicology said the GM corn and Roundup weedkiller

highlighted problems with the lack of rigorous safety assessments for GM crops and food.

Although GM corn is widely used in the US, British consumers have turned their backs on the technology because of concerns about its impact on human health and the environment.

Although it is not available in British supermarkets, it is fed to farm animals including chickens, pigs and dairy cows.

Mustafa Djamgoz, professor of Cancer Biology at Imperial College, London, said the findings relating to eating GM corn were a surprise.

cular level on cancer. There is evidence what we eat affects our genetic make-up and turns genes on and off.

Dr Julian Little, of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which speaks for the takes all health concerns regarding biotech food and feed very

Anthony Trewavas, professor of cell biology at Edinburgh University, questioned the way the research had been conducted, saying the number of rats involved in the study 200 was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.

He also claimed Professor Seralini was an anti-GM campaigner and that scrutiny.

BY: Sean Poulter

SOURCE: The Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2205509/Cancer-row- GM-foods-French-study-claims-did-THIS-rats--cause-organ-damage- early-death-humans.html

ARTICLE 8 DOUBTS ABOUT THE PROMISED BOUNTY OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS October 29, 2016

The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat.

But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides.

The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides.

Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents, using independent data as well as academic and industry research, shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise.

An analysis by The Times using United Nations data showed that the United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields food per acre when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops.

Continue reading the main story At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States, even as major crops like corn, soybeans and cotton have been converted to biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides.

One measure, contained in data from the United States Geological Survey, shows the stark difference in the use of pesticides. Since genetically modified crops were introduced in the United States two

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/18/17 32 decades ago for crops like corn, cotton and soybeans, the use of toxins that kill insects and fungi has fallen by a third, but the spraying of herbicides, which are used in much higher volumes, has risen by 21 percent.

By contrast, in France, use of insecticides and fungicides has fallen by a far greater percentage 65 percent and herbicide use has decreased as well, by 36 percent.

Profound differences over genetic engineering have split Americans and Europeans for decades. Although American protesters as far back as 1987 pulled up prototype potato plants, European anger at the idea of fooling with nature has been far more sustained. In the last few years, the March Against Monsanto has drawn thousands of protesters in cities like Paris and Basel, Switzerland, and opposition to G.M. foods is a foundation of the Green political movement. Still, Europeans eat those foods when they buy imports from the United States and elsewhere.

Fears about the harmful effects of eating G.M. foods have proved to be largely without scientific basis. The potential harm from pesticides, design weaponized versions, like sarin, were developed in Nazi Germany and have been linked to developmental delays and cancer.

at the Harvard University School of Public Health, whose research has attributed the loss of nearly 17 million I.Q. points among American children 5 years old and under to o

The industry is winning on both ends because the same companies make and sell both the genetically modified plants and the poisons. Driven by these sales, the combined market capitalizations of Monsanto, the largest seed company, and Syngenta, the Swiss pesticide giant, have grown more than sixfold in the last decade and a half. The two companies are separately involved in merger agreements that would lift their new combined values to more than $100 billion each.

When presented with the findings, Robert T. Fraley, the chief technology officer at Monsanto, said The Times had cherry-picked its businessperson, and a farmer is not going to pay for a technology if

overall herbicide use may be increasing in some areas where farmers are following best practices to manage emerging weed issues, farmers in other areas with different circumstances may have decreased or

Genetically modified crops can sometimes be effective. Monsanto and others often cite the work of Matin Qaim, a researcher at Georg-August- University of Göttingen, Germany, including a meta-analysis of studies that he helped write finding significant yield gains from genetically modified crops. But in an interview and emails, Dr. Qaim said he saw significant effects mostly from insect-resistant varieties in the developing world, particularly in India.

yield gains in -

A Vow to Curb Chemicals

First came the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994, which was supposed to stay fresh longer. The next year it was a small number of bug-resistant russet potatoes. And by 1996, major genetically modified crops were being planted in the United States.

Monsanto, the most prominent champion of these new genetic traits, told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. The next year, in a news release, the company said that its new gene for seeds, named Roundup Ready,

Originally, the two main types of genetically modified crops were either resistant to herbicides, allowing crops to be sprayed with weedkillers, or resistant to some insects.

Figures from the United States Department of Agriculture show herbicide use skyrocketing in soybeans, a leading G.M. crop, growing by two and a half times in the last two decades, at a time when planted acreage of the crop grew by less than a third. Use in corn was trending downward even before the introduction of G.M. crops, but then nearly doubled from 2002 to 2010, before leveling off. Weed resistance problems in such crops have pushed overall usage up.

To some, this outcome was predictable. The whole point of engineering bug- Joseph Kovach, a retired Ohio State University researcher who studied the environmental risks of pesticides. But the goal of herbicide-resistant more herbicide.

Farmers with crops overcome by weeds, or a particular pest or disease, ridiculous to turn our backs on a said Duane Grant, the chairman of the Amalgamated Sugar Company, a cooperative of more than 750 sugar beet farmers in the Northwest.

weedkiller, saved his cooperative.

But weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup around the world creating an opening for the industry to sell more seeds and more pesticides. The latest seeds have been engineered for resistance to two weedkillers, with resistance to as many as five planned. That will also make it easier for farmers battling resistant weeds to spray a widening array of poisons sold by the same companies.

Growing resistance to Roundup is also reviving old, and contentious, chemicals. One is 2,4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange, the infamous Vietnam War defoliant. Its potential risks have long divided scientists and have alarmed advocacy groups.

Another is dicamba. In Louisiana, Monsanto is spending nearly $1 billion version is not yet approved for use, the company is already selling seeds that are resistant to it leading to reports that some farmers are damaging toxin.

High-Tech Kernels

Two farmers, 4,000 miles apart, recently showed a visitor their corn seeds. The farmers, Bo Stone and Arnaud Rousseau, are sixth- generation tillers of the land. Both use seeds made by DuPont, the giant chemical company that is merging with Dow Chemical.

To the naked eye, the seeds looked identical. Inside, the differences are profound.

In Rowland, N.C., near the South Carolina b with genetically modified traits. They contain Roundup Ready, a Monsanto-made trait resistant to Roundup, as well as a gene made by Bayer that makes crops impervious to a second herbicide. A trait called Herculex I was developed by Dow and Pioneer, now part of DuPont, and attacks the guts of insect larvae. So does YieldGard, made by Monsanto.

$85 for a 50,000-seed bag. Mr. Stone spends roughly $153 for the same amount of biotech seeds.

For farmers, doing without genetically modified crops is not a simple choice. Genetic traits are not sold à la carte.

Country radio in his Ford pickup. He has a test field where he tries out new seeds, looking for characteristics that he particularly values like plants that stand well, without support.

underscoring a crucial point: Yield is still driven by breeding plants to bring out desirable traits, as it has been for thousands of years.

That said, Mr. Stone values genetic modifications to reduce his insecticide use (though he would welcome help with stink bugs, a troublesome pest for many farmers). And Roundup resistance in pigweed has emerged as a problem.

By c -en-Multien, a village outside Paris, his corn has none of this engineering because the European Union bans most crops like these.

s many agricultural unions. His 840-acre farm was a site of World War I carnage in the Battle of the Marne.

they go up and down depending on the year. Farm technology has also been tran

He wants access to the same technologies as his competitors across the Atlantic, and thinks G.M. crops could save time and money.

rom Europe, when you speak with American farmers or Canadian

Feeding the World

Monsanto has long held out its p

That remains an industry mantra.

current production practices, we are not going to be able to feed that

But a broad yield advantage has not emerged. The Times looked at regional data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, comparing main genetically modified crops in the United States and Canada with varieties grown in Western Europe, a grouping used by the agency that comprises seven nations, including the two largest agricultural producers, France and Germany.

For rapeseed, a variant of which is used to produce canola oil, The Times compared Western Europe with Canada, the largest producer, over three decades, including a period well before the introduction of genetically modified crops.

Despite rejecting genetically modified crops, Western Europe maintained a lead over Canada in yields. While that is partly because different varieties are grown in the two regions, the trend lines in the of G.M. crops, the data shows.

For corn, The Times compared the United States with Western Europe. Over three decades, the trend lines between the two barely deviate. And sugar beets, a major source of sugar, have shown stronger yield growth recently in Western Europe than the United States, despite the dominance of genetically modified varieties over the last decade.

Jack Heinemann, a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, did a pioneering 2013 study comparing trans-Atlantic yield

been penalized in any way for not making genetic engineering one of its

Biotech executives suggested making narrower comparisons. Dr. Fraley of Monsanto highlighted data comparing yield growth in Nebraska and France, while an official at Bayer suggested Ohio and France. These comparisons can be favorable to the industry, while comparing other individual American states can be unfavorable.

Michael Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said that while

Few New Markets

Battered by falling crop prices and consumer resistance that has made it hard to win over new markets, the agrochemical industry has been swept by buyouts. Bayer recently announced a deal to acquire Monsanto. And the state-owned China National Chemical Corporation has received American regulatory approval to acquire Syngenta, though Syngenta later warned the takeover could be delayed by scrutiny from European authorities.

The deals are aimed at creating giants even more adept at selling both seeds and chemicals. Already, a new generation of seeds is coming to market or in development. And they have grand titles. There is the

SmartStax RIB Co WideStrike 3 Insect Protection.

modified traits. And there are more to come. Monsanto has said that the corn seed of 2025 will have 14 traits and allow farmers to spray five different kinds of herbicide.

Newer genetically modified crops claim to do many things, such as protecting against crop diseases and making food more nutritious. Some may be effective, some not. To the industry, shifting crucial crops like corn, soybeans, cotton and rapeseed almost entirely to genetically modified varieties in many parts of the world fulfills a genuine need. To critics, it is a marketing opportunity.

d Liam Condon,

geographies around the world where the need is much higher and where G.M.O. is accepted. We will go where the market and the

BY: Danny Hakim

SOURCE: The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls- short.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGenetically%20Modified%2 0Food

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

1. Genetically modified food, explained http://www.vox.com/cards/genetically-modified-foods/what-is- genetically-modified-food

2. Study of 100 Billion Animals Finds GMOs Safe http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/comprehensive-study- 100-billion-animals-finds-gmos-safe-livestock/

3. Could GMOs Save Endangered Plants and Animals? http://www.biotech-now.org/food-and-agriculture/2015/08/could- gmos-save-endangered-plants-and-animals

4. Are genetically modified foods safe for human consumption? Yes, but ... http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health/article/1695755/are-genetically- modified-foods-safe-human-consumption-yes

5. A DARK Act looms: Evidence mounts about the GMO-breast cancer connection http://www.naturalhealth365.com/DARK-Act-gmo-breast-cancer- 1534.html

6. The Economic Argument Against GMOs: a Top Ten List http://inspiredeconomist.com/2013/02/26/economic-argument- against-gmos/