Are genetically modified foods safe?

Suman Sahai

GM crops are promoted as the answer to global hunger, to combat climate change, to produce renewable energy; it appears that if there is a problem anywhere, GM crops have the answer. Apart from this hyperbole, a fundamental question remains: does GM technology produce safe foods or should we be apprehensive about negative health impacts?

There is a substantial body of scientific data that demonstrates that the process of genetic engineering itself can cause changes in the cell that can lead to new and unpredictable changes in it.
Adverse health effects from GM food can result from the over-expression of an existing protein or activation of a dormant toxic substance, resulting in cell products that could be dangerous to human and animal health.
In addition to this, the genetic engineering of plants may result in the expression of totally new substances, which are not found in the natural plant species or, genes brought in from plants having known allergy provoking properties would bring the allergenic property along with them into the new transgenic plant.

The mere act of inserting alien genes into the chromosome of the host plant can create unintended effects and the formation of new and unknown toxic or allergy provoking compounds which are almost impossible to analyse and detect.
This can be a special problem in the case of plants like brinjal, which belong to the Solanacea family. This plant family to which nightshade, dhatura and tobacco (all highly poisonous) also belong has several natural toxins.

The chance of natural toxins being recreated through genetic engineering is high and therefore the genetic engineering of plants of this kind is more risky and more likely to produce foods that could be a threat to human health. Our regulatory system for GM crops have no provisions to conduct specific safety tests of this kind. Such tests, for instance, were not done for Bt brinjal.

It is known that allergenic proteins can be transferred by genetic engineering from one organism to another. The potential for development of toxic or allergic reactions to GM foods is likely to increase with advances in the scope and range of genetic modifications, increasingly radical transgenic combinations and the introduction of a greater variety of GM foods into the market, the last resulting in an increased exposure among people to foods carrying novel proteins.
With the widespread penetration of GM food in the market, food-allergic people will have to contend with new sources of allergens. The danger will be compounded by the difficulties of implementing labeling in India and making such labels intelligible to a large section of Indian people, particularly in rural areas. Allergic consumers will not even know what to avoid, resulting in a great risk to their health.

Children will be particularly vulnerable because their young immune systems will be less able to fight the allergen and also because their exposure to such novel proteins will be of longer duration, increasing their risk. The use of GM food products as food additives and processed foods, including baby foods, will lead to earlier exposure, especially for infants either directly or via breast milk. Maternal dietary food proteins are regularly detected in breast milk, and cow milk.

A particularly controversial area in the application of GM technology has been the use of marker genes which are introduced along with the gene for the desired trait as part of the gene construct that is inserted. The marker gene is just that, a marker to identify if the gene transfer has been successful.

Historically, the most common marker genes have been those that code for resistance to antibiotics. The concern is that these genes could find their way into pathogenic microbes, potentially compromising the clinical efficacy of antibiotics used in human medicine or livestock production. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics in human medicine is a large enough risk for giving rise to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Testing can be done when the protein created by the foreign gene is known but problems arise when the toxicological hazard results from newly formed proteins which can not be predicted. It is not possible to test for what you do not know and the hazardous proteins can remain undetected. The problem is made worse by the fact that induction of food allergies by increasing dietary exposure may be difficult to detect because of low frequency in the population to start with and because years of ingestion may be required to provoke an allergic response. This has special implications in the case of proteins where allergies are likely to show up years later.
There is plenty of evidence about the health dangers of GM foods, from animal tests.

Studies done at the Russian Academy of sciences, on rats fed with GM soya showed high rates of mortality, severe stunting of pups and high levels of sterility in the surviving litter. The startling results showed that 36% of the litter born to emales fed GE soya were stunted at the age of two weeks, by the third week over 55% had died. The mortality was six to eight times higher than in the control group which had been fed non GE soya.

Data on the health damage caused by eating GM foods comes from Monsanto's own labs. Results from a secret study conducted on their GM maize Mon 863 which were accidentally leaked, showed that rats fed on Mon 863 developed organ abnormalities, changes in the blood profile and collapse of the immune system.

Earlier studies on rats have also shown that rodents appear to be averse to GM foods and reject them in laboratory tests. When the first genetically altered tomato "Flavr Savr" was fed to rodents in the labs in 1994, data revealed that many of the rats developed lesions in the stomach. Seven of the forty rats that were fed with GM tomatoes died within two weeks. There have been numerous other reports of stomach lesions in rats, false pregnancies in cows, excessive cell growth and damage to animal immune systems, following feeding studies conducted with GM foods.

Adequate testing procedures for allergenicity are not available in India. At present food toxicity is tested merely by the chemical analysis of nutrients and known toxins. This may fail to uncover several categories of toxins and allergens. This means that animals and humans could be exposed to allergens which are not being detected. Before any further commercialization is allowed, testing procedures of sufficiently stringent standards should be put in place.

Dr Suman Sahai, trained in genetics, is the chairperson of the Gene Campaign, She has served on the faculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg. She can be contacted at mail@genecampaign.org

Synthetic Life?

Suman Sahai

Synthia, the nickname given to the first synthetic bacterium created recently, has stirred up a global debate. Is it new life or just an efficient copy of life as it exists? As research prowess goes, the latter is nothing to scoff at. What Craig Venter’s group has done is a technological breakthrough. The researchers have created what they call ‘artificial life’ by creating a newly synthesized genome using off the shelf biological reagents. They then put this artificial genome into the shell of a bacterium from which most of the genetic material had been scraped out. The artificial genome revived the bacterial shell and made it functional. Venter announced his group had created ‘synthetic life’. This claim immediately became controversial.

While Venter says this is the first ever synthetic cell that's been made and the first ever life form on the planet “whose parent is a computer”, others in his team have been more modest and said that they had only taken "baby steps" toward custom-making an organism. Scientists too have had differing responses, some say that the new bacterium could not be called artificial life, that science does not as yet know enough about biology to really create new life. Others called this an epochal breakthrough in biology. As a biologist myself, I would say that the new research is dazzling but it’s not quite creating life. The newness is that the new DNA has not been created by replicating the DNA of an organism but by reading the code of the organism stored in a computer and creating the DNA spelt out by that code using store bought building blocks (nucleotides). That I would say is a brilliant mimicking of life , not creating it de novo.

Whatever the nature of the breakthrough, one thing is certain, the trigger for it is overwhelmingly commercial. Venter and his partners stand to make a huge amount of money on the patents that are already being taken out on all the processes and products associated with synthetic biology. The same thing had happened when Francis Collins and he had announced in 2000 that they had mapped the human genome, a full three years ahead of the international Human Genome Program being managed by a consortium of scientists from across several countries. A spate of patents on human gene sequences and even parts of genes followed. Many of these were not accepted as patentable subject matter because the function of the genetic material was unknown, but many were. For a patent to be granted, the invention must have demonstrable utility, if the function of the DNA sequences was unknown, it could not have utility. Despite these minor bottlenecks, Venter sits on a heap of patents which will spin gold when the time comes.

Speculation is rife about all that synthetic microorganisms could do for the benefit of mankind. Custom made bacteria and algae to produce whatever you want, creating drugs and vaccines, cleaning water and effluents, trapping carbon in cultures serving as carbon sinks, even novel foods, energy and fuels, industrial chemicals, paints and varnishes…almost anything. Venter has already mentioned a 600 million dollar deal with Exxon to create ‘synthetic ‘algae to produce biofuels; another deal for an undisclosed amount has been struck with the British petroleum giant BP. Despite this promising wish list that synthetic biology appears to offer, there are also immense ethical and security implications associated with this new technology.

The US system is gearing up to look at synthetic biology to identify ethical boundaries and minimize identified risks. President Obama has asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to examine the new technology in this context. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this review, particularly in the back drop of how genetic engineering, another contested technology was reviewed. In that case, despite there being outstanding ethical and security issues associated with recombinant DNA technology, not dissimilar to the current situation with synthetic biology, it was commercial interests that ultimately prevailed. Transgenic technology was not considered violative of fundamental ethical principles and the security concerns were countered by the argument that there was sufficient vigilance and the benefits far outweighed the risks.

How should Indian science respond to the new developments? There is good potential for first class biological research in the country, even if some of it tends to be copycat. Indian labs will undoubtedly want to connect with this new technology domain. But before engaging with the field of synthetic biology , or any of the transformative technologies on the horizon, there should be a public debate involving Parliament on the desirability of this technology and more than that, the ability of our regulatory systems to cope with its more than considerable potential risks. The track record on regulating Agbiotech has been abysmal. Our regulatory bodies lack technical competence and are riddled with conflict of interest, lack of transparency and accountability.

In spite of sustained demands from a wide variety of people, to improve the regulatory system, vested interests are succeeding in maintaining a weak and ineffective regulation that does not get in the way of product release. The more radical the breakthroughs in biology, the more they upset the equilibrium achieved through evolution and the greater the danger of damage. By inference, therefore, the greater the need for caution and perhaps for abstinence. It does not stand that just because scientists can do something, society should endorse that it be done. We do after all have a self imposed ban on sexing a foetus, on human embryonal cloning and on germline therapy (doing genetic changes to the human germ cells which will allow the changes to be passed on to the next generation).

Proceeding with radical technologies that will alter, perhaps inalienably, many facets of our existence, needs the cautious and considered endorsement of society and its stewards.
If the decision is to move forward on synthetic biology, a new and effective regulatory system that has the confidence of the public must be put in place before the first test tube is picked up or the first culture plated.

GM CROPS TO SOLVE WORLD HUNGER: INDIA DEVELOPS SALT TOLERANT STRAWBERRIES!

Suman Sahai
If anything indicates the absurdity of India’s research priorities, especially in genetic engineering, it is the report that a group of researchers from the Jamia Hamdard University in Delhi have developed transgenic strawberry lines tolerant to salt stress. The strawberry was genetically engineered to express the gene coding for the protein osmotin. Osmotin kicks into action in response to salt and water stress and cold temperature. It also shows anti-fungal activity.

Please bear in mind that this salt tolerant GM strawberry works under cold conditions so even if it had any relevance to anyone in India, it would fail to take off under the prevailing global warming conditions. Apart from this, the scientists reported that the growth rate of these plants is slower than other plants, so this crop of GM strawberries will straggle behind the normal strawberry plants. The question must be asked, who are these high tech strawberries intended to benefit?

Precious public funds, the money that you and I pay in taxes, is being wasted on frivolous research of this kind, even as the country fails to demonstrate adequate investment in time tested technologies to secure food production. As India faces a food crisis and awaits the debilitating double whammy of global warming, threatening to reduce agriculture productivity, scarce research money is being spent on developing slow growing strawberries!
The proponents of GM crops, in the scientific establishment, the Agriculture Ministry, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Prime Minister’s Office, and a host of lobbyists, never tire of repeating that GM technology is necessary to solve the problem of hunger. Is this their road map for a hunger free India? Is anybody in the science establishment thinking?
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Bt Brinjal: What people say

Gene Campaign has been conducting polls through its website ( take a look at www.genecampaign.org ). The two last ones on Bt brinjal were interesting. 97 percent of the people polled said they would not eat Bt brinjal . In a later poll on whether people think the ban on Bt brinjal will be lifted or not, almost 75 percent said they believed the ban would stay. Only 25 percent polled said they though the ban would be lifted ! This perception that the government would uphold the ban because people did not want Bt brinjal ( the Environment Minister cited this as the reason he chose to impose the ban) demonstrates that people place their trust in government and believe it will not go against their wishes.

This trust in government came through clearly in a study that Gene Campaign and the University of Hyderabad have just concluded, on perceptions about GMOs. There too, farmers and consumers across five states, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Assam and Jharkhand said that government was the agency they trusted most among government, universities, companies , media and NGOs. This trust extended to information from government sources about agriculture, seeds, fertilizers etc, they wanted government in preference to any other agency, to test for the safety of GMOs. To label such foods and to monitor their long term impact

The government must be humbled by the trust placed in it by the country’s farmers and consumers with respect to agriculture and food technologies. This trust should propel government agencies to be that much more conscientious in discharging their duties and responsibilities as is expected from them, to safeguard the public interest.

CLEAN UP THE STABLES TO GET PEACE IN JHARKHAND

Suman Sahai

Jharkhand is now being mentioned on par with Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh when it comes to the Maoist or Naxal issue. This is a new trend and it need not be this way. If Mr Shibu Soren lasts as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand , he must act decisively to curb corruption and ensure that those under investigation in both political and bureaucratic circles are punished if found guilty. This single act will make him a hero to the people and give him the legitimacy to act to bring the state back to normalcy.

Look at corruption in Jharkhand. We are witnessing the spectacle of a going nowhere investigation into the misdeeds of Mr Madhu Koda, former Chief Minister, and his cronies. If newspapers are to be believed, Mr Koda has spirited away roughly half the entire budget of the state and invested it in mines in Liberia and hotels in Thailand. Despite the evidence , Mr Koda, instead of being locked up, ran an election campaign and spent enough money to ensure the electoral victory of his wife and friends. The blatancy of this kind of corruption frustrates people and when they respond with anger and violence, they are called Naxals.

Naxalism in Jharkhand , until recently, was not so much the ideological challenge to the state by people of a certain political persuasion; it was more the rage and retaliation of the youth who were seeing their future sabotaged by venal politicians and bureaucrats. Admittedly the picture has changed in recent months, after the crackdowns in other places, the Naxals have spilled over seeking hiding places and many have come to Jharkhand ; it is likely we will now see an intensification of the kind of activities that are geared to ‘overthrow the state’ . There are already reports of roads being blown up and we have seen abductions and murders of officials in recent months. But its still early days and the situation can be reversed.

Jharkhand, is a state where there is no development. It is the only state in the country which is moving backwards and is worse off today even compared to its appalling state in 2000. Rich in minerals, its people have been displaced in expanding cycles of impoverishment as the earth is opened up displacing homes and destroying livelihoods; making many time billionaires of the already rich outsiders and leaving nothing but worsening poverty for the locals. Mr Soren has a better track record than many others on the matter of tribal rights , especially with respect to land displacement. This will become a crucial issue as the state’s huge mineral reserves are opened up further for commercialization. If the government in Jharkhand can bring in more equitable and just policies, making the adivasis partners and stakeholders in the sustainable exploitation of the state’s mineral wealth, the emerging violence can be checked.

Juxtaposed to the situation in Jharkhand, is the UPA government making plans for India to return to nine percent growth levels. If these plans could be stretched to cover Jharkhand as well, not even nine percent…even only half of that, then Jharkhand could be put on the path to recovery. As it stands, there is no economic development in the state. The neglect can be seen everywhere, perhaps most in the primary, life sustaining activity of agriculture, leading to growing hunger and malnutrition, which is worse in Jharkhand than in Sub Saharan Africa, according to studies done by international organizations like the World Food Program.

The money that is earmarked for development projects vaporises before it hits the ground. Even the 15 paise out of a rupee do not reach the people. The greatest challenge facing Jharkhand and its people is abysmal governance, perhaps the worst in the country , rampant corruption and such a cynical apathy among the powerful elite to the fate of the poor, that it makes the blood curdle.

As part of preparing an agriculture development plan for certain districts in Jharkhand , Gene Campaign had conducted village level surveys to assess the main problems faced by farmers. The survey asked which benefits the community received from officials in the Block and how often scientists visited their villages. Over 90 percent of the people responded that the community received next to no benefits from the Block and that scientists from the agriculture university never visited them. In addition to this, the survey recorded that 95 out of 98 lift irrigation units in the Gumla district and 84 out of 87 in Simdega district were non functional since years because they had not been repaired. This is in a water starved area which is able to take only one crop a year because there are no irrigation facilities ( irrigation cover in Jharkhand is three percent) to enable a second crop. When irrigation facilities have been set up, as in Gumla and Simdega, they cannot be used because the government functionaries responsible for their maintenance have siphoned off the money meant for their repair.

After the single rice crop is taken during the monsoons, the fields are left fallow and nothing is cultivated for the rest of the year because there is no irrigation. For 8 months in the year, the fields of Jharkhand are brown and barren, when many other parts of the country are lush and green with a second crop. There is no industry to speak of. Avenues for employment are low and the money earmarked for developmental projects that would help village boys and girls to improve their situation goes into the pockets of corrupt government officials. Such is the cruelty that when they cannot swallow the funds, these officials prefer to send it back to the center as unutilized, so as not to ‘spoil the field’. That means, not to start the tradition that resources can be allocated without paying hefty bribes.

Whereas the State must act resolutely against those who take life and destroy property, dialogue and development are needed on priority if we want to reverse this situation. I believe this is still possible in Jharkhand. Developing the agriculture sector, taking advantage of Jharkhand’s climate and altitude can make it another Bangalore. Irrigation cover must be increased immediately so that fruits, vegetables and flowers can be exported, putting money in empty pockets. The production of rice and other cereals can be stepped up making the region not just self sufficient in food but providing a surplus of premium foods for urban markets. The state is a natural to foster organic and green agriculture which will not just make agriculture sustainable in the long run but also bring in incomes.

Only talking the language of the gun and launching Operation Green Hunt against those whose dues have been denied them and who have been subjected to brutal deprivation by those who are responsible for their development is the wrong way to deal with this unfortunate situation. The enlightened approach would be for the state to have the attitude of parents and guardians to errant children. A mixture of strict discipline, justice and compassion is far more likely to engender the confidence needed to start the dialogue to find the way back, than exacerbating the injustice by hunting them down with guns.

Dr Suman Sahai is convenor of the Gene Campaign, a research and advocacy organisation which has been working in Jharkhand for several years. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org and www.genecampaign.org

WHERE IS THE CASE FOR BT BRINJAL OR BT ANY OTHER CROP?

Suman Sahai

• In China the mirid bug has begun to ravage plantations of apples, strawberries, pears, peaches and vegetables in the vicinity of Bt cotton fields. A once minor pest, the mirid bug has erupted as a major pest in the absence of pest control and now attacks fruit orchards and cotton fields after farmers reduced spraying insecticides on Bt cotton.

• The State Bio-Control Laboratory of Assam has isolated two species of insect bio-agents and made it available to farmers for biological pest control. The two species of insects, Trichogramma japonicum and Trichogramma chillonis are found to be effective against borer pests like stem borer in brinjal, tomato, potato, as well as paddy, chilli and sugarcane, and farmers have already started accruing benefit from these bio-agents.

• The major pest of brinjal, as also of tomato and chilli, all belonging to the Solanacaea family, is bacterial wilt, (caused by Ralstonia solanacearum), not shoot and fruit borer, which the Bt brinjal aims to target.

• These findings along with data on the explosion of secondary pests of cotton in Bt cotton fields in China and elsewhere, shows how controlling one pest can trigger the spread of others.

• The Bt approach to pest control is emerging as expensive, perhaps irrelevant, short lived and ineffective as a strategy for pest control.

• Given the dynamic nature of host –pathogen relationships and the large pest density and pest profile in the tropics, the only possible solution is Integrated Pest Management.
  

Agriculture and the challenge of Climate Change

Suman Sahai

Climate change is likely to have a long term impact on social, environmental, economic, technological and political processes. But its most destructive influence will be on agriculture and food production in the poor developing countries. These will be more susceptible to climate change damage than the temperate countries, many of which actually benefit from climate change. Changes in rainfall patterns and temperature regimes will influence the local water balance and disturb the optimal cultivation period available for particular crops, thus throwing food and agricultural production out of gear.

According to climate estimates, agriculture in the productive areas of Africa and south Asia will be amongst the worst affected. Some estimates say almost 40 per cent of the production potential in certain developing countries could be lost. In south Asia, the biggest blow to food production is expected to come from the loss of multiple cropping zones. The worst affected areas are predicted to be the double or triple cropping areas, where two to three crops are produced in a year. To offset this loss, an effort must be made to convert single cropping areas into two crop zones. This can be done by efficient rain water harvesting and developing micro watersheds and water bodies so that in rain fed areas where one crop is being harvested today, water can be made available for a second crop.

Coping with the impact of climate change on agriculture will require careful management of resources like land, water and biodiversity. Food production can be stabilized and livelihoods secured if the impact of climate change is factored into the design and implementation of development programmes. Large scale awareness programmes are necessary to prepare farmers, who are today bewildered by the rapid fluctuations in weather conditions that are affecting their farming. Their traditional knowledge does not help them to manage the current anthropogenic changes.

It is necessary to develop and demonstrate successful, replicable models to enable agriculture and food production to both adjust to the changing climate, as well as mitigate the emissions from crop production. Fortunately technologies and practices that can help to achieve this are now available. The real stumbling block is perhaps the mind set fixated on intensive, agrochemical based agriculture as the only option and the lack of political will to introduce the fundamental changes that are necessary to make agriculture sustainable and high yielding. A well articulated and focused advocacy position and an effective campaign is needed to bring about the required policy changes.

Making agriculture sustainable and reducing emissions

Practices in agriculture will need to shift from intensive, mechanized, water demanding agriculture to more sustainable, conservationist methods that give higher crop yields using less water. ‘More crop per drop of water’ is the strategy recommended to tackle drought. The same approach is applicable in a wider sense when addressing the challenges posed by climate change.

Sustainable practices like conservation agriculture can keep carbon fixed. Conservation agriculture is a system of farming that conserves, improves and makes more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of available soil water and biological resources. The reduced till agriculture advocated by conservative agriculture means more carbon can remain trapped in the soil instead of being released when the soil is ploughed extensively before each planting. Important interventions include proper land preparation to minimize soil erosion, making contours and water channels to maximize water use, keeping overall water use low. Micro irrigation and drip irrigation are effective but expensive. Other helpful actions are planting trees and fodder crops on contours and watersheds, agro forestry and reforestation, crop rotations, green manure crops and intercropping as well as mulching and keeping a cover of crop residues on the surface.

The drawback though is the necessity of controlling weeds by extensive use of chemicals. But it is possible to replace chemical fertilizers and pesticides with bioorganic nutrients as much as possible without compromising yield. Such an agriculture system needed not necessarily conform to the standards set for organic certification.

Replacing agrochemicals with bio-organic substitutes, leads to a significant reduction in the carbon footprint. Reducing the application of nitrogenous fertilizers like urea will have a great impact on nitrous oxide emissions. Barring areas like Punjab, Indian agriculture which is largely manual, as against the highly mechanized agriculture of the west, has a low carbon footprint because it does not use fossil fuels.

System of Rice Intensification

Some (relatively) new agronomic practices are showing promise as adaptive strategies and are yielding good results, particularly in rice cultivation, which is Asia’s main crop. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a water saving, methane emission reducing rice cultivation strategy. Instead of flooding paddy fields as in current rice cultivation, the SRI consists of watering and draining the fields in a manner that significantly reduces the amount of water required. Essentially, SRI changes agronomy practices in a manner that enables prolific root formation and tilling that leads to more panicles and hence more grains per plant. This has an obvious impact on raising crop yields. This strategy increases weeds in the fields which have to be dealt with but apart from reducing the use of water in crop production, SRI also reduces the build up of methane by doing away with standing water in rice paddies.

Agro biodiversity key to climate change adaptation

In addition to land and water, the other important factor needed to adapt to climate change, is the biodiversity related to agriculture that is adapted to local conditions. There is an urgent need to conserve the genetic diversity of crop plants and livestock. All the biodiversity related to agriculture is referred to as agro biodiversity and this according to the FAO, is acknowledged as a key resource to ensure that agriculture in various parts of the world can survive the onslaught of turbulent weather and unpredictable climate. Conserving agro biodiversity means conserving the gene pool and those genes that may come in useful for traits required by crops under changed conditions.

If coastal areas get submerged then crop varieties will need to develop tolerance to salinity and water logging. If on the other hand inland areas become drier and rain fed areas face almost drought like conditions, then it will be necessary develop crop varieties that are drought tolerant. Turbulence in the weather patterns including moisture and wind could bring new diseases and insect pests, requiring varieties that are resistant to these.

The key to breeding suitable varieties is to have access to the required genes, which would confer disease resistance or drought tolerance. Conserving agro biodiversity today conserves genes for today and tomorrow.