Biotechnology

Hi Jennifer,

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) afflicts many people around the world, especially in developing countries. Some of the adverse health outcomes of VAD include increased mortality, night blindness, corneal scars, blindness and measles among children, as well as night blindness among pregnant and lactating women. In a bid to reduce VAD-related diseases, rice plants were engineered to produce higher levels of beta-carotene in the endosperms or grains, and the result of this effort is Golden Rice 2. In an article in Nature Biotechnology, Alexander Stein and colleagues from the University of Hohenheim, Germany and Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science & Research, India, presented a new methodology for assessing the potential impact and cost-effectiveness of Golden Rice 2 in India.

Read the complete blog post at http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/11/assessing-benefits-of-golden-rice-2.html

Cheers, David Tribe

There is much concern in Australia about the current drought. The forecast for this year’s wheat crop has been cut by 8.5 million tons to just 11million. This is less than half last year’s production of 24 million tons.

The forecast for the canola crop is also down and there is talk about local crushers importing oil seed from Canada.

The imported canola would presumably be crushed to make vegetable oil and margarine.

If the imports go ahead, we will be importing seed from GM varieties of canola because that is what farmers grow in Canada. Farmers are banned from growing these GM varieties in Australia.

Indeed the current bans on genetically modified (GM) food crops in place in Australia, were forced by Greenpeace in particular to block the commercial planting of GM varieties of canola.

How hypocritical will that be, importing a product that Australian farmers are banned from growing.

And with all the focus on the drought, and predicted low wheat crop, it is interesting that there has been no public comment about the research effort in South Australia to develop GM drought tolerant wheat varieties; despite the bans.

Rather than rational discussion, a rural newspaper has published a letter denying the potential benefits of biotechnology for breeding drought tolerance. David Tribe explains, and explains the science:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/hyperbole-and-misinformation-versus.html

David also has an interesting blog post on how much natural ‘genetic modification’ occurs within plant species:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/natural-gmos-part-26-nature-inserts.html

Jennifer,

During my trawls of the www I came across the following blog which purports to describe a future where Denmark has transformed its agriculture and land use in through large scale adaptation of molecular pharming .

The blog is at
http://pruned.blogspot.com/2006/09/pharmland.html
and if you scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see

“For more on this wondrously pragmatic utopia, view the presentation
slideshow” and the slideshow link,
http://www.nord-web.dk/pharmland_2.htm

Takes you to a new website where you can view a “documentary” movie
online presented by a fictitious Minister of Health and Agriculture at
http://www.nord-web.dk/pharmland_movie.htm

This future scenario is not that outlandish since Denmark has got a large biotech industry (Novo Nordisk is the major producer of recombinant insulin) and the Danish Government has recently adopted coexistence laws which will allow for growing GM and non-GM side by side.

Interesting view of a possible future for Denmark and possibly Tasmania which is growing pharmaceutical crops already (poppies) and are exempting poppies from its GM Crops ban.

Roger

Roger Kalla, PhD
Director Korn Technologies
www.korntechnologies.com

Preliminary results from CSIRO research in Narrabri have shown that genetically modified insect-resistant cotton may also be more water efficient.*

Two years of field experiments by CSIRO Plant Industry’s Mr Dirk Richards and Mr Stephen Yeates, show that under normal full irrigation, Bollgard® II cotton used ten per cent less water than an equivalent conventional variety and had higher yields.

Bollgard® II makes up most of the Australian cotton crop and has reduced pesticide use by up to 80 per cent.

Research is now optimising agronomic management of Bollgard® II as it tends to produce bolls earlier than conventional cotton because insect damage does not delay early crop growth.

Bollgard® II and conventional cotton extract soil water at a similar rate, but Bollgard® II has a more compact growing season so uses less water overall for the same or higher yields.

To read more click here: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/gm-technology-improves-water-use.html

————————
* This text was provided by David Tribe.

Dear Jennifer,

Did you see this recent article from Nature entitled ‘Escaped Chinese GM Rice Reaches Europe’ ?

The Chinese do their trialing on a grand scale. According to an industry source one million acres of insect resisitant GM rice was planted last year in China. Anywhere else this would have been described as a general commercial release of the GM rice.

If you tested Chinese rice noodles in an Asian grocery store in Australia you would find that products derived from insect resistant GM rice is a reality here too.

But more importantly, and as is pointed out in the article, the risks to the consumer of GM Chinese rice noodles are minimal. Any allergenic reaction to the rice would have been drastically reduced in the processing of the food as the food allergy expert states.

The real question is: Can GM rice coexist with non-GM rice and is there the political will to keep them separate in China?

Exports of Chinese rice noodles is not a big issue for the Chinese government.

There has been a consensus growing among scientists that when China decides to openly (or covertly) give GM rice the all clear it will have an immediate impact on the ‘GM free’ status of rice products sold everywhere on this planet.

It will undoubtedly trigger a new round of food scares and anti-GM campaigns.

But they will all be futile. Ultimately we will have to face the reality of living with a technology, which in the case of https://levitralab.com insect resistant GM rice, has clear public and environmental benefits.

Regards,

Roger Kalla.