Organic Transgenic Food

Even before Tomorrow’s Table graced the shelves of bookstores across America, I was intrigued by the idea of combining science with traditional farming methods. In this week’s Nature Genetics, Jonathan Gressel reviewed Tomorrow’s Table and may have coined a term to describe the combination of organic and transgenic methods – orgenic! What do you think of the term?

Dr. Gressel is interesting in his own right, a professor emeritus of plant sciences at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and author of ” Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics for Crop Biodiversity”. I can’t wait to find a copy and let you know what he has to say. A preview is available at Google Books. He argues that we need to use biotechnology in order to break the glass ceiling – alluding to the decline in crop yield improvement over the past few years. According to the reviews, he also addresses problems with biotech and ways to overcome them.

At its heart, organic ag is based on biology – understanding biological processes in order to coax food out of the soil. Conventional ag has forgotten things, such as how soil-bacteria interactions can affect soil fertility, how polyculture (or at least rotation) can help prevent disease, or how natural predators can be used to keep pests away. In short, conventional ag is chemistry while organic is biology.

Even though the technology is new, biotech is biology, not chemistry. This is eloquently described by Raoul Adamchak in Tomorrow’s Table. For example, giving plants the means to protect themselves from disease with technologies like RNAi is very different from spraying potentially toxic chemicals, and doing so is fundamentally true to the idea behind organic farming.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many people who are listening. For example, when I brought this up in a Sustainable Agriculture class at Iowa State, the response was:

Organic agriculture is defined by law (unlike other forms of agriculture) and as such, the rules prescribe that transgenic forms cannot be used in organic agriculture.

The rules about what is and is not organic may be defined by law, but they aren’t defined by science. Some of the additives allowed by the organic rules are quite dangerous and don’t follow from the idea of biologically concious agriculture – such as the use of sulfur and copper (see p133-137 of the Google Books preview of The Truth About Organic Gardening).

The line drawn to exclude biotechnology is arbitrary. Included are techniques like chemical and radioactive mutagenesis, forced hybridization across species, grafting to form physically chimeric plants. Excluded are techniques like cell fusion, microencapsulation and macroencapsulation, and recombinant DNA technology. There is one distinction I can see: techniques allowed in organic farming have been in use for decades and can generally be done with minimal equipment while techniques excluded from organic farming are new, patentable, require expensive equipment and trained technicians.

It has been suggested that the organic movement (specifically the anti-GM movement) is actually a reflection of anti-capitalism and in some cases anti-technology sentiment. The regulations support this theory, but I think at least some of that can be left in the past. I hope we can all look forward to redefining organic to stay true to its original meaning of biologically based agriculture. Without an integrated farming strategy – orgenic farming – I’m afraid we won’t have much left to eat.

Jonathan Gressel (2009). Orgenic Food Nature Genetics, 41 (2), 137-137 DOI: 10.1038/ng0209-137

Fruitless Fall

If Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder: A Literature Review, my recent guest post by Kyle Bailey, just whet your appetite for information about CCD, you should check out the book I happened upon this weekend at my local library: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis by Rowan Jacobsen. The causes of CCD are still not known, but Rowan does a great job of summarizing the usual suspects as well as proving more information that could be expected in a conversational tone. The overall feel of Fruitless Fall is similar to Diane Ackerman’s Natural History books, but with an overlay of urgency.

The first few chapters provide information: 1 explanation of why bees are so important to agriculture, 2 facinating descriptions of bee life, bee biology, and beekeeping in general, and 3 the first incidences of CCD, including first hand descriptions from beekeepers.

Chapter 4, Whodunit, is where the story starts to get really interesting. Jacobsen carefully explains the dead ends of the investigation (call phones, Bt crops, the rapture, etc) and tells us why none of the various viruses, bacteria, and parasites that afflict bees are likely culprits.

The discussion of Bt crops is surprisingly lucid (if not a tad overdrawn) and contains more than a little foreshadowing for the next chapter: “Why spray crops with a pesticide that washes into the soil and groundwater when you can simply have the plants manufacture it for themselves? Organic farmers have used Bt for years as a natural insecticide. So I can understand Monsanto’s thinking. Then again, I can understand Dr. Frankenstein’s belief that it might be useful to reanimate the dead; it’s in the practice that things get messy.” Jacobsen points out that “lots of CCD cases have been reported in states  [and countries] with no GM crops” and that USDA studies have shown Bt pollen to be completely safe.

Chapter 5, Slow Poison, brings us to a hypothesis that pesticides are the problem, reducing the bees’ ability to defend themselves against disease. Individual pesticides are tested singly for lethality and applied at rates below lethal levels, but they aren’t tested in the combinations that bees experience in the fields. They also aren’t tested long term at non-lethal levels. Low levels of various pesticides, including neonicotinoids (which are a relatively safe synthetic version of nicotine, an organic pesticide) cause nervous system problems in bees. France’s answer has been to ban certain pesticides, but their bees continue to die while bees exposed to the same pesticide (Gaucho) in Argentina are doing just fine.

So, what do we do? In later chapters, Jacobsen offers a few solutions, including a huge switch in farming practices and importing Russian bees, but I’m not satisfied. From bees to babies, it seems obvious that we need to reduce dependance on pesticides in farming. The problem is, we can’t afford it. There is a reason why organic produce costs more. We must find gentle ways to keep yields high.

To me, Jacobsen’s paragraphs on Bt crops and on pesticides combine to a somewhat obvious potential solution – genetic engineering. One of the nice things about GE is that you can target where in the plant a compound (such as Bt or nicotine) is produced. Using the right promoter, we can express a compound in just the leaves or just the roots, whatever part needs to be protected from pests. While some compounds will be transported around the plant, we can realistically produce a GE plant that has very little of the compound in the pollen. With the pesticide safely locked away in the plant parts that need it, the bees can come and go, harvesting pollen without being affected. Instead of demanding a ban on GE, we should demand more intelligent use of the technology.

Of course, genetic engineering alone won’t solve CCD, but neither will banning pesticides. We need a completely fresh look at agriculture. We need a system that rewards farmers for good practices to improve the situation for bees and for the rest of us. For example, if a farmer rotates crops and uses Bt crops properly to reduce insecticide use, allows some weeds to grow to reduce herbicides use, plants borders and hedgerows of wildflowers, uses local bee hives instead of shipping them in, etc – the food can’t be labeled “organic” even though a huge difference has been made for local ecosystems, for the bees, and for the health of the consumer. The farmer won’t be compensated for these efforts which are more time consuming than 100% conventional farming. Without compensation, why bother? It’s far easier to rely on chemicals, and we all need to make a living.

Image of a bee heading toward an almond blossom by pho-tog on flickr, book cover from Jacobsen’s website.

One organic farmer's view of GM

Raoul Adamchak (at right) is a respected organic farmer and teacher who is stirring up new ideas with his wife, biotechnologist Pamela Ronald. They co-authored Tomorrow’s Table, a book about combining organic methods with biotechnology to produce healthy, cost-effective, sustainable food. Pamela has been outspoken about the book, but US News and Reports has the first interview that I’ve seen with Raoul: Solving the Food Crisis with an Unlikely Alliance. Of course, Pamela is an advocate of intelligent use of genetic engineering in farming, especially for traits like flood-tolerance. Raoul reminds us that genetic engineering is only a tool, one that isn’t worth much unless we use in a carefully designed system – such as organically grown Brandywine tomatoes that are engineered to be nematode resistant!
Via Pamela’s blog Tomorrow’s Table. Photo credit: Debbie Aldridge/UC Davis. Original caption: “Raoul Adamchak works with students in the Market Garden.”

Science and emotion

I’ve finished reading Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa. Robert Paarlberg describes the social and political issues that have led to distrust of agricultural science in the developed world, and how this distrust was exported to developing countries. The book is definitely a good read, but seems repetitive at times.

Parrlberg’s tone makes it feel like he is putting down the organic movement while embracing industrial agriculture. This is justified from his viewpoint, because the organic movement has delayed the use of modern agricultural methods in Africa – methods that could have prevented a lot of death and suffering. I get the feeling that he is letting his frustration with the situation color his writing.

Opposition to transgenic technologies: ideology, interests and collective action frames is a review in Nature by Ronald Herring, political economy and political ecology at Cornell, that discusses many of the same issues covered in Starved for Science. Herring’s viewpoint is a bit different from Paarlberg’s – he says that we must decouple the emotional issues from science when it comes to transgenics. He speaks of mental “frames” or “cognitive screens” that “typically contain elements that are diagnostic (identifying problems and causation), prognostic (allocating blame) and motivational (providing reasons for action).”

The frames about genetic engineering certainly affect public policy, and might be changed by a better understanding of science. There seem to be two major opposition points: that genetic engineering is “unnatural” and that it is produced by big corporations. Neither of these points has anything to do with science. A third point is the lack of tangible benefit to consumers. Herring and Paarlberg both investigate the lack of protest about genetic engineering in medicine, a use that consumers directly benefit from. Herring is optimistic that these emotional oppositions can be overcome (reformatted for clarity):

It seems entirely possible that the GMO frame will subside over time into the realm of niche politics — similar to opposition to vaccines or pasteurization — or to the realm of discretionary food preferences among well-fed people.

First, it is the ideational construction of GM food that has been effective politically. Biomedical applications manifestly promote the interest of consumers; there are no campaigns for pharmaceutical-free zones.

Second, successful opposition has been in formal-legal institutions, not in the fields of farmers, where direct interests have outweighed ideology. More and more farmers, in countries rich and poor, have material interests in biotechnology; they have proved ready to lobby for transgenic crops or grow them without authorization if necessary, even when facing considerable risk.

Third, rising international powers such as China, India and Brazil invest in biotechnology as a growth sector. Because there are competitive advantages in molecular breeding, national interests are likely to push against the international formal-legal restrictions on transgenic crops.

Finally, we might anticipate that urgent crises will, over time, drive more interest in such fields as bioremediation, biodegradable plastics, drought-resistant plants and biofortification of food for those who cannot afford dietary discretion.

He eloquently reminds us of our ethical duties to our fellow man:

The Nuffield Council in the United Kingdom rightly stressed the ethical obligation to use emergent technologies to alleviate human suffering wherever possible. This obligation falls particularly on those privileged by accident of birth… Conscientious citizens of the ‘first world’ must understand that our political preferences have powerful influences on decisions in parts of the world where the options are fewer and less attractive.

Would PAN [Pesticide Action Network] be so opposed to GMOs if the evidence on pesticide reduction through Bt technology were widely understood? How can the frame incompatibility between a trait — insect resistance — and the stigma of GMO be maintained if the real, and urgent, interest is sustainability? How plausible are reports that year after year farmers in India plant seeds that fail them and destroy their environments? Had mobilizers against agricultural biotechnology had more respect for the rationality and agency of farmers in poor places, they might well have avoided egregiously erroneous constructions of their interests.

And, he asks everyone to make a change in thinking that could change everything:

The first step forward, then, is to split up the concept of GMO, to think of it as the product of a particular juncture in history. That juncture combined real concerns of unknown risks of new technology and demonstrably faulty state regulation. But the science has moved on. Vital questions about crops and interests for the future involve more splitting and less lumping: what traits, what cultivars, which genetic events, where and under what conditions for what developmental purposes? Only with this knowledge can we devise priorities and steering mechanisms as aspirational and precise as the potentials of the technology.

Reason: as in rational thought

Reason magazine has always had rational articles on technology, including genetic engineering. Their commenters are also surprisingly lucid, understanding that technology can be used to help people live better lives while also protecting the world around us. A recent article titled “Demon Seed: How fear of life-saving technology swept through Africa” discusses an new book, “Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa” with author Robert Paarlberg.

He doesn’t say it overtly, but in his words I hear that we need a compromise. People in the US and Europe want a greater personal connection to their food, as evidenced by the organic and local food movements. This is certainly not a bad thing, but we can not reject all technology. Rejection of all technology would mean a return to a type of civilization that few Americans or Europeans would like – one where most people must spend the majority of their time producing their own food.
Genetic engineering is a solution for a lot of problems in agriculture. Of course it isn’t the solution, but there is no legitimate reason to reject it. Even if we in affluent societies can justify the rejection of technology in agriculture, we have no right to force our opinions on people in societies that we can barely understand.

In the article, Paarlberg says that corporations have no monetary incentive to develop seed for subsistence farmers, so we need to use public and philanthropic money to develop new genetically engineered crops. He ends on a positive note:

Just last week in Nairobi the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and African Agricultural Technology Foundation announced that they would be going forward with the drought-tolerant maize project that I describe in chapter 5 of my book. I’m very pleased that the Gates Foundation has seen the opportunity that this new technology provides. It would be too bad if drought tolerant corn were being grown in Iowa in 2010 and not available to the farmer who really needed it in Africa.