Data mining and GMOs

In order to make sound conclusions about different types of genetically engineered crops and to plan for the future, we’ll need to have sound data about any possible environmental effects of said crops. Researchers from a variety of institutions and disciplines* plan to collect that data. Harvesting Data from Genetically Engineered Crops**, published in the 25 April issue of Science, explains that we can use existing data about pesticide and fertilizer usage, water quality, and information about birds, amphibians, and other animals – if we can connect that data to what types of crops the farmers are planting. A news story, UA Scientists and Colleagues Call for More Access to Biotech Crop Data, has been posted by the U of Arizona. The authors conclude their proposition:

The United States has the world’s most extensive history of using GE crops and one of the world’s best continentalscale programs in environmental monitoring. Combining these two sources of information
provides an opportunity to lead the world in identifying agricultural pathways for the future that best serve people and the environment. Providing scientists access to data on GE crop use at the county scale is a small and relatively inexpensive step with enormous scientific and public benefits.

There’s not much to say about this, other than “Bravo!” No matter what the data shows, it will be valuable. For example, I’d like to know if there is a connection between use of Bt crops and numbers of birds in fields. I’d like to know which pesticides are actually used in what amounts on all of the different varieties of Bt and glyphosate resistant crops. With this knowledge, we can decide if we should restrict or encourage use of particular types of farming practices in order to produce the most human benefit with the least environmental impact.

* The authors are from the Environmental Studies Inst at Santa Clara U, the Dept of Entomology at U Arizona, the Dept of Botany and Plant Sciences at UC Riverside, the Dept of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, The Nature Conservancy, the Dept of Biology at Loyola U Chicago, and the Dept of Biology at U Nebraska.

** I don’t know if it’s legal for me to post a link to the pdf here. If you know the rules, please fill me in!

GM rice may be answer to arsenic contaminated soils

In India and other Southeast Asian countries, large areas of the bedrock naturally contain arsenic (As), which leaches into the groundwater. The FAO estimates that up to 500 million people are at risk of being exposed to dangerous levels of arsenic in both drinking water and in the crops that were irrigated with the groundwater. The problem was investigated by the FAO in Bangladesh in 2006. They found that:

[A]rsenic levels in the grain of different varieties of rice in Bangladesh were as high as 1.8 parts per million, compared to levels of just 0.05 parts per million in Europe and the US. Contamination was even greater in leafy vegetables – in amaranthus and spinach, arsenic content can be double or triple the levels found in rice. For drinking water, WHO recommends a maximum arsenic level of 0.01 parts per million, which indicates that for some people, staple food crops such as rice may be an important source of exposure to arsenic.

Until now, the farmers essentially have three options: leave the fields fallow, plant rice and hope it doesn’t have too much arsenic, or attempt to plant a crop that doesn’t need as much water.
Om Parkash (photo and story from Newswise) of the University of Massachusetts Amherst primarily works on bioremediation, which aims to remove pollutants from the soil by binding it up in plants. His recent work branches into the opposite direction, using genetic engineering to produce rice plants that take up less As. The work is in the process of patenting, so technical details are scarce. For now, I’ll have to be content with the following:

“By increasing the activity of certain genes, we can create strains of rice that are highly resistant to arsenic and other toxic metals,” says Parkash, a professor of plant, soil and insect sciences. “Rice plants modified in this way accumulate several-fold less arsenic in their above-ground tissues, and produce six to seven times more biomass, making the rice safer to eat and more productive.” This could help alleviate the current world-wide rice shortage.

I’m really looking forward to learning more about the genetics, and hope that Dr. Parkash is able to move forward with this exciting crop improvement.
While As is actually a necessary mineral in small amounts and only becomes dangerous to health when consumed in high levels (as in Bangladesh), decreasing As in the food supply is definitely a worthy cause. Dr. Parkash says that As can accumulate in all parts of the rice plant, including grain and straw. High As levels in rice not only affect people, but can sicken animals who eat the straw and contaminate their meat (think bioaccumulation). See GreenFacts for a good summary of arsenic as it relates to human health and the environment (incidentally, they also have some of the most levelheaded information on GM crops that I’ve ever seen).
Other recently published work on arsenic levels in rice by Yamily Zavala and John Duxbury of Cornell was reported in the 2 May 2008 ISAAA Crop Biotech Update. For a summary of the articles, see the press release from the American Chemical Society. Disclosure: I wasn’t able to access these two articles themselves as ISU’s library site is down while I write this.
In Arsenic in Rice: I. Estimating Normal Levels of Total Arsenic in Rice Grain, they showed that mean As concentrations in samples of commercial rice in Europe and the US (0.198 mg/kg) were higher than in samples from Asia (0.07 mg/kg). The concentrations varied greatly by region, but not by farming method. Their data confirmed that irrigation with As contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh is correlated with higher As concentrations in grain. In the US, where groundwater is not contaminated with As, the authors suggest that historical contamination of soil is a likely cause. Note: mg/kg and ppm are equivalent units.
In Arsenic in Rice: II. Arsenic Speciation in USA Grain and Implications for Human Health, they showed that the As in some rice varieties accumulates in a less toxic form than inorganic As (inorganic = molecules do not contain carbon). Arsenic in rice grown in the US is bound into mostly into dimethyl arsinic acid (DMA), which . This data is in agreement with previous studies done by Andrew Meharg of the University of Aberdeen in the UK. There is evidence that DMA is safer than inorganic As, which means that US rice may be safer than European or Asian rice. The authors hypothesize that 30 years of breeding in the US for straighthead disorder resistant rice could have caused US varieties to acquire this As metabolic pathway.
Huge phenotypic variance is present in rice grains across varieties. It’s easy to imagine that metabolic pathways vary widely from variety to variety as well.

Biopharma

Biopharma is such a strange word. To me it sounds sort of sci-fi, evoking images from the 1950s of a future where everything will be high-tech but beautiful and simple at the same time. Of course, not everyone has such positive thoughts about this potentially dangerous yet potentially lifesaving application of technology.

“Scientists Worry Over GM Drug Crops“, posted on Environmental Graffiti, briefly covers the news that crops engineered to express pharmaceutical proteins will be field tested this growing season, concentrating on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ reaction. Apparently UCS is taking their typical anti-tech stance, asking the USDA to require all such crops to be grown in greenhouses or underground. I was not able to find any record of UCS’s recent comments.

Where is the grain going?

Opponents of biofuels say that using corn as ethanol is causing grain prices to rise. That’s true, but there is another side to this issue that is completely ignored. Meat consumption has been rising in developed and developing countries, increasing demand for corn and soy animal feed. Now that ethanol and biodiesel claim more and more of the corn and soy harvests, the price of meat is going up. Is the solution to stop research on biofuels? Perhaps not. If every person consumed less meat, then more grain would be available for biofuels (because it takes less land and fewer resources to produce an equivalent amount of vegetable protein). It just makes sense. Why is it that so few people can make that connection?

The image-rich January 2008 NY Times article “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” covers such issues as the problems of supplying livestock with grain and of disposing of animal waste. Basically, those who are concerned about the environment should consider their “meat footprint”. This article is one of the few (aside from those on vegetarian websites) that emphasizes the link between meat consumption and environmental impact. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) study “Livestock’s Long Shadow” from 2006 was all but ignored, despite the frightening statistics.

So, why do I bring this up now? I recently bought Good, the magazine “for people who give a damn”. I purchased “the food issue” because I’m very interested in why people choose the foods that they eat. Unfortunately, much of the magazine was cheerleading for meat. Apparently, they haven’t read “Livestock’s Long Shadow”. While it’s true that pasture-raised beef is better for the environment (and the animals) than factory-farmed, the writers didn’t bother to state that feeding the world on pasture-raised beef is impossible, given current per-capita meat eating. There just isn’t enough land. They also imply that vegetarianism is not healthy, and that vegetarians should just eat meat already. They have a 4 page spread on “America’s Tastiest Streets” that includes a whopping zero vegetarian items (unless you include fried cheese). It seems like Good might be for “people who give a damn” about justifying their bad-for-the-environment meat-eating habits.

Then, the writers have the audacity to say that “little fish” are going to be the next sushi because they are “ethically preferable”. Tuna, dolphins, and other carnivores of the sea eat those little fish. If tuna are to avoid extinction, they are going to need food. A far better way to sate a desire to eat fish is vat-farmed tilapia.

In their favor, the March/April issue of Good does have an article on Tofurky. I can’t get it in Iowa, but it’s said to be a fine meat substitute. Additional kudos for naming bibimbap as one of the next food crazes (I learned to love it while stationed in Korea). However, offal was also on the list for “The Next Sushi”. Plus, they don’t mention any vegetarian MREs, incorrectly state that all MREs come with Tabasco (sadly, they don’t anymore), and condemn raw food diets in their “What We Eat” article. I’ll keep an eye on their website, but I’ll certainly think twice before buying Good next time I’m in Borders.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Mark Bittman, author of “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” and the wonderful cookbook “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” that encourages people to eat less (but not necessarily zero) meat:

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Ok, that wasn’t really about GMOs at all. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Pollution-fighting poplar trees

Back in October, I posted about Poplar trees genetically engineered to remove carcinogens from groundwater. The project is moving from the experimental stage into real world application, as described in Fighting pollution the poplar way. The test site was used for oil storage in the 1960s, and became contaminated with trichloroethylene. TCE is an industrial solvent that “has been found in at least 852 of the 1,430 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [ATSDR].”
The trees were engineered to over-express the protein cytochrome P450. It is found in most organisms, from plants to people, and functions as a catalyst in many reactions. In laboratory conditions, the transgenic trees were able to remove 91% of TCE from a liquid solution, compared to just 3% removed by untransformed poplars. “The poplar plants — all cuttings just several inches tall growing in vials — also were able to break down, or metabolize, the pollutant into harmless byproducts at rates 100 times that of the control plants [SD].” The plants are able to detoxify a range of chemicals, including chloroform and benzene. The trees can remove chemicals from the air as well as from soil and water.
One benefit of using poplar trees over other plants is that they grow in a wide variety of climates. Another benefit is that they take five years to reach sexual maturity. As long as the trees are harvested before they start producing pollen, the transgenes can not spread to native poplars. These researchers plan to harvest the trees after three years, time that should be adequate to clean up the site. The group is also researching the use of poplars for ethanol, ensuring that the plants will be put to further good use.