Jump to content

Genetically modified wheat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Magwep (talk | contribs) at 17:40, 21 January 2012 (→Arguments against adoption of transgenic wheat). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Background

Wheat (Triticum spp.) is an important domesticated grass used worldwide for food, and its evolution has been influenced by human intervention since the dawn of agriculture.[1]

Wheat is a natural hybrid derived from interspecies breeding. It is theorized that wheat's ancestors (Triticum monococcum, Aegilops speltoides, and Aegilops tauschii, all diploid grasses) hybridized naturally over millennia somewhere in West Asia, to create natural polyploid hybrids, the best known of which are common wheat and durum wheat.[2]

Interspecies transfer of genes continued to occur in farmers fields during the shift from the Paleolithic diet, to the diet adopted by humans following the Neolithic Revolution, or first green revolution.[3] Therefore, during the transition from a hunter-gatherer social structure to more agrarian societies, humans began to cultivate wheat and further transform it for their needs. Thus, the social and cultural roots of humans and the development of wheat have been bound closely together since before recorded history.

This process of wheat transformation has continued for millennia, resulting in various wheat species that are grown for specific purposes and climates. Experiments by Stephen Wilson in 1873[4] resulted in yet another hybridization, the cross-pollination of rye and wheat to create triticale. Further transformations of wheat using cytogenic hybridization techniques enabled Norman Borlaug, father of the Second Green Revolution,[3] to develop wheat species (the semidwarf varieties) that would grow in harsh environments.

When recombinant DNA techniques were developed in the 1980s, work began on creating the first transgenic wheat, coincident with the third Green Revolution.[5] Of the three most important cereals in the world (corn, rice and wheat), wheat was the last to be transformed by transgenic, biolistic methods in 1992, and by Agrobacterium methods in 1997,[6][7] but unlike corn and rice, it's widespread use in the human diet has found slow acceptance due to cultural resistance[8][9]

Arguments for adoption of transgenic wheat

Proponents for the adoption of transgenic wheat feel that it is necessary to feed the growing numbers of hungry humans on the planet.[10] Only transgenic methods, they say, can ensure that we can develop strains of wheat fast enough to have adequate yields to sustain the world's population.

The genes responsible for wheat's senescence and annualism may be reversible using transgenic means, resulting in a wheat with adventitious roots, good production of seed, and perennial habits.[11]

In addition to increased yields, further transgenic experiments are underway to change wheat such that it provides better nutrition.[12] Attempts to increase wheat's nutritional value have concentrated on the addition of amino acids, vitamins, minerals[13] and essential oils. Increasing the amylose content to create a wheat with a low glycemic index starch, has also been a goal of transgenic wheat production.[14]

Some transgenic wheat experiments have sought to directly boost the human immune system using human genes.[15]

To appeal to farmers, transgenic techniques have attempted to make wheat insect resistant,[16] more disease resistant,[17][18] to need less nitrogen to grow,[19] and to require less pesticide and herbicide.[20] As the world's climate is expected to get hotter, and water more scarce, wheat strains are being developed that will be drought resistant,[21] and heat tolerant.[22] The first transgenic wheat licensed for sale into the human food-chain (so far only in two countries worldwide, Argentina and the United States)[23] is MON 71800, and it provides resistance to Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup by using a CP4/maize EPSPS gene.[24] Studies conducted by Monsanto have shown that its nutritional components are equivalent to nontransgenic commercially available wheat,[25] and animal studies that have used MON 71800 for feed have confirmed this.[26] Environmental Risk assessments have been conducted by Monsanto,[27] and government regulatory agencies have approved its use;[28] however, not all farmers are yet convinced.[29] So many farmers were worried about the potential loss of markets in Europe and Asia due to public refusal of the end-product,[30] Monsanto decided to no longer offer Roundup-Ready Wheat commercially until transgenic wheat is more widely accepted.[31] Currently no transgenic wheat is used commercially in the United States.[32] Monsanto is now looking toward introducing transgenic wheat into the world's food supply starting with India.[33]

To appeal to consumers, transgenic techniques have attempted to increase the gluten content for use in baked goods,[34][35] and to reduce wheat's allergenic effect[36] among those suffering from celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. Transgenic methods have also been used to promote wheat's purported health benefits by enhancing wheat's lignans which may have anti-cancer properties.[37]

To appeal to environmentalists, transgenic techniques have been touted as having more precision in the way genes are selected, as opposed to mutagenic techniques using radiation or chemicals (currently used widely, and for some reason more culturally acceptable than transgenic processes), which may pass uncontrolled and unwanted genetic changes to progeny.[38]

Arguments against adoption of transgenic wheat

Those who argue against the adoption of transgenic wheat in human diet say that the reason the world has so many people is due to the second green revolution, where unsustainable agricultural practices have left us with more mouths to feed than the planet can safely and ecologically sustain.[39] Even if wheat is successful in feeding the current population using transgenic methods, the world will undergo another population explosion which will require even more drastic agricultural interventions, and with the coming crisis in oil shortages, there will not be enough fuel to make fertilizers, pesticides, or to drive the tractors, combines, transports, factories and distribution centres that modern agricultural methods have required.[40]

Furthermore, to feed people transgenic wheat would introduce DNA changes in humans that no one will be able to predict.[41] To introduce further changes much faster would not allow humans time to evolve side-by-side with the plants.

For example, the purveyors of the Paleolithic diet point out that humans have not even evolved enough to take full advantage of a diet based on wheat, after some 6000 years of agriculture. There may be evidence to suggest that humans have not even yet evolved to be able to handle the amount of wheat already present in the average diet: gluten intolerance and celiac disease show that some segment of the population are unable to tolerate a wheat-based diet. And some controversial studies even link autism, attention deficit disorder, and other modern ailments to human inability to properly metabolize wheat products. The archeological record shows that the adoption of an agrarian diet coincided with a decline in healthy bones and tissues.[citation needed]

The large scale cultivation of wheat fields creates a monoculture of plant life which destroys ecosystems and habitat, and reduces biodiversity. An example of how biodiversity may outpace the need for transgenic techniques occurred when a need was felt for a wheat that would be resistant to aluminum toxicity in the soil. Several wheat subspecies and landraces were found to already have the gene.[42]

There are also fears that disease resistant plants could create super-weeds, unable to be controlled by any means,[43] or that transgenic plants with antibiotic resistance might transfer their DNA to microbes in the wild and thus create super-bugs.[44]

The creation of wheat strains that fix their own nitrogen from the air, like legumes, has so far concentrated on adding legume-like abilities to interact with soil-based micro-organisms that do the nitrogen-fixing. To this end, transgenic wheat that fixes nitrogen would require a transgenic soil-based micro-organism that works symbiotically with wheat. The fears are that once such a micro-organism is in the soil, it cannot be contained or controlled.

The track-record of other transgenic crops that have promised less pesticide use has not been good, leading many to assume that the claims for less pesticide use for wheat are unfounded. Since the companies that provide the pesticides are the ones creating the transgenic crops, a conflict of interest has been observed.

Farmers are also concerned that many countries have placed a moratorium on the purchase of transgenic wheat, and so they may lose their market share if transgenic wheat is found in the product that they wish to sell.[45] Since wheat is pollinated by the wind, opponents to transgenic wheat feel that there will be no way to stop transgenic wheat from contaminating conventional or organic crops, once it has been introduced into the environment.

For example, in 1999 Scientists in Thailand claimed they discovered transgenic wheat in a grain shipment from the Pacific Northwest of the United States, even though transgenic wheat had never been approved for sale and was only ever grown in test plots. No one could explain how the transgenic wheat got into the food supply.[46]

When farmers buy seed to grow transgenic crops, they customarily will sign a licensing fee, agreeing that they do not own the seed, and they cannot save seed from their crop to plant in successive years,[47] nor can they reverse engineer the plant, or infringe in any way on the intellectual property of the patent owners of the transgenic plant.

There are unknown effects on human health that also need to be considered. The Mayo Clinic found in studies published in 2009 [48] that the incidence of Coeliac Disease is four times more common today as it was in the 1950s. They also found an increase of mortality in patients that tested positive for Coeliac Disease. Their conclusion is that something in the environment or in wheat caused this change. This is supported as well by the explosion in products that are gluten-free.

Many who have found themselves newly intolerant of gluten or wheat in the 2000s have wondered if genetic alterations of wheat through selective breeding might be the cause. From 2002 to 2005 a variety called "Hard White Wheat" was introduced into the US market, with varieties that were developed in the late 90s through 2004. [49]

Conclusion

There is evidence that the battle lines between those who want transgenic wheat, and those who do not, are heating up. Proponents are leveling an anti-science bias against those who would oppose transgenic wheat;[50] and some opponents have destroyed test plots of transgenic wheat plants.[51]

The incentive to develop transgenic wheat is the profit that will come from patenting of plants and the monopolizing of seed to cover the expense of engineering transgenic plants.[52][53] However, wheat breeding in the latter years of the Second Green Revolution benefited from "widespread sharing of genetically improved materials."[54] It remains to be seen whether transgenic wheat will be accepted into the marketplace and diet of the world's people, and whether a proprietary hold on the DNA of one of the world's staple grain foods will save the starving world of the future.

References

  1. ^ Wrigley, C., Corke, H, and Walker, C. Encyclopedia of Grain Science, vol. 3 (2004). p. 323
  2. ^ Wrigley, C., Corke, H, and Walker, C. Encyclopedia of Grain Science, vol. 3 (2004). p.330
  3. ^ a b Nelson, G. (ed). Genetically Modified Organisms in Agriculture: economics and politics. (2001). p. 144
  4. ^ Transactions and Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, Vol. 12 (1876) p. 286
  5. ^ Nelson, G. (ed). Genetcially Modified Organisms in Agriculture: economics and politics. (2001). p. 144
  6. ^ Jones, H.D. and Shewry, P.R. (eds.):"Transgenic Wheat, Barley and Oats: Production and Characterization Protocols" (2009). Humana Press, Springer Science+Business Media., table on p.4
  7. ^ Plant Genetics/Genomics: Crops and Models Vol. 7: Genetics and Genomics of the Triticeae. Feuillet, C. and Muehlbauer, G. (eds.) p. 372
  8. ^ Jones, H. D. and Shewry, P. R. (eds.):"Transgenic Wheat, Barley and Oats: Production and Characterization Protocols" (2009). Humana Press, Springer Science+Business Media., p. 273.
  9. ^ "Wheat at Forefront of Battle Over Genetically Modified Organisms". Theitem.com. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  10. ^ Lal, R., Hobbs, P., Uphoff, N., and Hansen, D. (eds.) Sustainable Agriculture and the International Rice-Wheat System. (2004) p. 12.
  11. ^ Chapman, G.P. The Biology of Grasses. CAB International. (1996) p. 5
  12. ^ Hamaker, B. (ed.) The Technology of Functional Cereal Products. (2008). p. 102.
  13. ^ Heller, K. (ed). Genetically Engineered Food: Methods and Detection. (2003). p.47
  14. ^ Bailey, Ronald. "Anti-Biotech Superstition Being Beaten Back in Europe?" Reason, 21 July 2011.
  15. ^ Avise, J. The Hope, Hype and Reality of Genetic Engineering: Remarkable Stories from Agriculture, Industry, Medicine and the Environment. (2004). p. 62
  16. ^ "Production of Transgenic Wheat (Triticum aestivum) Plants with Insect-resisting gene via Three Optimized Genetic Transformation Systems". Latest-science-articles.com. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  17. ^ Heller, K. (ed). Genetically Engineered Food: Methods and Detection. (2003). p.41
  18. ^ "You reap what you sow: field trial with genetically modified wheat". Agroscope.admin.ch. 3 February 2009. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  19. ^ Jansson, J., Elsas, J., and Bailey, M. Tracking Genetically-Engineered Microorganisms. (2000) pp. 94–95
  20. ^ Avise, J. The Hope, Hype and Reality of Genetic Engineering: Remarkable Stories from Agriculture, Industry, Medicine and the Environment. (2004). p. 47
  21. ^ Kempken, F. and Jun, C. (eds.).Genetic Modification of Plants: Agriculture, Horticulture and Forestry.(2010) p. 291
  22. ^ Lal, R., Hobbs, P., Uphoff, N., and Hansen, D. (eds.) Sustainable Agriculture and the International Rice-Wheat System. (2004) p. 13.
  23. ^ "Biosafety Clearing-House Living Modified Organism identity database". Bch.cbd.int. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  24. ^ Heller, K. J., ed. (2006) Genetically Engineered Food: Methods and Detection (2nd ed.) p. 36.
  25. ^ Obert J.C., et.al. (2004) "The composition of grain and forage from glyphosate tolerant wheat MON 71800 is equivalent to that of conventional wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)." J.Agric Food Chem. 2004 Mar 10:53(5):1375-84
  26. ^ Kan, C. A. and Hartnell, G. F. (2004) "Evaluation of broiler performance when fed Roundup-Ready wheat (event MON 71800), control, and commercial wheat varieties" Poultry Science, Vol 83, Issue 8, 1325–1334
  27. ^ "The Center for Environmental Risk Assessment database". Cera-gmc.org. 30 June 2005. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  28. ^ "U.S. Food and Drug Administration Biotechnology Consultation Note to the File BNF No. 000080". Cera-gmc.org. 18 January 2001. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  29. ^ "Network of Concerned Farmers, Submission on APPLICATION A524 FOOD DERIVED FROM HERBICIDE-TOLERANT WHEAT MON 71800". Non-gm-farmers.com. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  30. ^ "Monsanto scrubs transgenic wheat" Bioedonline (2004)
  31. ^ "Food Manufacturing, Sept 25, 2009". Foodmanufacturing.com. 25 September 2009. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  32. ^ "The U.S.Wheat Associate's website for March 18, 2010". Uswheat.org. 18 March 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  33. ^ Thomas Kutty Abraham (6 August 2010). "Monsanto-backed Mahyco Plans India's First GM Wheat". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  34. ^ Heller, K. (ed). Genetically Engineered Food: Methods and Detection. (2003).. p.49
  35. ^ Hamaker, B. (ed.) The Technology of Functional Cereal Products. (2008). p. 466.
  36. ^ Avise, J. The Hope, Hype and Reality of Genetic Engineering: Remarkable Stories from Agriculture, Industry, Medicine and the Environment. (2004). p. 65
  37. ^ Allan K. Ayella, Harold N. Trick, Weiqun Wang. "Enhancing lignan biosynthesis by over-expressing pinoresinol lariciresinol reductase in transgenic wheat". 51 (12). Molecular Nutrition & Food Research: 1518–1526. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  38. ^ Brunk, C. and Coward, H. (eds.). Acceptable Genes? Religious Traditions and Genetically Modified Foods. (2009). pp. 29–30
  39. ^ Avise, J. The Hope, Hype and Reality of Genetic Engineering: Remarkable Stories from Agriculture, Industry, Medicine and the Environment. (2004). p. 73
  40. ^ Pfeiffer, D. Eating Fossil Fuel: Oil, Food, and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture. (2006).
  41. ^ Genetically Modified Organisms in Agriculture: Economics and Politics. pp. 240–248
  42. ^ Plant Genetics/Genomics: Crops and Models Vol. 7: Genetics and Genomics of the Triticeae. Feuillet, C. and Muehlbauer, G. (eds.) p. 527
  43. ^ Arencibia, A. Plant Genetic Engineering: Towards the Third Millennium. (1999) p. 99
  44. ^ Nelson, G. Genetically Modified Organisms in Agriculture: Economics and Politics (2001). p. 250
  45. ^ Pollack, M. and Shaffer, G. When Cooperation Fails: the international law and politics of genetically modified foods. (2009) p. 275
  46. ^ "Genetically Altered Wheat Flagged – Thailand Detects Shipment Not Cleared for Commercial Sales." Spokesman Review, 14 October 1999.
  47. ^ Nelson, G. (ed). Genetically Modified Organisms in Agriculture: economics and politics. (2001). p. 213
  48. ^ "Mayo Clinic Study Finds Celiac Disease Four Times More Common than in 1950s" http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2009-rst/5329.html July 1, 2009
  49. ^ "Hard White Wheat: Producing North Dakota’s Next Market Opportunity," Joel K. Ransom, William A. Berzonsky and Brian K. Sorenson, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105,APRIL 2006, http://www.ndwheat.com/uploads/resources/568/hardwhitewheatbrochure.pdf
  50. ^ Bailey, Ronald. "Anti-Biotech Superstition Being Beaten Back in Europe?" Reason, 21 July 2011. http://reason.com/blog/2011/07/21/anti-biotech-superstition-bein
  51. ^ Vogel, Gretchen. "Anti-GM Attacks Destroy German Test Plots". ScienceInsider, 15 July 2011. http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/07/anti-gm-attacks-destroy-german-t.html
  52. ^ Avise, J. The Hope, Hype and Reality of Genetic Engineering: Remarkable Stories from Agriculture, Industry, Medicine and the Environment. (2004). p. 51
  53. ^ Ronald, P., and Adamchak, R. Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. (2008) pp. 141–147
  54. ^ Buck, H., Nisi, J. and Salomon, N., (eds.) Wheat Production in Stressed Environments. (2005) p. 13
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Genetically_modified_wheat&oldid=472461157"