Climate change is here, folks, and I'm not saying so because it's hot outside. This is a big worry, or at least it should be.
But big problems create big business opportunities: A California biotech company called Arcadia Biosciences has set out to help farmers do their part to slow down the process of global warming and adapt to a resource-constrained world -- by developing crop varieties that require less water, tolerate salty conditions and use less nitrogen fertilizer.
This photo shows two varieties of rice. On the left is rice engineered for nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) by Arcadia, on the right conventional rice. In laboratory tests, using typical applications of nitrogen fertilizer, the NUE rice, as it's known, is substantially more productive.
When you can grow more food using the same inputs of land, water and fertilizer, everyone -- farmers, consumers, hungry people and anyone who cares about CO2 concentrations in the earth's atmosphere -- is better off.
So, at least, says Eric Rey, the founder and CEO of Arcadia. Others will disagree because Arcadia deploys genetic-engineering technology that some (many?) environmentalists oppose. But when we met last week in Washington, Eric told me that he considers himself an environmentalists and, in fact, it was his concern about disappearing species, pollution and climate issues that led him to start the company back in 2002.
The company's purpose, Eric said, is to "use the the tools of plant biotechnology, and point them at saving the environment." When developing a new crop variety, he said, "if we can't put our fingers on an environmental benefit or a human health benefit, we won't do it."
"Agriculture has a huge environmental footprint," he went on. "We have to optimize food production and minimize the impact of that production on the environment. I don't think this is the only way to do it, but it's one way and it's valid and it's safe."
Arcadia got its start when Eric, who is 55 and had worked at Calgene Oils (creator of the infamous Flavr Savr tomato) met a free-thinking, left-leaning billionaire named John Sperling, who made a fortune in the for-profit education business and since then has used his money to to promote animal cloning, human life extension, legalized marijuana, saltwater agriculture and shrimp farming in Eritrea.
They got to talking about how genetically-engineered crops could benefit the environment, and Sperling became (and remains) a majority shareholder of privately-held Arcadia.
Since then, the company has made considerable progress in the slow-moving world of inventing, developing, testing and gaining regulatory approval for genetically engineered crops. It has about 85 employees, most of them researchers based in Davis, Calif. (where Eric earned a degree in plant science at the state university), and it has a crop in the field -- a plant known as GLA safflower oil, whose seeds contain oil with as much as 40 percent gamma linolenic acid that is used in supplements and nutraceutical foods. "It's basically a broad-purpose anti-inflammatory," Eric said.
Give Scientists a Chance to
Give Scientists a Chance to Help!
As in pharmacology, you cannot say that all drugs are bad or good because they all do different roles in our bodies with different side affects. I don't hear anyone saying ban all drugs or complaining about human insulin or cow rennin being made by GM bacteria.
Every GM crop is different and should be treated on a case by case basis. It matters which crop is modified, whether it flowers, whether there are wild relatives present in the geographical location they are planted, whether we eat it or not and finally what the new protein being made in the plant does. I believe the strict testing and licensing laws for GM organisms brought about by consumer suspicion will protect us and the environment in the future.
With the current droughts in Africa and the resulting food shortages, I hope people can see that although many of us live in countries with plenty of food, we are facing and will continue to face worsening food shortages which are unevenly felt by the countries of the world. Give science a chance to help!
Ag science getting on with
Ag science getting on with the job while the anti-GM organic industry luddites are stuck in their technological dead end.
Biotech Food as a Necessity
Biotech Food as a Necessity in a Warming Planet???
First, the majority of people do not believe this, as studies show. Why did the agro-industry heavily paid lobbyists and Congress so they produce laws forbidding to mention "No GMO!" on food labels nation-wide... Asking the question is answering it!
Second, major markets forbid GMO outside of small experiments, Europe being the largest... It is not with scare-mongering tactics of "we need biotech otherwise we're doomed" that we'll make society progress: this is not a choice between cholera or cancer...
Sergey Vasnetsov, Wall Street's leading chemical industry analyst with Lehman Brothers, says:
"The outlook [for the GM food industry] is less certain than it was three years ago. The euphoria has gone. Growth has fallen significantly. The industry has overstated the rate of progress and underestimated the resistance of consumers.
"Acceptability will only come with new products but that seems to be something the industry cannot achieve. The crops that will benefit people [as opposed to farmers] are still three or four years away. The market is not expanding and research budgets are down 5-7% on five years ago. Conceptually, the value [of GM foods] has come down"
Third the 1990's beliefs that "one gene = one trait", "physical placement of genes has no meaning", "DNA is mostly junk" and "RNA plays no role in gene expression" have been thrown out the window in the last years... Mutation builds then on top of that. The consequence is that the construction and introduction of synthetic DNA, or the introduction of gene sequences in random places of the DNA (since it cannot be controlled where in the DNA the gene sequence lands) automatically introduces unforeseen traits in the GMO. If commercialized, those reproducing GMOs may well introduce impossible to remove large-scale problems, like the story of invasive species abundantly shows... And history shows that almost invariably, companies do not pick up the tab, societies do (as taxpayer or through health decline, or both)
It is not because there is a market for those GMOs that society should use them. After all there is a market for human organs, the "red market"... I believe a vision of what we want to achieve in society has to be built on sound and robust principles making sure opportunities are balanced with responsibilities... Otherwise, we're just creating more of tomorrow's problems...
What I would worry about is
What I would worry about is dependence on one strain of crop and then a disease coming along to wipe it out. If that happened it could be the Irish Potato Famine on a global scale.
Doesn't this fly in the face
Doesn't this fly in the face of what De Schutter and the UN recently said? That sustainable agriculture techniques such as intercropping accai trees with maize increasing fertilization and decreasing water requirements are actually where the future of food lies? Further doesn't this ignore that farmers in developing nations can't afford gmo seeds and that the practice of needing to buy seeds year after year (in this case hybridized seeds) is one of the things that is hurting India's farmers? Doesn't this also ignore the fact that the American Midwest despite its heavy reliance on GMO corn and Soy uses so many artificial fertilizers as to cause a massive dead zone in the gulf? How is that 'green'?
No one is saying tech can't play a role in the future of food - but banking on gmo technology which has never been shown, in situ, to increase yields (i.e. on the farm outside of the lab), and in fact has been found to drive pesticide resistance etc.
This headline seems innacurate if you ground your argument in science.
About your views on
About your views on biotech... if I'm not mistaken, I believe you've worked in the past as a consultant for Monsanto. If so, it would be appropriate for you to disclose that when you write articles like this so readers can better understand your perspective. A more holistic agro-ecological understanding of food systems would be welcome here. The title of this article, "Biotech food as a necessity in a warming planet," seems dangerously close to greenwashing.
Argh shutup, Isn't there a
Argh shutup, Isn't there a granola festival you should be attending instead of hinting at conspiracy theories?