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Science Rolls Ahead Of GMO Policy Debate
SARA WYANT
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In Washington, ag and food interests are focused like a laser beam on a bill that would potentially pre-empt a Vermont law that requires food companies to label many foods containing genetically modified organisms or GMOs.
That law is scheduled to take effect July 1, and advocates for the pre-emption bill argue that – if the Vermont law is allowed to stand – it could lead to a state-by-state patchwork of GMO labeling laws that would be impossible for many companies to navigate.
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., planned to move ahead this week with a bill to jump-start Senate action and was hoping to win key support from the committee’s ranking member, Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. But Stabenow and several key Democrats were looking to modify the draft bill that Roberts introduced last week.
For example, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, N-N.D., made it clear that the voluntary disclosure approach in Roberts’ draft bill didn’t go far enough. However, she told us that she’s working with Stabenow and others toward a compromise bill that can pass the U.S. Senate.
Sugar beet growers in Heitkamp’s home state would likely be among the first to be affected by Vermont’s law. Almost all of the sugar beets grown in the United States are genetically engineered for herbicide tolerance, but there is no biotech sugarcane, which means that companies that want to avoid a GMO label would have to switch from beet to cane sugar or another sweetener. The Hershey Co. already is making the switch.
Speaking at last week’s USDA Outlook Forum, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack weighed into the complexity of the GMO labeling dispute.
“The challenge here is to create a process that respects people’s right to find out information that is important to them, but to do it in a way that doesn’t send a false impression about the safety of the product,” he explained.
“This needs to be a 21st Century conversation but for many, it’s kind of stuck in the 20th Century,” added Vilsack. He suggested that any type of new regulatory system has to be flexible so that it can be “added to and subtracted as the science evolves.”
Scientists move beyond GMO
Indeed, the science has evolved so dramatically that some researchers predict that the GMO debate may seem “old hat” in a decade as new methods of improving crops and livestock emerge at places like Kansas State, University of Missouri and numerous private companies across the U.S.
One of the most promising techniques involves the ability to edit a plant or animal’s DNA, known as “gene editing.”
Unlike traditional genetic modification, which involves inserting a foreign gene into a plant or animal, gene editing only modifies existing DNA. Scientists say it mirrors, yet speeds up, the types of changes that occur in nature over millions of years.
One of USDA’s top scientists, who is also administrator of USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, says the science of gene editing will revolutionize the way we produce food.
“Imagine you can figure out a way to genome-edit rice to be more like corn, making twice as much grain with the same amount of inputs,” he told Agri-Pulse in an interview. “These are the types of things that are happening.”
The ability to edit a plant or animal's DNA - effectively removing molecules like the one in a pig that allows a virus to make it sick - holds the promise of reducing malnutrition, improving animal welfare and combating climate change, he said. Farmers will be able to harvest more starch from grains and ranchers will be able to produce more meat from livestock, all without using up more land and inputs.
And these new plants and animals are not GMOs or subject to USDA approval – at least not yet.
For example, San-Diego based Cibus is one of the leaders in non-transgenic trait development for agricultural crops with a patented technology for modifying cell functions.
When the firm first started, Cibus staff asked USDA to respond to a review of the technology. The agency sent a letter saying it was not subject to any transgenic crop regulation.
The firm has sold enough seed, branded as SU Canola, to cover about 8,000 acres in North Dakota and expects to expand in the future into non-GMO markets – even though the firm itself is not against the GMO technology.
It just happens to develop non-GMO plants which are tolerant to sulfonylurea herbicides through gene editing, says James Radtke, Vice President for Product Development at Cibus.
The firm has a partnership with Cargill to market the product, Radtke explained.
“People can get a contract to grow our canola, sell to Cargill and get a premium because it’s non-GMO,” he added.
The company is also working on developing disease-tolerant potatoes which are less prone to late blight, glyphosate-tolerant flax and herbicide-tolerant rice.
But whether or not activist groups who don’t like GMO crops will be any more accepting of newer technologies like gene-editing, remains to be seen.
Pam Johnson, an Iowa farmer and former president of the National Corn Growers Association, says that future acceptance of these new technologies points to the dialogue that farmers need to have with consumers.
“As we get into new breeding techniques and gene-editing, we need to be able to explain to the consumer why this is so important in food and agriculture, just like it is in health,” she explained during a panel discussion at USDA’s annual Outlook Forum last week.
“There are certain things you can’t fix by normal plant breeding. We might not be able to drink orange juice grown in the U.S. if we can’t introduce genetically-engineered oranges to address citrus greening,” she explained.
For Johnson, the bottom line is science.
“I embrace all kinds of agriculture, but we cannot solve real world problems on my farm and on others around the world without science and innovation. That includes biotechnology and traits and crop protection.” ∆
SARA WYANT: Editor of Agri-Pulse, a weekly e-newsletter covering farm and rural policy. To contact her, go to: http://www.agri-pulse.com/
Note: Agri-Pulse’s Phil Brasher and Bill Tomson contributed to this report.
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