Report comment

Please fill in the form to report an unsuitable comment. State which comment is of concern and why. It will be sent to our moderator for review.

Comment

One of the main problems with the GMO technology itself is that once the process was developed, it hasn't evolved: namely, that the foreign bits of DNA are inserted into the cell in the hope they'll be expressed - but with current technology there's no control over where the DNA ends up or how it's expressed (i.e. how often the gene is 'read' and used to make whatever it encodes). They can't currently take a gene and insert it into a precise location in the genome and control how often it gets expressed.

Added onto which the process usually involves inserting a 'marker' gene (e.g. herbicide resistance) so they can quickly find the plants which have taken up the foreign gene sequence (i.e. treat the lot with herbicide - those that survive have evidently got the new genes).

Even if the technology matured enough to do away with those, there's the issue of transplanting genes from completely different Kingdoms (e.g. animals, fungi) because they have the desired property - we don't know what the effects would be for the plants themselves, wildlife eating the plants, or even humans eating the plants.

Ideally the technology should have been left at an experimental stage until they could control gene location and expression, and then only marketed plants with foreign genes from other edible plants (which couldn't be done via conventional breeding as the plants would be too distantly related; but if the plant that was the source of the desired gene was also edible, there'd probably be less resistance).

But in the absence of the biotech firms actually doing the above, it would be helpful if they could release details of what organisms the desired genes came from and the intended functionality of the desired genes, so consumers could make an informed choice.

Even with conventionally bred plants, don't penalise farmers who save seed to replant the following year or make the plants sterile - just make it a condition of purchase that the farmer can store seed for their own use, but can't sell it on to others (so helping the farmer while still ensuring the biotech firm recoups their investment and makes a profit).

Your details

Cancel