Bioneers  [Printer-friendly version]
March 5, 2006

AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. CHARLES BENBROOK ON GENETIC ENGINEERING

[Rachel's introduction: "So they have no control over where in that
cell or where in that plant's genome the new genetic material gets
lodged and expressed. Because they don't have control over that, they
have absolutely no basis to predict how that trans-gene, the new
genetic material, is going to behave in the future as that plant
deals with stresses in its environment, whether it's drought, too
much water, pest pressures, imbalances in the soil, or any other
source of stress. They just don't know how it's going to behave."]

By Arty Mangan

Dr. Charles Benbrook is a consultant on agricultural policy, science
and regulatory issues. He was formerly an agricultural staff expert on
the Council for Environmental Quality at The White House at the end of
the Carter Administration, Executive Director of the Subcommittee of
the House Committee on Agriculture, and Executive Director of the
Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Benbrook
was interviewed by Arty Mangan of Bioneers.

Arty Mangan: Has anything changed in terms of the regulatory
requirements for approval of genetically engineered (GE) crops today
compared to when they were first introduced?

Charles Benbrook: In general, I think it is harder to get a new GE
food approved today than it was ten years ago. But the regulatory
programs in any part of the world, including Europe, certainly aren't
founded in really solid, rigorous, conservative, precautionary
science. There are still many leaps of faith embedded in the review
and approval processes.

Arty Mangan: The biotech industry talks about the precision of genetic
engineering. How precise is the technology?

Charles Benbrook: Anyone that's been involved in the discussion about
genetically engineered crops has heard proponents claim that this is
the most precise technology ever developed for the transformation of
crops. For the most part, this claim is made and not challenged. It is
true that the molecular biologists that create a trans-gene do know
precisely what that trans-gene is composed of, because they make it.
They pieced it together. In the regulatory submissions, for example,
there will be a diagram of the trans-gene, exactly what genetic
material is in different places, how they put it together, and what
the function of the different parts of the trans-gene are. So that's
the front end of the process. They do have precise control over that.
Whereas in conventional breeding, when a plant breeder crosses two
plants, they really don't have precise control or knowledge of how
those genes combine in the next generation of a plant.

So it's true that in terms of knowing exactly what gene you're trying
to move into the plant, it is more precise. But it's not more precise.
In fact it's fundamentally more imprecise, in that the techniques that
are used to move the trans-gene into the crop are no more precise than
a shotgun. They shoot into the cells thousands of particles that have
the trans-gene coating and hope that one penetrates into the inside of
the cell and gets picked up and stably expressed. They hope that it's
only one, and that it gets expressed properly. But they have no way of
knowing whether it does, and in fact they do know that it's likely
that more than one of those particles actually leads to some
expression, and some may lead to some partial expression.

So they have no control over where in that cell or where in that
plant's genome the new genetic material gets lodged and expressed.
Because they don't have control over that, they have absolutely no
basis to predict how that trans-gene, the new genetic material, is
going to behave in the future as that plant deals with stresses in its
environment, whether it's drought, too much water, pest pressures,
imbalances in the soil, or any other source of stress. They just don't
know how it's going to behave. They don't know how stable that
expression is going to be, or whether the third generation of the
plant is going to behave just like other generations. They don't know
whether the promoter gene, which has been moved into the plant to turn
on the new piece of genetic material, will influence some other
biosynthetic pathway that's in the plant, turning on some natural
process of the plant when it shouldn't be turned on, or turning it off
too soon. There are all sorts of things that they don't know.

Is this new part of the genome that the biotechnologist has moved in,
exempt from the laws of evolution from then on? It's kind of
ridiculous to think that it would be. But that's really what the
industry and the die-hard proponents of biotechnology are asking us to
believe, that somehow once they move these trans-genes in--despite the
fact that they don't understand how many copies there are, they don't
understand how stable they'll be, they don't understand how stresses
are going to effect them--that they're not going to be influenced by
the laws of evolution. It's an irresponsible leap of faith that has
been underwritten by our universities, our government, by the
companies and by people that know better.

This is what drives a lot of people crazy. The scope of the fraud, if
you will--I know that's a harsh word--the scope of the fraud that's
being sold to the American public about this technology is almost
unprecedented.

The biotechnology industry says, "Well, if one of these genetically
engineered plants kind of goes crazy, it's probably not going to be
fit and it won't survive. It won't last in the environment. Nature
will select out against it." For somebody that works for a public
institution to make that point, it really borders on libelous. It's
such a violation of the public trust for scientists who understand
this stuff to be so divorced from fairness in talking about the
technical issues to an audience of non-scientists. It's really
scandalous, in my opinion.

Arty Mangan: The comparisons that the biotech industry makes to
promote genetic engineering for the most part are within the context
of industrial agriculture. Shouldn't the comparisons be between the
potential of sustainable agriculture and genetic engineering? If they
compare the promise of biotech to the worst of the industrial
agricultural system--that's an easier case to make.

Charles Benbrook: I think you're right. If conventional agriculture
and the problems of conventional agriculture are the benchmark against
which biotechnology is judged, it will be easier to sell biotech
because biotech can solve some of the problems created by conventional
agriculture. But what about just avoiding the problems altogether by
really simple things, like management and cultural practices? You
know, you hear these people say that we've got a big problem with
vitamin A. We've got to use genetic engineering to create golden rice
that has elevated vitamin A content. There are millions and millions
of people in the world that don't get enough vitamin A. But what about
growing some squash? Growing some crops that are already high in
vitamin A? What about diversifying diets a little bit?

We're worried about how we are going to feed nine billion people, ten
billion people in a world that's going to continue to develop
economically. If everybody just ate a little bit less meat, we'll be
fine. We don't have to give up meat. If North America and Europe would
eat a third less meat, and all of that farmland devoted today to
growing livestock feed that's converted at about six pounds of plant
biomass to one pound of animal product, if that land were redirected
to rice and wheat and tomatoes and peas and nutritionally dense foods,
we could eliminate world hunger.

There are so many presumptions that go unchallenged with the way these
people frame the dialogue that it's no wonder the public is confused
and really doesn't know what to believe. It's very difficult for the
public to cut through all the conflicting messages to find what's
important, but that's unfortunately the state of the debate.

What finally attracted me to work in the area of organic agriculture
is that it's the only thing that's got some integrity left. It's a
viable and promising alternative. Even though probably not all farmers
are going to be using fully organic systems, the more people that are
farming organically, the more we're going to learn about the biology
of farming, and the better conventional agriculture is going to get. I
think that the success now of really good large-scale organic farmers
is starting to change the practices of a lot of conventional farmers.
That may be where the really big environmental consumer benefits are.
If ten percent of agriculture becomes organic, that could influence
sixty percent of conventional agriculture to change pretty
dramatically, and that's a much bigger part of the food supply; it's a
much bigger part of the land base. I think that it's important for the
organic community to highlight more in these public discussions the
fact that organic farmers are pioneers in understanding the biology of
farming systems, and how to grow healthy plants and healthy animals
without a lot of chemicals and drugs and things that raise risks.
That's important. Even though we don't have enough organic apples to
feed all the kids in schools in America, it's still important that we
try to expand that, because I think it'll change conventional
agriculture as well.

Copyright 2005 Collective Heritage Institute