Public acceptance of genetically modified crops

SUBMITTED BY:
SAURABH PANDEY
PALB-3252
SUBMITTED TO:
PROF. DAYAL DOSS
DEPARTMENT OF PLANT
BIOTECHNOLOGY UAS GKVK
BANGALORE

INFORMATION CONTENT
Sep 11, 2014 DEPARTMENT OF PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY GKVK UAS(B) 2

INTRODUCTION
• What is GM crops?
GM stands for genetically modified.
A plant that has had its DNA altered through genetic engineering is said
to be genetically modified.
Also referred as Biotech crops.
Who produces the GM crops?
2008- Monsanto produced more than 90% of GM crops worldwide.
Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, Dow and BASF make the rest.

Who produces the GM crops?
2008- Monsanto produced more than 90% of GM crops worldwide.
Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, Dow and BASF make the rest.

1980 to 1996
1983 genetically modified tobacco resistant to an antibiotic
1985 first GM crop trials
1993 US Food and Drug Administration allows companies to market GM
seed
1994 Flavr Savr tomato, is approved in the US
1996 Herbicide-tolerant GM soya bean available in US

PUBLIC CONCERNS
• Is GM technology safe for plants, animals and humans?
• Is GM technology the solution to world hunger?
• Is it ethical to alter the genetic make up of a plant?
• Does GM technology prove to be a safer, more environmentally friendly
technology that reduces use of harmful chemicals, soil erosion, and fuel
consumption?

ISSUES OF CONCERN(HUMAN HEALTH RISKS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY CONCERNS)
Potential impact on human health including allergens, transfer of antibiotic
resistance markers and ‘outcrossing’.
The movement of genes from GM plants into conventional crops or related
species in the wild (referred to as ‘outcrossing’), as well as the mixing of
crops derived from conventional seeds with those grown using GM seeds,
may have an indirect effect on food safety and food security.
It has been found that genes inserted into GM food survive digestive
processes and are transferred into the human gut.
l Potential impact on environment, including transfer of transgenes through
cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes),
and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity.

Attitudes to GM foods:

Whether GM food should be opposed:
More than half of the public were not sure whether GM food should be
promoted or not.
For benefit v/s risk:
42% of the sample thought the risks of GM food outweighed the benefits
23% that they are same
20% that benefits outweigh the risks
 The majority ,85% of the public sampled , thought that we do not know
enough about the potential long term effects of GM food on their health.
They were also concerned about the potential negative impact on the
environment of GM crops.
A substantial no. Thought that there could be a range of future benefits,
for the environment, consumers, and developing countries.

In USA there are issues, these seems greatest about cloning animals and
the safety of GM foods.
Most people don’t want the technology stopped; rather they want robust
regulation in place to ensure safety and that moral and ethical points are
covered under regulations.
In both set of surveys the biggest issue along with food safety is trust.
Many peoples see the introduction of GM plants as being the prime
example of the big corporation dominating the rights of individual.
A 2013 poll by The New York Times showed that 93% of Americans
wanted GMO labeling.

DEPARTMENT OF PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY GKVK UAS(B) 13

The global hectarage of biotech crops have increased more than 100-fold from 1.7 million
hectares in 1996 to over 175 million hectares in 2013 – this makes biotech crops the fastest
adopted crop technology in recent history.
This adoption rate speaks for itself in terms of its resilience and the benefits it delivers to
farmers and consumers.
Millions of risk-averse farmers, both large and small, world-wide, have determined
that the returns from planting biotech crops are high, hence repeat planting is
virtually 100% which is the acid-test applied by farmers for judging the
performance of any technology.

In the 18 year period 1996 to 2013, millions of farmers in ~30
countries worldwide, adopted biotech crops at unprecedented rates.
 The most compelling and credible testimony to biotech crops is
that during the 18 year period 1996 to 2013, millions of farmers in
~30 countries worldwide, elected to make more than 100 million
independent decisions to plant and replant an accumulated
hectarage of more than 1.6 billion hectares. This is an area
equivalent to >150% the size of the total land mass.

18 million farmers benefit from biotech crops – 90%
were small resource-poor farmers.
In 2013, a record 18 million farmers, compared with 17.3 million in 2012,
grew biotech crops –remarkably, over 90%, or >16.5 million, were risk-averse
small, poor farmers in developing countries.
In China, 7.5 million small farmers benefited from biotech cotton and in
India there were 7.3 million beneficiary farmers.
The latest economic data available for the period 1996 to 2012 indicates
that farmers in China gained US$15.3 billion and in India US$14.6 billion.

In addition to economic gains, farmers benefited enormously from at least
a 50% reduction in the number of insecticide applications,
thereby reducing farmer exposure to insecticides, and importantly
contributed to a more sustainable environment and better quality of life.

LEAD BIOTECH DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Brazil, continues to be the engine of biotech crop
growth globally.
Brazil ranks second only to the USA in biotech crop hectarage in the
world with 40.3 million hectares (up from 36.6 million in 2012) and is
emerging as a strong global leader in biotech crops.
 For the fifth consecutive year, Brazil was the engine of growth globally
in 2013, increasing its hectarage of biotech crops more than any other
country in the world – a record 3.7 million hectare increase, equivalent to
an impressive year-over-year increase of 10%.

ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANCE GENES
In plant transformation antibiotic-resistance genes are used as selectable
markers because plant transformation is very low-frequency event.
These selective agents was already well established as a fundamental tool
of molecular biology and cloning, in particularly Escherichia coli.
However this has proved to be one of the hurdles to the widespread
acceptance of GM crops. How?
Case : In 1996 , Novartis sought approval for a maize variety that carried
an ampicillin-resistance gene.
The UK Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes(ACNFP)
blocked this approval for a considerable length of time, but eventually
the maize line was approved for cultivation in France.

However ,concerns about food safety and lack of market acceptance meant that
this GM maize was never cultivated widely.
Ampicillin is an antibiotic of the penicillin family that is widely used to treat a
variety of human infection.
The presence of a resistance gene in a GMO released in environment was
perhaps bound to raise fears about creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and
particularly human pathogens.
But this is not the case because:
First, the antibiotic-resistance genes used in creating GM crops were originally
isolated from bacteria and the resistance genes is often carried on plasmids that
can readily transferred from one strain to another.

But transfer of antibiotic–resistance genes from plants to bacteria(for
which there is no known mechanism) will not significantly alter the pool
of antibiotic-resistance genes in the environment.
The transfer of intact, functional, antibiotic-resistance genes to gut flora
from ingested plant material is also highly unlikely.
Even if resistance genes were transferred , no real selective advantage
would accrue and the resistant bacterium would be unlikely to survive.
Second, many of the antibiotic-resistance genes commonly found in GM
crops(such as nptII) confer resistance to antibiotics that are not used to
treat disease in humans, their use having been superseded by less toxic
and more-effective alternatives.

HERBICIDE RESISTANCE AND SUPER-WEEDS
Herbicide resistance can also be used as selectable marker confer
resistance to herbicides as an alternative to antibiotic-resistance genes.
Gene transfer of herbicide-resistance genes, predominantly via cross-pollination
, to weedy relatives of GM crops could create super-weeds.
This problem is unlikely to occur if the herbicide resistance gene was
only used as selectable marker during regeneration from tissue culture.
However, the creation of GM crops engineered specifically to express
herbicide-resistance trait to simplify the crop production, is more
problematic.

In 2005 , it was reported that atleast 15 weedy species, including ryegrass,
bindweed, and goosegrass, were either naturally resistant to glyphosate
or had developed resistance to it.
Practically every major crop species has weedy relatives that could be
cross-pollinated by a GM crop.
An example of this was noted in the UK after farm-scale trials. The
transfer of herbicide-resistance genes from GM oilseed rapeseed to a
distantly related plant, charlock, was found to have occurred.
In this case the herbicide was glufosinate ammonium. The issue is
exacerbated as charlock seed can survive for many years in the soil.

CHARLOCK PLANT BELONGS TO
Brassicaceae FAMILY

The transfer of herbicide-resistance genes to weedy relatives may result
in the weed becoming resistant to one or more herbicides, but it will still
be susceptible to other chemicals.
Herbicide-resistance genes confer no selective advantage on weeds that
are not subject to treatment with the herbicide, and therefore the trait is
unlikely to spread throughout the population.
Also plant biotechnologists using other attractive alternative in place of
herbicide-resistance as selectable marker. For eg. Engineering of
chloroplast genome, because in most cases chloroplast is inherited
maternally, so negating the chance of gene transfer by cross-pollination.

INSECT-RESISTANCE GENES
The wide range and type of genes used for developing insect resistance
raise questions about their safety for human consumption, given that
certain protease inhibitors and lectins are known to have toxic effects in
mammals.
One of the genes , the snowdrop lectin GNA(Galanthus nivalis
agglutinin), was the first such gene to attract considerable attention
following the suggestion that potatoes carrying transgene might be
responsible for changing the gut lining of rats.
 A resolution of the issue is required, since the value of GNA has recently
demonstrated as a means of developing rice resistant to sap-sucking
insects, which are not susceptible to Bt toxins or plant proteases.

The environmental impact of Bt crops:
Build up of resistance in pest population,
Can be controlled by gene pyramiding(eg. Bollgard II cry2Ab+cry1Ac) or
high-dose/refuge approach.
A separate issue was brought to the fore by a report that appeared in
1999 indicating that pollen from Bt maize might be toxic to the larvae of
the Monarch butterfly.

GENE CONTAINMENT
Preventing the transfer of foreign genes from GM crops to other plants is
a wider environmental issue.
A great variety of foreign genes are being introduced into GM crops , but
the environmental impact of these genes is currently difficult to predict.
Gene transfer usually occurs through pollen, although GM crops, if a
wild relative has pollinated them , could also serve as female parent for
hybrid seeds.
The dispersal of seeds from GM crops among weedy relatives could also
produce mixed populations, with introgression of, for example a
herbicide-resistance gene resulting in herbicide-resistant weeds.

TECHNIQUES FOR GENE CONTAINMENT
1. Chloroplast transformation
Advantage- Maternally inherited: high level of transgene expression
Disadvantage-Expressed protein may not be processed properly
eg. Cheng et al.(2008) successfully transferred into the cabbage chloroplast
genome aadA and cry1Ab genes.
2. Male sterility
Advantage- No pollen formed
Disadvantage-Crops must be propagated by pollination from a non-GM
crop or by other means: male sterile plant could serve as female parent.
eg. Male sterile transgenics have been produced in tobacco, lettuce, cauliflower,
cotton tomato, corn etc.

3. Terminator technology
Advantages-Seeds are sterile: inducible
Disadvantage-Silencing of transgene results in viable seeds and introgression;
terminator transgenes and desirable trait must remained linked.
eg. In cotton and soybean crops by Delta and Pine Land Co.
4. Apomixis(seeds produced without fertilization)
Advantages-Can be used to fix the heterosis
Disadvantage- Complex trait, not usual in crop plants, a plant may not be 100%
apomictic.
5. Cleistogamy(Fertilization occurs within unopened flowers)
Advantages-Self-pollination prevents outcrossing
Disadvantage- Complex trait, not usual in crop plants, introgression still
occurs.

6.Transgenic mitigation
Advantage-Introduced trait is advantageous or neutral for the GM crop
but deleterious for weeds.
Disadvantage-Does not prevent gene transfer; may cause extinction of
weedy relatives, thus reducing biodiversity.
example; preventing seed-pod shatter , which is deleterious to weeds,but
can actually be an advantage in crops.

BIG BUSINESS
The threat of terminator technology being introduced led to protests in
many parts of the world, and was seen as yet another example of big
business imposing its wishes on farmers and consumers alike.
Terminator technology has the potential to make GM crops safer by
reducing gene transfer to weedy relatives.
The publicity has, however, focused on its potential use to prevent
farmers from saving a portion of their grain for use as seed in subsequent
years, thus tying them to an expensive source of fresh seed each year.
Concerns that terminator technology had already been introduced led to
GM cotton crops being burnt in India amid wide-scale unrest.

Plant biotechnology companies are interested in genetically engineering
apomixis into crop plants because it can be used to considerably speed
up the development of new varieties.
The advantage to farmers is that seed, even from high-performance
hybrids, can be saved and reused, without the loss of desirable
characteristics.
The advantage of apomixis, removing farmers from dependence on
expensive seed, is, of course, one of the potential hurdles to its
development, as seed companies can not protect their investment.

FOOD SAFETY
CONCERNS ABOUT GM FOOD SAFETY
• The surveys of public feeling highlight the central issue as being the influence
of biotech crops on health, rather than effects on environment or food
security.
• Will these so called ‘franken-foods’ make me ill? Will I be allergic to them?
This is the natural position to take and one that is really no different to that
which we all have for all types of the food.
• The Pusztai affair also affect the public confidence in GM crops. One of the
contributory factors to the public reaction to the Pusztai report was
undoubtedly the loss of public confidence in food safety following the bovine
spongiform encephalopathy(BSE) outbreaks.

Further issues have hit media that have not necessarily been presented
in a balanced way.
In 2004, the population of a village in the Philippines was reported to
have been struck down by a serious allergic reaction to Bt corn that
caused a range of symptoms. A debate developed to the validity of this
claim, some suggesting the villagers were being manipulated by the anti-
GM lobby and that cause of the sickness was a virus.
Other examples of concern in the media have been the contamination of
human food in 2000 with StarLink maize (Bt insect-resistant variety) that
had been licensed only for animal feed and not for human consumption
because of the possibility of allergic reactions.

Recently there has been a scare over non-transgenic rice being
contaminated with GM rice from trial crops. This has happened in
Chinese and US crops that were being imported into the EU.
It is important to remember there is no evidence that GM foods are any
less safe than non-GM foods.

1.The Monarch butterfly affair
A paper in Nature by scientists at Cornell university, showing that the
larvae of Monarch butterflies fed on milkweed leaves covered in pollen
from Bt maize did not grow as well as those on control leaves.
Monarch larvae feed only on milkweed leaves, which are commonly
found in cultivated areas and other habitats, so even though they are
lepidopterans and therefore susceptible to the cry proteins produced in
Bt maize, there should be no direct risk from them eating the maize
plant.
However , there is the potential for them to come into contact with
pollen from GM maize, and this paper reported an attempt to test the
toxicity of GM maize pollen to the larvae.

The method was to dust the pollen from Bt maize on to milkweed in a
laboratory and feed these to Monarch caterpillers.
The larvae fed on Bt pollen-covered leaves ate less and grew more slowly
than controls on leaves dusted with non-GM pollen, or with no pollen.
The paper sparked off considerable public concerns, given that Monarch
butterfly is the one of North America’s most colourful and familiar
natives.
As a consequence a major research collaborations between six groups in
the USA and Canada was funded to research the question of Bt pollen
toxicity in more detail and to investigate the likelihood of exposure of
Monarch caterpillars to Bt maize pollen under natural conditions.

There was a significant difference between the levels of expression of Bt
in pollen from event Bt176 and other events containing the same cry1Ab
gene.(1.1 to 7.1 μg/g in Bt176, compared with 0.09 μg/g in the other two
events).
Because the pollen-specific promoter used to regulate the expression of
one of the cry1Ab constructs in Bt176.
Pollen from Bt176 had an LD50(the median lethal dose) of the order of
100-400 grains/cm² when tested on Monarch butterfly larvae, whereas other
two events showed no effect at concentrations of over 1600 grains/cm².
Since Bt176 is no longer available in US maize varieties , the overall conclusion
is that the risk to Monarch butterfly populations from current Bt maize
varieties is low.

2.THE PUSZTAI AFFAIR
In the mid-late 1990s ,tins of GM tomatoes and processed foods
containing GM soya were clearly lebelled and freely available on the
shelves of UK supermarkets.
Within the space of a year , most supermarkets had followed an
apparently huge public swing in public opinion against GM foods, and
had removed all genetically manipulated products from their shelves.
One of the most influential factors for the swing was the announcement
on television by Dr. Pusztai of the Rowett Institute , Aberdeen, Scotland,
in 1998, that GM potatoes caused intestinal changes when fed to rats.

There was considerable confusion about the nature of his initials claims,
which were not immediately published in the peer-reviewed literature.
In the storm of publicity that followed , Dr. Pusztai was removed from
his job. The Royal Society reviewed the unpublished work at the Rowett
Institute, and published a report stating that the work was flawed.
However, this did little to allay public concerns about food safety and
the reliability of scientific advice in the aftermath of the bovine
spongiform encephalopathy(BSE) crisis in UK.
By the time the work was subsequently published as a research letter in
the Lancet in 1999, UK public concerns about GM food and the
environmental impact of GM crops had reached a peak, and the
supermarket shelves were being cleared of gm products.

The report itself concluded that feeding transgenic potatoes carrying the
snowdrop GNA gene to rats resulted in cell proliferation of the gastric
mucosa. This effect could be attributed to the presence of GNA , since
GNA added to normal potatoes had the same effect.
It was suggested that the viral origin of CaMV 35S promoter could, in
some way , be responsible for this transformational related toxicity.
In addition to The Royal Society report, a no. of critiques of the study
have been published, pointing the problems of of experimental design,
technique, and amount of data.
However , to date there have been no convincing reports of a change in
toxicity of plant material as a direct result of the act of genetic
transformation, or of the integration of the CaMV 35S promoter.

Nevertheless, the Pusztai affair catalysed a reappraisal of the adequacy of
food safety testing and regulations regarding GM foods.

3.TERMINATOR GENE TECHNOLOGY/TECHNOLOGY
PROTECTION SYSTEM(TPS)
Involves three genes
Ribosome inactivating protein (RIP)gene encodes the production of Ribosome
inactivating protein or saporin. which if expressed, does not allow protein
synthesis to take place.
Cre (Recombinase gene) and the
Lox gene
The TPS genes are regulated by the Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) promoter.
Genes under the control of this promoter are
only transcribed (activated) during late embryogenesis when seeds are developing.

Astra Zeneca were issued US Patent 5,808,034 in September 1998 to
cover their own terminator-type technology.
It is the technology developed by the US Department of
Agriculture(USDA) and the Delta and Pine Land Co.(a cotton and
soybean breeder) that has attracted most publicity.
Most of this publicity, the vast majority of which was unfavourable to say
the least, stemmed from the involvement of Monsanto in the saga
following their attempts to acquire Delta and Pine Land Co. and rights to
the technology.

Terminator technology is described in US Patent 5,723,765(control of
plant gene expression) issued on 3rd march 1998, to the USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service(ARS) and Delta and Pine Land Co.
The patent covers technology that was referred to as the Technology
Protection System(TPS). Three genes two from bacteria and one from
plant are introduced into self-pollinating plants in TPS.
The key to TPS technology is treatment of the seeds ,before sale, with a
compound (the inducer) that activates a molecular switch , which
initiates a chain of events , culminating with the introduced plant gene
being activated shortly before the seed matures fully.


TPS was developed to protect the interests of seed companies and, it is claimed,
to protect the environment by preventing gene spread.
The seed company’s investment in developing and breeding new crops would be
protected by preventing farmers from saving seed from one year to the next,
thereby avoiding paying for seed (or selling seed illegally).
Following widespread public concern and adverse publicity , the then chairman
of Monsanto, Robert B. Shapiro, wrote to the president the Rockefeller
Foundation, Gordon Conway, in 1999 informing him that Monsanto had no
intention of marketing seeds containing Terminator Technology.
In ,2000 United Nations convention on Biological Diversity recommended that
governments not approve Terminator for field tests or commercial use.This
created what is now known as an international moratorium, it was upheld and
strengthened in March 2006.

Indian controversies
In India, genetically modified cotton yields in Maharashtra, Karnataka,
and Tamil Nadu resulted in an average 42% increase in yield in 2002, the
first year of commercial GMO cotton planting.
• There was, however, a severe drought in Andhra Pradesh that year, and
the parental cotton plant used in the genetically engineered variant was
not suited to extreme dryness, so the state saw no increase in yield.
Drought-resistant variants were developed and, with the substantially
reduced losses to insect predation, by 2011 88% of Indian cotton was
genetically modified.

• Though disputed,the economic and environmental benefits of genetically
modified cotton in India to the individual farmer have been documented.
• A study from 2002 through 2008 on the economic impacts of Bt cotton in
India, published in the journal PNAS in 2012, showed that Bt cotton
increased yields, profits, and living standards of smallholder farmers.
• However, recently cotton bollworm has been developing resistance to Bt
cotton. Consequently, in 2012 the state of Maharashtra banned Bt cotton
and ordered a socio-economic study of its use by independent institutes.

• Indian regulators cleared the Bt brinjal, a genetically modified eggplant,
for commercialisation in October 2009. After opposition by some
scientists, farmers and environmental groups, a moratorium was
imposed on its release in February 2010 "for as long as it is needed to
establish public trust and confidence".
• On 1 January 2013, a law came into effect that required all packaged
foods containing any genetically modified organisms to be labelled as
such. The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 states
that "every package containing the genetically modified food shall bear
at the top of its principal display panel the letters 'GM.'

The rules apply to 19 products including biscuits, breads, cereals and
pulses, and a few others. The law faced criticism from consumer
rights activists as well as from the packaged-food industry; both sides
had major concerns that no logistical framework or regulations had been
established to guide implementation and enforcement of the law.
On March 21, 2014, the Indian government revalidated 10 GM-based food
crops and allowed field trials of GM food crops, including wheat, rice,
and maize
More recently, in India, an expert panel advising the Supreme Court,
recommended a 10-year moratorium of GM foods.

CONCLUSION
The following is the visionary counsel offered by Norman Borlaug on biotech
crops in 2005 –
“Over the past decade, we have been witnessing the success of plant biotechnology.
This technology is helping farmers throughout the world produce higher yield
while reducing pesticide use and soil erosion. The benefits and safety of
biotechnology has been proven over the past decade in countries with more than
half the world’s population. What we need is courage by the leaders of those
countries where farmers still have no choice but to use older and less effective
methods. The Green Revolution and now plant biotechnology are helping meet the
demand for food production, while preserving our environment for future
generations.”

The Impact of the 2013 World Food Prize’s Recognition of Biotechnology’s
Contribution to Food, Feed and Fiber Security:
Marc Van Montagu, Mary-Dell Chilton and Robert Fraley, who have all made
important contributions in their respective areas of crop biotechnology.

REFERENCES
International service for acquisition of agri-biotech applications(ISAAA),
web link: www.isaaa.org
Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2013
by Clive James,
Losey, J. E., Rayor, L. S., and Carter, M.E.(1999) Transgenic pollen harms
monarch larvae. Nature 399, 214.
Horton, R. (1999) Genetically modified foods: ‘absurd’ concern or
welcome dialogue? Lancet 354, 1314-1316
The StarLink case :issues for the future, web link:
http://pewagbiotech.org/resources/issuebriefs/starlink/starlink.pdf

Rajya Sabha website : http://www.parliamentofindia.nic.in
Introduction to Plant Biotechnology By- H.S. Chawala
Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.com

THANK YOU

Public acceptance of genetically modified crops

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