60 second guide to… GM food

A tomato: Guide to GM foods

Genetically modified food has been criticised as being dangerous for us and the planet, but should we really be concerned? 

What is GM?


Genetic modification (GM) involves editing the DNA of plants and animals. It’s part of a broader area of science known as biotechnology.

Spain is the biggest grower in Europe, but France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Portugal also grow significant amounts. Worldwide, the US, Argentina, Canada and Brazil grow the most.

GM food leapt into the British public consciousness in 1998 during a health scare arising from experiments carried out by geneticist Árpád Pusztai. He claimed to have found that rats suffered various negative side-effects from eating GM potatoes.

When the research was finally published it turned out to be significantly flawed and its validity has subsequently been questioned. But since then debate has raged about the possible costs and benefits of GM.

Where did it come from?

In 1953 scientists discovered DNA, the biological building blocks that determine the physical characteristic of every plant and animal on Earth. Producing GM organisms involves manipulating portions of DNA known as genes.

GM medicines have been around for more than 25 years, but the technology wasn’t commercially applied in agriculture until 1992. The first commercial genetically engineered food, the Flavr Savr tomato, approved by the US government, contained a fish gene to increase shelf-life.
 
Since then, GM varieties of various crops have been developed. The four main commercial crops grown are include oilseed rape, cotton, maize and soya beans.

GM aims and approaches

GM crops come under two categories: herbicide-resistant and pest-resistant.

  • Herbicide-resistant crops are designed to tolerate herbicides, enabling farmers to spray weeds without harming the crop. 
  • Pest-resistant crops like GM cotton are engineered to produce a toxin that kills pests that would usually feed on it.
GM technology has also been developed to improve the taste, nutrition or drought-resistance of crops. It can, for example, make farmed fish grow faster, create enzymes, biofuels and other products.

The size of GM

According to industry groups, GM crops are grown on more than 1 million square kilometres – an area four times the size of the UK. There have been hundreds of small-scale outdoor trials of various GM crops; BASF is actively growing GM potatoes outdoors to develop blight-resistant crops.
 
The UK government commissioned a trial, the “farm-scale evaluations”, investigating the environmental impact of four GM crops (beet, maize and two types of oilseed rape). The results suggested that the herbicides used with beet and both oilseed rape crops were harmful to farmland wildlife.

The maize, produced by Bayer CropScience, was granted approval but due to government-imposed conditions the company decided not to go ahead with cultivating the crop.

GM controversy

Almost every element of GM is fiercely debated. These are the four key issues:

  • Ethical concerns. Some people object to GM technology because it can be used to create unnatural organisms through plant breeding. Critics think that it is fundamentally wrong to “tamper with nature” in this way.
  • Health risks. Some people worry that GM crops might prove to be harmful to human health, although there is no widely accepted evidence. However, in 2005, Australian scientists abandoned a GM research project after learning that modified peas caused lung damage to mice. Many commentators feel that more research on potential health risks is needed.
  • Environment. The biotech industry argues that GM can help the environment by reducing pesticide and fossil fuel use, and increasing productivity (thereby reducing land demand) . But environmental groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth argue that the environmental costs and risks far outweigh any benefits.
  • Cross-pollination. Another concern is that genes used to modify crops could escape and cross-pollinate into wild plants. Critics claim this creates “superweeds” that are highly resistant to pests. There are also concerns about accidental contamination of organic produce. Critics argue that consumer choice is being limited by their growth too. Once a crop has widely cross-pollinated, they fear that it might be impossible to “recall” it if GM crops are found to be dangerous.

GM in the shops

Very few GM products are on sale in the UK. Most supermarkets have imposed bans on imported GM ingredients in their own-brand products. And EU laws require amounts of more than 0.9 per cent to be labelled.

But materials from GM crops are fed to animals and there’s no legal obligation to label meat, eggs or dairy products from animals reared this way.

Similarly, no label is required for foods produced by the application of GM technology to non-modified ingredients (eg cheese rennet), or to clothes or hygiene products containing GM cotton.

The government’s 2003 public debate on GM concluded that “people are uneasy about GM and the more people engage in GM issues, the harder their attitudes and more intense their concerns”. If this remains the case it seems likely that GM consumption in the UK will remain small, even if some crops are eventually grown here.