With a food crisis simmering around the globe, a new book, Tomorrow's Table,
argues that the marriage of genetic engineering and organic farming is key
to feeding the world's growing population.

U.S. News spoke with coauthors Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology
who experiments with genetically altered plants at the University of
California-Davis, and Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer at the University of
California-Davis's certified organic farm and former partner at Full Belly
Farm, a 150-acre organic vegetable farm in California, about the unlikely
alliance.

What spurred you to consider integrating such seemingly opposed approaches?
Raoul: Well, part of it is that we're married. We've had a lot of time to
talk these issues through.

You say that organic agriculture seeks to maximize the health of the
environment, the farmer, and the consumer. What role might genetic
engineering play in achieving such goals?
Raoul: Organic farming came about as a response to the environmental and
health problems associated with overuse of chemicals on conventional farms.
Genetic engineering could contribute by reducing pesticide use by creating
pest-resistant strains. There's also strong evidence that there are certain
environmental or disease problems with no solution, regardless of whether
you're farming with a conventional or organic approach. There's nothing to
make plants resistant to certain viruses, for example.

Is there a way that genetically engineered crops in combination with organic
techniques could help address the global food crisis?
Pamela: Yes, especially in less developed countries where farmers, in many
cases, can't afford conventional fertilizers and pesticides. Also, flooding
is a major problem in certain developing countries, and flood-tolerant crops
could be critical. For about 50 years, people have been trying to develop
flood-resistant rice using conventional breeding. They've failed. Today
about 75 million farmers live on less than a dollar a day in major flood
zones in places like Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India.

Raoul: Think about Myanmar. Already a hundred thousand people have died
there since the cyclone. There hasn't been much talk about the fact that
much of that delta there was planted in rice and that already the area has
been flooded for a couple of weeks. Chances are that all that rice is going
to die. Another hundred thousand more people may well die, too, of
starvation before this is over.

Pamela: I have been involved in a project for the last 10 years that's
developing a variety of flood-tolerant rice. My laboratory has recently
isolated a gene that makes rice tolerate flooding. In collaboration with
colleagues at the International Rice Research Institute, we have developed a
rice variety for Bangladesh that yields 1 to 2 tons per hectare more under
flooded conditions than the conventional variety in recent on-farm trials.

How do organic farmers respond when you talk to them about this idea? Are
they receptive or alarmed by it?
Pamela: What I've found is that when we talk to the organic farmers
themselves, they are pretty intrigued by the possibilities. I think that's
because they're experimentalists and understand the difficult hurdles all
farmers face. I think they feel that there's been a lot of hype against
genetic engineering. It's the people from the political organizations?and
the urban dwellers?that tend to be the most actively against the idea.

Raoul: Some people are cynical. Unfortunately, perhaps, genetically
engineered plants were first developed by large corporations such as
Monsanto and designed to fit into conventional?not organic?farming systems.
Genes were even taken from bacteria and put into plants, and that made
people nervous, despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences and
national scientific agencies in other nations have agreed that the GE crops
currently on the market are safe to eat. Imagine if genetic engineering had
started off with gene transfer between closely related plants or with a new
variety that could save the lives of thousands of children. The rift
probably would have seemed much smaller than it does today.

How would the public's perception of genetically engineered crops be
different if nonprofit agencies or governmental organizations had taken the
lead instead?
Pamela: Look at papaya, for example. In the 1990s, there was an infestation
of papaya in Hawaii with something called ring spot virus. It completely
obliterated papaya production on the island of Oahu, so growers moved
production to the island of Hawaii. Plant pathologists predicted that
eventually the virus would arrive on Hawaii, too, and eventually it did. But
before it had, Dennis Gonsalves, a former plant virologist at Cornell who is
now with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, developed a genetically
engineered papaya variety that was completely resistant. He was working with
a small USDA grant, and the genetically engineered papaya was distributed
freely to growers. His GE papaya, it turned out, yielded 20 times more than
the previous variety, and the industry completely rebounded. It's a great
example of genetic engineering benefiting local farmers.

Many groups oppose genetically engineered crops on the grounds that they're
unsafe. What exactly are they worried about, and is the concern justified?
Raoul: BT [Bacillus thuringiensis] protein is one example. The gene for BT
comes from bacteria and is integrated into some genetically engineered
crops. Some people are concerned about the idea of eating that protein over
long periods of time, even though it is present only in trace amounts. As an
organic farmer, I've applied BT protein, which is approved for use in
organic farming, many times. The protein affects a relatively small range of
butterflies and moths but is nontoxic to humans and other animals, which is
one reason it is a favorite tool of organic farmers.

You mentioned that some genetically modified plants require less
insecticide. That seems like something that organic farmers would embrace.
Pamela: Yes, I think the public is not aware that the use of genetically
engineered seed has dramatically reduced insecticide use. In China, cotton
farmers were able to eliminate 150 million pounds of insecticide in a single
year by using genetically engineered varieties. For comparison, in
California, we spray about that much every year.

Raoul: One interesting part of this story, however, is that those huge gains
started to fall off after six or seven years. Those farmers in China have
started to see a resurgence of "secondary" pests because they are no longer
spraying insecticides. I'm betting that if those farmers had been using crop
rotation and biological controls [releasing beneficial insects, for example,
or interspersing crops in ways that make it harder for insects to get the
upper hand]?the practices that organic farmers use?instead of growing
monoculture [one crop in one place], they wouldn't have had such problems
with secondary pests.

How common are genetically engineered crops around the world now?
Pamela: Every time a GE crop has been approved for use, farmers have
embraced it and the GE acreage for each crop has quickly grown to 50 to 90
percent of the total acreage. According to a recent article in Science
magazine, the top producer is currently the United States with 57 million
hectares; the next is Argentina with 20 million hectares; and then Brazil
with 15 million hectares. These three are followed by Canada, India, China,
Paraguay, and South Africa.

Globally, are we using the breadth of what's scientifically possible or just
focusing on modifying a few specific traits?
Pamela: There are essentially just two traits out there: herbicide
resistance and insect resistance. Those two have been put mainly in
soybeans, corn, and cotton. We are just at the tip of an enormous iceberg of
possibility.

Raoul: Flood resistance, drought tolerance, frost tolerance, salt
tolerance?all of these could potentially be put into crops to increase
yields. I'm particularly interested in crops resistant to nematodes, a class
of tiny, cylindrical worms commonly found in soil. There are researchers
working at Davis who are working on nematode resistance for tomatoes. They
say it would even be fairly easy to put nematode resistance into heirloom
tomatoes, such as Brandywine.

Heirloom tomatoes and Brandywines have become such a staple?even a symbol?of
organic farming. Would you grow genetically engineered Brandywines if they
existed?
Raoul: Well, I couldn't grow it as an organic farmer. I'd have to grow it as
a nonorganic crop, but I would. Heirlooms are extremely susceptible to
nematodes. You basically can't grow them organically if you have nematodes.

What about the concern that corporations can own the patent rights to
genetically engineered seeds, so farmers can't save them and have to buy
from the same company year after year?
Raoul: Actually, it's the same for many hybrid varieties that are popular
among organic growers.

Pamela: And many people don't realize that in less developed countries, the
seed industry is very different. In the past, most of these countries have
had national breeding programs that distribute the seed for free. It's a
completely different model than what we have in the United States, where
virtually all of the seed is privatized.

What's the take-home message of this book, especially for people who aren't
particularly interested in agriculture?
Pamela: We haven't really talked about nutrition and land use, and that's
often of interest to people who aren't interested in farming. If we hadn't
genetically modified our crops by conventional methods over the last 50
years, we would be using twice as much of the Earth's surface to grow the
same amount of food. In the future, if we don't increase yields, we'll need
to use double the amount of land to produce the same amount of food. In
terms of nutrition, vitamin A-enriched GE rice has the potential to save the
lives of thousands of children who currently suffer from vitamin A
deficiency.

Do you seem to be winning friends with the book?
Pamela: It's a little early to say, but we're getting some comments back. I
think there have been a lot of people thinking about this but not publishing
widely on this. This situation sort of reminds me of that children's story
about the emperor's new clothes. Everybody was afraid to point out the
obvious. Once you have a few people calling and saying the emperor has no
clothes, I think it will help change things. I think more and more people
are starting to speak out.

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