www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The issue is not whether genetically modified vines are god sent or a new
age Frankenstein, it's about who's calling the shots. Where is all the
debate within the wine industry around the use of GMOs, asks science writer
Leonie Joubert? May 2006 by Leonie Joubert.

It's the summer of 2156 and Stellenbosch - once in the Golden Triangle of
Cape wine - is limping through another scorching drought as winemakers
struggle to bring in the next batch of Cabernet at optimal ripeness. Searing
temperatures are cooking the berries into jam on the vine. But a few
'modern' vineyards are planted with varieties which have the heat-resistant
trait of a desert gecko spliced into their genetic code, enabling them to
withstand the 40°C spikes of midday. These Cab berries sidle up to phenolic
ripeness with the ease of a gentleman in a lounge suite. And the farmer -
well, against the odds, he's got a champion wine.

This little fiction is not all that outlandish. Already all sorts of strange
genetic combinations have been spliced and diced together in labs around the
world: cotton in India has been given the gene of a bacterium to protect it
from pests, the same has been done to sweet corn in the UK; golden rice has
had two daffodil genes and one bacterium gene implanted to make it produce
more beta-carotene; famously a tobacco plant glowed in the dark after having
a firefly gene spliced into its DNA.

Gene-splicing technology could be the salvation of the Cape's wine industry
as climate change modellers predict a hotter, drier climate for this region
in the next century and beyond. Already the soft fruit industry is packing
its bags and moving either to higher altitudes or abandoning operations
altogether because conditions are becoming too hot to produce export quality
fruit.

While horticulturists predict that wine grapes are hardier than soft fruit,
even vines have their upper limits.

If vines could be made more heat and drought resistant, or if they could be
engineered to achieve perfect phenolic ripeness even during the worst
heatwaves, surely that could be the answer. Possibly. GMOs have been lauded
as the answer to malnutrition in the developing world, to growing crops in
salinated soils which are sterilised by over-irrigation, the answer to pest
and weed control in large-scale food production. It could even be the answer
to bird flu: an Australian doctor wants to inject the H5N1 bird flu virus
into tomatoes, which is expected to trigger the production of protein in the
plant. This can be extracted and injected into birds as a vaccine, stemming
a possible epidemic.

The concept of modifying plants to greater agricultural productivity is
nothing new. Fruits have been hybridised for decades, grains have been
selectively bred, Cabernet canopies have been grafted onto distantly related
root stock. But there is something to the argument that genetic modification
has taken the manipulation of our food crops to a whole new level. Ethically
speaking, is it right to embed into the fabric of a plant, the genetic
structure of an animal? And how about the ethical concerns of a vegetarian -
would they want to drink a wine that had animal parts spliced into its code?

When Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996, Time magazine wrote amidst the
fracas that it was only a matter of time before the public got over the
moral issues and accepted the use of this technology. The public was once
outraged when the first cornea transplant took place, but within decades
hearts were being moved between chest cavities and jump started with a
strategic electric current.

The pros and cons of GMOs aside, one cause for concern is the absence of
discussion around the GMO issue. A Harvard doctoral student, recently
visiting here to compare SA's national policy on GMOs and AIDS with other
countries, said there was bitterly little debate going on at policy level
about GMOs. Even the scientific community appeared nervously quiet on the
subject.

A similar absence of debate amongst the public and the wine industry means
that GMO products can be manufactured in labs and sold to farmers, allowing
these organisms to slip into the agricultural community under the radar of
democratic decision-making. The issue, in this regard, is not whether or not
the products are harmful to human health or the environment, or whether a
genetically altered vine will undermine the nuanced flavour of a variety
that has evolved on its own over millions of years. The issue is that the
public and the industry are not talking about it.

Without public debate, there can be no checks or balances, no
accountability.

[www.wine.co.za]

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