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Science
Issue Date:  September 5, 2008 | Volume 321 | Page 1279

BEIJING—Confronted with land degradation, chronic water shortages, and a growing population that already numbers 1.3 billion, China is looking to a transgenic green revolution to secure its food supply. Later this month, the government is expected to roll out a $3.5 billion research and development (R&D) initiative on genetically modified (GM) plants. “The new initiative will spur commercialization of GM varieties,” says Xue Dayuan, chief scientist on biodiversity at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

A central aim is to help China catch up with the West in the race to identify and patent plant genes “of great value,” says Huang Dafang, former director of the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing. Once intellectual property rights are in place, says Huang, transgenic technology could transform Chinese farming “from high-input and extensive cultivation to high-tech and intensive cultivation.”

In the decade since China first allowed commercial planting of four GM crops, the government has moved cautiously, granting only two further approvals for small-market species: poplar trees and papaya (see table). Currently, just one GM crop—insect-resistant cotton—is now planted widely, says Xue. China has balked at commercializing GM versions of staples such as rice, corn, and soybeans.

That may change, as China’s leadership has thrown its weight fully behind GM. “To solve the food problem, we have to rely on big science and technology measures, rely on biotechnology, rely on GM,” Premier Wen Jiabao told academicians last June at the annual gathering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. China’s State Council, which Wen leads, approved the GM initiative in July.

Details of the new initiative, including which crops will gain initial support, are being hammered out, scientists say. Some funds will go to R&D on transgenic livestock, an area that has lagged behind GM crops. By 2006, the Chinese government had granted permits for 211 field trials of 20 GM crops, including the six approved for commercial production. As in other countries, the varieties that China has commercialized so far are equipped with genes to resist pests, tolerate herbicides, or stay fresh longer—not genes that directly boost yields.

Proponents note that China’s cautious embrace of transgenic technology has yielded a major success story: GM cotton. Introduced into commerce in 1997, 64 varieties of pestresistant cotton are now grown on 3.7 million hectares, or about 70% of the area devoted to commercial cotton, averting the use of 650,000 tons of pesticides, says Huang.

The big prize is GM rice. Three years ago, Huang Jikun, director of CAS’s Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy in Beijing, and colleagues reported that field trials of GM rice in China were going well—boosting yields and reducing pesticide use on plots—and predicted that the varieties were on the threshold of commercialization (Science, 29 April 2005, p. 688). But the Chinese government is reluctant to tinker with the country’s most important crop and has put off commercialization. The new initiative might break the logjam, says Huang Jikun. “I hope the commercialization of GM rice will come within a couple of years,” he says.

Although the central government has not released a budget figure for the new initiative, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture told Science that it would cost $3.5 billion over 13 years. Half is expected to come from local governments on whose land GM crops will be grown and from agricultural biotechnology companies. “It’s a new way to support a big science project in China,” says Huang Dafang. Another departure from other R&D initiatives, he says, is that each funded program is expected to produce an economic payoff.

One component of the initiative will be to educate the public about GM crops, says Huang Jikun. Although China is unlikely to see the sort of protests that have derailed field trials and commercialization in Europe, there are currents of disquiet in the general population. “For consumers, the safety of GM crops is the biggest worry. Just like some people are afraid of ghosts, some people are afraid of GM crops,” says Zeng Yawen of the Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Kunming. Although Zeng believes that GM food safety will be demonstrated adequately, he worries that the new initiative will push China to “move too fast to commercialize GM varieties.”

But with questions mounting about China’s ability to feed itself, others contend that not pushing ahead with GM varieties could be more detrimental than any theoretical hazard. “Any kind of new technology may have risk,” says Huang Dafang. But legitimate concerns, he says, should not be overshadowed by scare tactics designed to “mislead the public in the name of environmental protection.” With the country’s leaders firmly behind GM crops, it’s unlikely that any protests would get very far.

–RICHARD STONE
With reporting by Chen Xi and Jia Hepeng.

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Terry D. Etherton

Because of my commitment to defend science, scientists, and technological innovation in agriculture, I encounter folks and groups on the “other side” who use all sorts of interesting — even bizarre, and dysfunctional — tactics to scare consumers about science, food safety, and the need for technological innovation in agriculture.

Their objective?

To get consumers to think something is unsafe about foods produced by biotechnology … that they are unhealthy or even dangerous. And, oh yeah, to promote a sense of urgency to “encourage” consumers to buy other versions of the same product sold with labels such as natural, farm-fresh, no added hormones, or organic, etc. The obvious intent is to infer that these foods are better for you!

The other objective is to get consumers to pay a whole lot more. Great marketing scheme! Especially, when there are no discernible differences in nutrient content or wholesomeness.

As readers of Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology and other science-based information sources know, organic food production practices are NOT the answer to the question: How are we going to feed a growing world population?

I appreciate that farmers who wish to produce food using the organic standards have every right to do this. Likewise, consumers who wish to buy these products should be able to do so. This is the foundation of a democratic marketplace … if you produce something, and someone buys it, you have created the market.

However, the marketing approaches used to promote these products are a problem. I have written extensively in my Blogs about the deceptive and misleading attacks on safety of milk from cows treated with rbST; plants and plant-derived foodstuffs produced using the tools of genetic engineering; and other products produced using the tools of modern biotechnology (drugs, cloned animals, diagnostic tools, etc.).

A standard strategic response by the Luddites is to attack whatever I write about or present. Nothing new; this has been going on for a long time.

The attacks come in different ways. They write all sorts of letters, fill up their Web sites with trash, and spew out blogs. A keystone of their attacks is that facts (based on sound science) are not important. It is a lot easier to make it up than spend time finding facts to support their argument.

These authors often present what they call “science-based evidence,” “replicated research,” and the like to support their claims. The messages are very misleading. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that either the “research” does not exist or has been done in a such a biased and poor manner that nothing meaningful can be concluded from it — at least not to scientists working at reputable universities, nonprofits, and companies.

To make matters worse, many in the scientific community are missing the larger implications of all this: A large percentage of the public cannot, or do not, want to differentiate good science from bad. They just make decisions and move on.

Studieshave consistently shown that the more consumers know about technology, the more they support it. A long-standing challenge has been how to deliver scientific education programs to the U.S. population in an exciting and informative manner that results in learning. It is an enormous challenge.

Especially, when it is easier to scare individuals than educate them.

An example of slander

The College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State recently put on some educational programs to present the facts about different production practices used in animal agriculture. A component of these programs was to compare different production and husbandry practices, including comparing organic versus conventional farming.

A long story made short: I received a letter from some groups expressing their outrage over these programs. Interestingly, they took great exception to the programs we “delivered” — however, we received the letter before the programs were even presented…the groups were responding to the press release!

I will share one excerpt from that letter to illustrate my point:

“…As a dairy scientist, I find Penn State’s treatment of organic dairy management unobjective, unscientific, unprofessional and deleterious to many livestock farmers in Pennsylvania who are making extra efforts to farm well. Replicated research shows that thereare nutritional benefits in organic milk that are beneficial to human health…”

These two sentences illustrate how facts are repeatedly skewed by the opponents of biotechnology. In reality, the programs were nothing like the above blather about being “unprofessional and deleterious.”

At the same time, the inference here is that if you don’t farm using organic production practices, you are not farming well. This is absolute nonsense. Amazing! This author is actually a dairy farmer!

Further nonsense is the statement that “replicated” research shows nutritional benefits. There is no credible evidence in support of these assertions. This fallacy is well illustrated by a blog I posted on July 27, 2008 “Scientist Debunks Myth of Organic Nutritional Superiority.”

The fact is there are countless farmers using conventional production practices, and biotechnology, who farm well and produce safe and wholesome food. And this food is compositionally the same as that labeled organic.

Most unfortunate of all is this: The ongoing smoke and mirrors debate and continuous fretting over the U.S. food system distracts all of us from confronting and solvingfar more serious and pressing issues.

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USAgNet

With world wheat stocks at historic lows, some longtime opponents of transgenic (often called genetically modified organisms) are coming to the realization that, without increased adaptation of transgenics, the world’s farmers cannot produce enough safe, wholesome food to feed its people.

According to a non-profit, farmer-founded interest group called Growers for Biotechnology, recent comments by European governments are an indication that public opinion is turning the corner. A news article posted on the Web site, www.growersforbiotechnology.org, reports that in late June, Great Britain’s Environment Minister, Phil Woolas, addressed the world’s food price crisis with this comment: “There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis. It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is already under way. Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue.”

Europe’s resistance to transgenic crops has been one of themain obstacles to more rapid adoption of the technology around the world. Developing African nations, even those with mass starvation, have rejected transgenics out of fear that they might lose the opportunity to sell any surplus crops to Europe. Now, with a global food shortage exacerbating hunger around the world, the United Kingdom is beginning to see that Europe’s resistance cannot be sustained.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Great Britain’s Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, has told British lawmakers that transgenic crops are critical to combat poverty and hunger.

You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms,” Nestle’s Peter Brabeck told the London Financial Times. “We have the means to make agriculture sustainable in the long term. What we don’t see for the time being is the political will.”

Brabeck said Europe’s opposition to biotechnology had encouraged African policymakers to reject transgenic crops. South Africa is the only country on the African continent to commercialize them, growing transgeneic maize, cotton and soybeans.

What are the benefits to wheat farmers should biotechnology be an option for the world’s wheat geneticists? Herbicide resistance, tolerance to fungal diseases or drought tolerance all are possibilities. In fact, an Australian researcher told Bloomberg News last week that Australia could have transgenic, drought-tolerant wheat available globally in five to 10 years.

GMO wheat under field trials in Australia’s Victoria state contains genes from plants such as corn and moss as well as yeast, Spangenberg said on July 2. Test results show the transgenic grain generated a 20 percent gain in yield compared with non-GMO crops under drought stress, according to German Spangenberg, head of Australia’s Victorian AgriBiosciences Center.

This is a very significant increase. GM wheat for drought tolerance will be important to sustain agricultural production into the future.”

DuPont Co., the world’s second-biggest producer of seeds, plans to engineer wheat and rice to boost yields as rising demand lifts grain prices to records. Growers and buyers have asked Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont to develop higher-yielding wheat varieties to help keep pace with output of crops such as corn.

Syngenta AG is also developing disease-resistant, transgenic wheat.

Despite this growing momentum, Japan and other Asian countries have vowed to buy non-transgenic wheat and either pay a premium, or rely on their own farmers for wheat production.

According to the farmers of Growers for Biotechnology, the need for more food production will grow exponentially in the next several years, and farmers must have access to new technologies to keep pace with demand. Farmershave known this for decades, but have fought an uphill battle. However, it looks like we may be winning.

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Terry D. Etherton

The United Nations (UN) Food Summit (High-Level Conference on World Food Security), held in Rome in early June, 2008, was designed to address food security issues in the face of soaring food prices (see Figure below), and the growing challenges associated with rising energy costs, and how this has impacted food prices and food security.

The increase in food prices is astounding! For example, during the early part of 2008, nominal prices of all major food commodities reached their highest levels in the past 50 years. For the first time, the annual global food import bill will surpass $1trillion (FAO, Food Outlook, June 2008)!

Part of the food price “shock” relates to level of current food stocks (reserves) in the World. Since 1995, global cereal stock levels have declined at a rate of about 3.5% per year…which is due to demand growth surpassing supply (FAO, 2008). FAO is estimating that by the end of 2008, global cereal stocks will decrease an additional 5%, reaching their lowest levels in the past 25 years!

Identifying strategies to increase food production (and efficiency) are clearly among the the biggest challenges we confront. I have written about various aspects of this in previous Terry Etherton blogs. It is important to appreciate that developing and implementing solutions to these problem is not easy, cheap…and, certainly doesn’t happen quickly.

Unfortunately, the Declaration published from the UN Food Summit provides little assurance that anything will be done by the UN to solve the problems! It would have been far better to invest the money frittered away supporting the UN Food Summit on research to pursue new ways to improve food production and food production efficiency.

At the core of “research needs” is the need for a much larger investment in biotechnology research for food production. The advances in plant and animal biotechnology and their impact on food production and productive efficiency have been impressive. We, however, must continue to invest in developing new science-based food biotechnologies for application on the farm..to feed a growing World population. This need coincides with a current “funding environment” for agricultural scientific research in the U.S. that is, at best, “modest”. This certainly does not help this situation.

My encouragement is to increase the investment in science. Historically, this has led to the development and application of new discoveries that benefit production agriculture in the World. We should not be “fiddling” away precious time and resources that could be invested in science to help feed the global village.

Unfortunately, many government and inter-government agencies are spending more time fiddling than finding ways to increase food production and productive efficiency. This is unfortunate given the current era of soaring food prices, and the reality we have of needing to find ways to feed a growing World population.

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By TERRY D. ETHERTON, Ph.D.
My editorial reply to the Centre Daily Times, State College, PA
(Published in the January 21, 2008 issue of the Centre Daily Times)

Your editorial (Truth is spilled over milk, published on January 3, 2008) overlooked a lot of truths and passed on a few half truths as well.

The biggest overlooked truth is that the controversy over milk labeling has more to do with company profits than with consumer demand. The truth is that milk companies have forced farmers to stop using recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) so that the companies can imply through advertising that their milk is better than some other company’s milk. This disingenuous advertising — “hormone free,” “no artificial hormones,” etc. – is fully aimed at customers who cannot be expected to know all the facts about rbST. There is a bothersome fact that undermines this advertising strategy: All milk contains hormones —the same hormones in the same amounts, irrespective of whether the cow has been supplemented with rbST. This includes organic milk and milk from cows not supplemented with rbST. Even vitamin D, which is used to fortify milk, is a hormone.

The dairy industry’s research that only 30 percent of consumers are aware of any issue regarding hormones and milk. And 70 percent of those who are aware say they do not care about it. However, when people are intentionally led to believe that something may be wrong with their milk, they are more likely to choose another product. A Web site, DHMO.org, demonstrates this natural human response, showing that nearly 80 percent of people want to ban dihydrogen monoxide when they are given specific facts about this colorless substance we call water.

Another overlooked truth in the editorial is the fact that dairy farmers are getting a raw deal. Farmers have been using rbST for nearly 13 years and have seen their costs decrease while their productivity and profits increase. They can produce more milk with fewer cows and less stress on the environment. Now they are told to stop using that product. The milk companies do not pay them for their losses. Rather, some companies actually charge their customers up to $1 per gallon more for this “new” milk, which they imply is safer and better.

If milk companies truly believed in consumer choice, they could offer two packages – from treated and non-treated cows. Of course, they would have to go through the costly process of setting up special handling procedures at their plants and paying a premium to producers who voluntarily give up rbST. They have found it much easier to simply deny hard-working farmers the choice of using an FDA-approved product that improves their families’ lives.

The editorial states accurately that FDA has determined there is no difference in milk from treated and untreated cows. rbST makes cows give more milk, not different milk. However, it implies that milk from treated cows contains more IGF-1. All milk contains IGF-1 in varying amounts, depending on the individual cows. This was true before rbST was introduced and it remains true in all herds, treated or otherwise. The unreported truth is that the level of IGF-1 in human breast milk is substantially higher than anything seen in cow’s milk. On a daily basis, the human body produces 3,000 times the amount of IGF-1 consumed in three 8-ounce glasses of milk.

As a Professor at Penn State University, I have studied rbST for nearly 15 years both before and after FDA’s lengthy review process. Farmers who use the product properly have not seen an increase in mastitis, as the editorial suggests. In fact, they are able to keep their cows in production longer, delaying the inevitable trip to the slaughterhouse.

Truth is hard to represent on a simple label. Just listen to the radio ads for various products where fast-talkers spew out the required caveats at the end of the commercial. Pennsylvania’s Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff wisely saw that milk labels were not telling the whole truth, were misleading consumers and were unfairly causing a hardship for dairymen, so he has tried to put a stop to it. And that’s the truth.

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