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Good, Bad or Ugly?
A brief history of food
Humans have manipulated
food crops since ancient times.
Agriculture is not natural.
Humans select for certain traits,
varieties in crops over generations:
-Higher yield
-Disease Resistance
-Taste
-Ease of farming
-Aesthetic pleasure
An Assyrian relief showing artificial pollination.
Selecting ‘better’ food
Before the 1960s, farmers selected their
BEST seeds.
These seeds were replanted next year.
Each year this process was repeated.
So farmers selected their plants over many years
-Improved yields… more food
-Increased efficiency…less destruction of forests
-decreased plant diversity…compare fields and
forests
modern wheat plant
GM, GE, Transgenics
Genetic Modification
Genetic Engineering
Transgenic Crops:
These refer to the new types of plants (and
animals) that contain:
…an artificially introduced foreign piece of DNA
into a plant to modify its properties.
Plants genetically modified by cloned foreign
genes cannot be produced by nature.
-Paul Lurquin in High Tech Harvest
A tissue culture rose
DNA and Genes
• Genes = the coding system for instructions
• A gene = is a segment of DNA
Guanine
(G)
Cytosine
(C)
Adenine
(A)
Thymine
(T)
bases
DNA
gene
Genes and Proteins
transcription
mRNA
Gene
(a piece of DNA)
protein
translation
trait
Plant Genetic Engineering
Process
Cell
Plant cell
Extracted DNA
A single
gene
Transformation
Transgenic plant
Cell division
Examples of GM food
• Tomatoes with anti-freeze genes from the flounder (a type of fish)
- allows tomatoes to be grown in northern climates.
Examples of GM food
• Tomatoes with anti-freeze genes from the flounder (a type of fish)
- allows tomatoes to be grown in northern climates.
• Golden Rice: Rice with beta-carotene (helps body makes Vitamin A)
- an estimated 150,000 children in Asia will have better eyesight
Examples of GM food
• Tomatoes with anti-freeze genes from the flounder (a type of fish)
- allows tomatoes to be grown in northern climates.
• Golden Rice: Rice with beta-carotene (helps body makes Vitamin A)
- an estimated 150,000 children in Asia will have better eyesight
• Roundup Ready Soybeans (allows plant to survive herbicide)
- hopes to decrease the amount of herbicide used on farms
Examples of GM food
• Tomatoes with anti-freeze genes from the flounder (a type of fish)
- allows tomatoes to be grown in northern climates.
• Golden Rice: Rice with beta-carotene (helps body makes Vitamin A)
- an estimated 150,000 children in Asia will have better eyesight
• Roundup Ready Soybeans (allows plant to survive herbicide)
- hopes to decrease the amount of herbicide used on farms
• Bt. Cotton (plant makes pesticide to protect itself against insects)
- decrease pesticide use and increase yield
Examples of GM food
• Tomatoes with anti-freeze genes from the flounder (a type of fish)
- allows tomatoes to be grown in northern climates.
• Golden Rice: Rice with beta-carotene (helps body makes Vitamin A)
- an estimated 150,000 children in Asia will have better eyesight
• Roundup Ready Soybeans (allows plant to survive herbicide)
- hopes to decrease the amount of herbicide used on farms
• Bt. Cotton (plant makes pesticide to protect itself against insects)
- decrease pesticide use and increase yield
• Bananas with Cholera vaccine (help fight disease in South Africa)
- protect children from deadly disease
Examples of GM food
• Tomatoes with anti-freeze genes from the flounder (a type of fish)
- allows tomatoes to be grown in northern climates.
• Golden Rice: Rice with beta-carotene (helps body makes Vitamin A)
- an estimated 150,000 children in Asia will have better eyesight
• Roundup Ready Soybeans (allows plant to survive herbicide)
- hopes to decrease the amount of herbicide used on farms
• Bt. Cotton (plant makes pesticide to protect itself against insects)
- decrease pesticide use and increase yield
• Bananas with Cholera vaccine (help fight disease in South Africa)
- protect children from deadly disease
• Roundup Ready Canola (again herbicide resistant)
- reduce use of chemicals on farmland
Benefits of GM Crops
• Increase nutritional content of food
- Addition of vitamin A gene to rice crops in Asia to prevent blindness.
• Decrease use of harmful pesticides and fertilizers
- Bt cotton generates it’s own biological pesticide and doesn’t need chemicals.
• Edible vaccines
- South Africa is adding a cholera vaccine gene to bananas to protect people.
• Make more food to feed growing population
- Some genetically modified crops can produce 50% more food using the same land
- Better use of land and can feed more people.
Dangers of GM Crops
• Safety (Franken-foods)
- Addition of brazil nut gene in soybean made it allergic to some people.
• Decreased diversity
- ‘good’ insects like butterflies, as well as some smaller farm animals may die.
• Transgenic contamination
- seeds and pollen from plant can fly in the wind and take over new land affecting
habitats.
• May increase poverty in world
- most GM crops are owned by a few western companies
- it is very expensive to buy these GM crops from these companies
Canola Case
Saskatchewan, Canada
Patents
If someone invents a new product, then that person or company can
apply for a patent.
A patent certifies that –
1. The person is the inventor of the new product or process.
2. The person/ company owns the new product/ process
3. The person/ company has the sole right to benefit from the product/
process
4. This sole right lasts from 8 years to 50 years depending on the type of
product and country the person lives in.
Patents are thought to encourage innovation and creativity because the
inventor/ company has the ability to make lots of money from their
new invention. Companies are more likely to invest in research if they
stand to make money at the end.
Genes can be Patented!
Monsanto owns the patent to an entire plant called Roundup Canola.
This is because Monsanto introduced a foreign gene (from a bacteria) into
the canola plant. This makes the canola plant immune to the herbicide
Roundup.
Monsanto makes Roundup. Roundup kills all plants when sprayed on land
except for those plants that have this special gene in.
Because the Monsanto Canola plant is not natural, it is considered a novel
invention and has been granted a patent in Canada.
The supreme court of Canada however refused to give a patent on a
genetically engineered mouse made by Harvard University stating that
‘higher’ animals cannot be patented.
The CBC’s take:
http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/real_video/monsanto.ram
References:
http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/real_video/monsanto.ram
http://www.agr.gc.ca/fact_e.phtml
http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/indepth/gmos/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/foodfight/hachey.html
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/gm/
http://www.hc-c.gc.ca/english/protection/biologics_genetics/gen_mod_foods/index.html
http://archive.greenpeace.org/geneng/gehome.htm
http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/canola/
http://www.cptm.org/Genetic%20Modification.htm
http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/TeachingResources/Applications/GMOpkgJKloseGLampar
d6.pdf
http://www.agwest.sk.ca/TransgenicPlant.html
http://www.colostate.edu/programs/lifesciences/TransgenicCrops/history.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/education/gigaquiz?infile=genes_compass&path=genes_
compass
From Fish to Tomatoes
From Fish to Tomatoes
From Fish to Tomatoes