gmos a tale of manipulation, monopoly, monsanto and cheap food brian ellis michael smith...
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GMOs
A tale of manipulation, monopoly, Monsanto and
cheap food
Brian EllisMichael Smith LaboratoriesUBC October 24, 2008
GMOs
What are they?
What is really out there?
What impacts are they having?
Where are we going with them?
GMOs
What are they?
What is really out there?
What are they doing to us?
Where are we going with them?
GMOs are organisms whose genome has been permanently manipulated by direct insertion
of one or more genesthat were not there before
‘Crown Gall’(gall cells contain bacterial genes in their genome)
Mother Nature’s Genetic Engineer
+
Agrobacteriumtumefaciens
Agrobacterium carrying “Roundup Ready” gene in an ‘engineered’bacterial plasmid
Monsanto’s“Roundup Ready®” gene
Roundup®-tolerant Roundup®-sensitive
GMOs
What are they?
What is really out there?
What impacts are they having?
Where are we going with them?
GMO crops
• Commercial Applications
Altered agronomic traits forindustrial producers
• Disease/insect resistance• Virus resistance• Herbicide resistance• Salt/drought tolerance• Cold tolerance• Enhanced yields, other
quantitative traits
Application of Roundup herbicide
Field following application
time 2008
Corn, cotton, soybeans, canola
Nature Biotechnology 25: 271 (2007)
GM crop use is continually expanding
Which countries grow the most commercial GM crops?
Which countries grow no commercial GM crops?
EU, Japan, NZ
USA, Brazil, Argentina, Canada
What are the ‘developing countries’ doing about GM crops?
India and China have begun to grow GM cotton
ScienceSept. 08, 2008
GMOs
What are they?
What is really out there?
What impacts are they having?
Where are we going with them?
Are there fish genes in our tomatoes?
What about ‘Golden Rice’?
Are there proven health impacts?
Microarray analyses reveal that plant mutagenesismay induce more transcriptomic changes thantransgene insertion
Batista et al Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci (USA) 105:3640 (2008)
“We found that the improvement of a plant variety through the acquisition of a new desired trait, using either mutagenesis or transgenesis, may cause stress and thus lead to an altered expression of untargeted genes. In all of the cases studied, the observed alteration was more extensive in mutagenized than in transgenic plants.”
11,267 (51) genes vs. 2,318 (25) genes
Intensive GM crop use also modifies the ecology of our agricultural landscape ...
…but we have been massively modifying this ecology for thepast 10,000 years
GMOs
What are they?
What is really out there?
What impacts are they having?
Where are we going with them?
Homo sapiens has become the dominant species on an
increasingly over-exploited planet
Humans directly exploit ~70% of temperate and tropical ecosystems
Agriculture~50%Commercial forests~20%Human settlements~20%The greatest single activity affecting
native ecosystem structure and functionis agriculture
Increasing human population size and aspirations
are putting unsustainable pressure on the biomass productivity of the planet
This will drive even wider adoption and extension
of GMO technology as human societies struggle to cope with loss of productive land / water
resourcesand the associated food shortages
Something not covered by the new Gene Technology law…