I’m compelled to make this observation and express my opinion in as far as the global anti-GMO campaign is twisted around. For a very long time now, scientists and other pro-GMO advocates have used wrong premises of “improved food security and reducing hunger” as being the essence of Genetic Engineering (GE) of crops or other organisms.
Yet since genes are function-specific, generalizing that they’ll improve food security and reduce hunger (wide areas or issues) is a wrong approach and provides anti-science groups with fodder to attack the science and the technology. Being specific, for instance, the gene to protect cowpeas against the pod-borer pest, is applied to provide the resistance that is naturally absent.
So is the case in all other examples of GE in maize, cotton, soy, etc., with the BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) gene, to provide resistance to that crop against damage by insects. The same applies to GE in other crops/plants and indeed other organisms to protect them against a fungus or a virus.
Whether GE translates into improved food security or a reduction in hunger is not the intention of GE; it is an interest or a conclusion by non-scientists. In my sincere and humble view, scientists (especially molecular biologists) shouldn’t stray into emotion-led slogans of NGO/CSO activists such as “improving food security and reducing hunger.”
They should confine themselves to the basic aim of genetic engineering and explain each specific case on its own merit, since genetic engineering or modification of an organism is very specific and should be evaluated or judged specifically.
After all, each gene has a very specific function. GE scientists should focus on the intention of genes like BT or the cry gene, the genes against heat effects in cereal crops (rice and maize in the case of WEMA or TELA projects by AATF), genes deployed in soybeans, in canola oil seeds, in sugar beet, in apples, and lately in vaccines to protect humans and livestock against viral attacks, etc., which indeed are for specific reasons and specific outcomes.
The wider outcome of improved food security and reduced hunger are very general terms and shouldn’t be the campaign of scientists if they are to protect their work from the vagaries of nature, climate change, and attacks by voracious activists (ever waiting for the slightest error or gap to exploit against science).
Wamboga-Mugirya, a science communication expert writes from Kampala, Uganda
1 Comment
Hello Editor, Thanks for this clarification, and indeed, you present the correct scenario. As a GM scientist and communicator, I have repeatedly said exactly this, but all fell on deaf ears. The misnomer of the term genetic modification (as if cross-breeding is not genetic modification), the amalgamation of all GMOs as if they are the same, the oversimplification of things like insect resistance to mean the same as yield and increased food security, all brought by those who did not understand the science. The framers of the Cartagena Protocol of the Convention on Biological Diversity are to blame for all this, not scientists. Finally, look at the labeling guidelines for GMOs today; it means nothing, civil society forced it on humanity, yet many genetic modifications are for things like improved nutrition (higher vitamins) or for safe food (less toxins)