Evaluating the Impact of GMOs in the UK

The potential ecological implications for cultivation in the UK of

Introduction

In many places all over the world, the use of genetically modified crops are on the rise. This is because of the ever increasing population size which means that crops are a necessity of human consumption and farmer profits, therefore profit loss due to weed, disease or insect attack are highly detested. Crop growth is one of the easiest and cheapest methods of sustaining a food source. (Pandey, 2015) The incorporation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) engineered to be resistant to pesticides, changed the model of agriculture which was heavily dependent on agrochemicals. (Fishbein, 2012)

There are different chemicals used in response to the large demands for the consumer market to control weeds, crop diseases and herbivorous arthropods.

Over recent years there has been an increasing interest on how GM crops may indirectly effect the environment and also how associated and recombinant DNA is passing into the environment, and the likelihood of it being taken up by microorganisms or other live biological matter. (Wolfenbarger and Phifer, 2000)

The kinds of impacts that are potential for GM crops fall into classes’ familiar with non – GM crops such as weediness, invasiveness, biodiversity and toxicity but there is no question that the products from GM crops will present new challenges and perhaps in some cases some opportunities to manage particular crops.

Here, we will review the potential ecological implication that GMO’s have on cultivation in the UK. (Dale, Clarke, and Fontes, 2002)

In the 1990’s GM crops were once known as biotech crops and were a high topic of interest at the time as they could produce improved products with higher yields in smaller areas of land making a big impact on 3rd world hunger. Members of the public were not to sure about the idea as there was no evidence at the time on environmental and human health impacts.

GM crops are most widely used in the agricultural industry, the process of making GM crops involves the use of genetically engineering techniques which can alter the genetic coding of an organism, the aim of this to introduce a particular trait to a crop, that would not commonly occur naturally in the species. There are many examples of genetically modified crops and these are crops that are resistant to pests, disease and environmental conditions which result in bigger yield products and increased profits. (ISAAA Annual Report, 2013)

GM crops started of covering 4.2 million acres of land but over the last 20 years this has increased by a factor of 100 to 432 million acres, which makes up 10% of the world arable land inhabited by genetically modified crops. (Economic and Social Development Department, 2002).

Developing countries are increasingly using genetically modified crops, with around 18 million famers growing 54% of the worldwide GM crops by 2013, this large use of GM crops have reduced the use of pesticides by almost 37%.

With soil composition and structure slowly degrading due to pollution, disturbances and deforestation, this means that growing crops is becoming more difficult, therefore the use of GM crops may be a necessity in the future to have a sustainable food income, as GM crops can be genetically modified to withstand extreme conditions, such as high and low temperatures, drought and high salinity.

Herbicide tolerant GM crops

Herbicide tolerant crops are one of the biggest selling GM crops; these crops have been genetically modified so that they can tolerate Glyphosate and another chemical known as Glufosinate ammonium (Murphy, D. 2011)

Many of the herbicides used today contain the active ingredient known as Glyphosate; this is because Glyphosate are non-selective, meaning that it kills all vegetation, however this chemical has been certified as safe to use but mounting scientific evidence has questions about the safety of this active ingredient as the world organisations cancer agency has declared Glyphosate as a possible human carcinogen. The widespread and increasing association of glyphosate with genetically modified crops possess further risks to the health of humans and the environment. (Mirabzade Ardekani 2014)

Crops which have been genetically engineered to tolerate the presence of Glyphosate are known as ‘Roundup Ready’. These crops are then able to be sprayed with herbicides from the farmers and will be resistance to the effects of glyphosate but all surrounding vegetation that is not been genetically engineered will be killed. (Greenpeace, 2016)

The use of herbicide tolerant GM (genetically modified) crops in the United Kingdom is very rare. GM crops entering Britain are often as animal feed, there are no commercially growing here in the UK but experiments have been carried out on GM potatoes, wheat and Camila sativa (False flax) in recent years. The transport of GM crops through Britain are highly regulated by European laws and can only be approved by EU regulators, therefore GM crops can only enter if they are for animal feed, food or biofuels. (GMO Compass, 2010

Herbicide-tolerate crops have been widely attracted by biotechnology companies as they are able to:

• Sell both the herbicide and the GM crop in one single seed package
• Gain intellectual property rights over modified seeds and therefore can impose an annual technology fee on top of the price
• Can place the same gene sequences into each of the major crop types

Until recently rapeseed was a relatively unimportant crop, but when plant breeders found out they were able to remove two undesirable traits of the crops, rapeseed had become more interesting. When it came to growing it was not just for its raw material for industrial oils, lubricants and biodiesel but now could be used as a source of cooking oil for margarine production, but there are no GM rapeseed grown in the UK. (GMO Compass, 2010)

Syngenta’s Roundup Ready GA21 maize is the only remaining GM crop that can be cultivated in Europe and will be suitable to grow in England but this cultivation may be catastrophic to the destruction and harming of wildlife habitats for use of agricultural land, from blanket spraying with weed killer and pesticide residues on food. (Gene Watch UK, 2014)

There are many advantages and disadvantages of the cultivation of GM crops and with the increase in 3rd world hunger and an ever growing world population which will only continue to grow, the need for genetically modified crops is increasingly becoming more popular.

There are many benefits that genetically modified crops hold, these include producing crops that are resistant to the effects of pests, weeds and diseases. These advantages will mean that yield products will increase, and farmer profits will also increase with the successful growth of crops. This method has been widely used in the United States of America where they have genetically modified corn species, which is the most important and widely grown grain in the USA. (Fernandez-Cornejo and Wechsler, 2015) Corn has a huge reliance on human intervention, as it is unable to reproduce without the help of human activity and is very susceptible to pest deterioration and disease, but corn also needs numerous nutrients for it to grow to a sufficient size that will satisfy human consumers. The need to genetically modify corn would result in bigger yield to create more efficient land use and less need to use herbicides and pesticides for efficient growth, the food produced will have a better nutrient value, flavour and texture, another reason why corn is genetically modified is so that it can have a longer shelf life meaning profits are not lost to farmers and supermarkets due to decaying food after its sell by date. This also helps with foods that are grown in countries far from its final destination as the longer shelf dates will mean they can be transported by ship over large distances without the problem of the foods going off. (James, 2016)

Genetically modified crops are also a benefit to the environment in some cases as they can be modified to be able to grow in degraded and saline soils. As salinity within soils is crops unable or less able to grow. An example where soil salinity is increasing in in the San Joaquin Valley in California, USA. The reason why the crops cannot grow in the area is due to the high levels of salt in the soil, therefore to solve this problem genetic engineering techniques are able to change the genetic coding of these crops by inserting salt tolerant genes so that they are more susceptible to saline conditions. An example of where this has been used in in tobacco plants which are extremely susceptible to saline conditions, therefore scientists have placed a salt tolerant gene which they obtained from the grey mangrove (Avicenna marina) into the tobacco plants genome, which would result in the tobacco plant being more tolerant to salt stress as well as showing tolerance to ionic stress. (Conner, Glare and Nap, 2003)

Among all the benefits of genetically modifying crops, there are also many downsides:

Herbicide tolerant crops have been grown and used in many countries for many years but in the early stages of growing this, the farmers only had to spray their fields once with one type of herbicides, this cut down on labour intensive costs. However, over time these repeated blanket application caused the weeds to evolve and become resistant to the herbicides making them ‘super weeds’. These super weeds will reduce crop yields as they may have the same resistant properties of the GM crops meaning they will be more difficult to remove and destroy.

Continuation of blanket applications to Roundup Ready crops have caused a drastic loss in milkweed habitat, which has had a significant effect on the Monarch butterfly, which uses this habitat to lay its eggs therefore the number of Monarch butterflies found in the UK have reduced radically. A scientific study conducted by the Farm Scale Evaluations ran an experiment between 1999 -2004, on herbicide tolerant GM sugar beet, maize and oilseed rape which grew close to conventional crops and found that the changes in herbicide usage had negative effects on wildlife, due to the loss of their habitat. (GeneWatch 2009)

Insect resistant GM crops

Despite the promises that genetically modified crops would make a huge significant difference to the problems of world hunger. GM crops are primarily used for industrial crops such as cotton and feed crops for animals. In terms of genetically modified rice, there is very little in the pipeline for cultivation, even in China which is heavily commercialised with Bt cotton and the research of GM crops has been massively funded, has taken no advancements in the cultivation of food crops. The reason behind this is that there is very little independent evidence to show whether GM food would increase the farmers’ welfare and profitability. (Huang et al., 2005). Conventional pest protected plants have substantially improved plant health and agriculture and have greatly reduced the usage of pesticides. Conventional pest protected plants have been a huge benefit to the environment as they have improved health and agricultural productivity and have meant that the need for pesticide application is far less than it used to be. Transgenic pest protected plants, have the prospect of having the same contributions, as already been acknowledged with transgenic pest protected cotton. Environmental and human health benefits may arise from the production of transgenic pest protected crops, however the risks involved will depend on the type of GM crop in question.

Traditionally, pest protected plants have rarely caused clear health or environmental problems but there is a slight potential of undesirable effects. Therefore, the major goal in genetically modified engineering is to conduct more research on the area and further development of transgenic and conventional pest protected crops in a way that is more sustainable for agricultural practised, enhance the preservation of biodiversity and reduce the chances of human health problems that may be due to some pest-protected crops.

When assessing the impacts of genetically modified crops you have to take into heath factors such as toxicity, pleiotropic and allergenic effects. The potential for allergenic responses to novel genes needs to be further researched, as the responses have not been documented for commercialized genetically transgenic crop, although one case has be documented and is currently in the research status. Research of allergens within the genetically modified crops need to analyse the digestibility of the protein, estimate the level of protein expression and the homology of the known allergens.

Toxicity and pleiotropic or secondary effects need to be analysed when looking at genetic modification. This means monitoring for pleiotropic changes in plant physiology and biochemistry during the development of these pest-protected plants, as this is an important to the element of health and safety. Due to the high complexity of the compounds this would require an extensive amount of analysis and the time would be needed and therefore it may take a rather large amount of time for researches to access whether toxicity and pleiotropic changes has a potential human health impact.

Looking at the impacts of how pest protected crops on an ecological level is also needed to be considered and these effects could be the effects on non-target species, effects on gene flow between native and the GM crops and the evolution of pest resistance to pest protected crops over time. When the committee (2000) reviewed the effects on non-target crops, it found that both transgenic and conventional pest protected crops, had effects on non-target crops, but this effects were evaluated to be smaller than the effects on broad spectrum synthetic insecticides and therefore the use of pest protected genetically modified crops would increase biodiversity in agroecosystems. (Committee et al., 2000)

Gene flow between cultivated crops may be a subject to ecological impacts. As plants use pollen dispersal as a method of gene flow, this may deem a problem when gene flow occurs among cultivated plants or from cultivated plants to wild types, the biggest problem is that these traits may be taken up by sexually compatible weed populations and could exacerbate weed problems. Gene flow from GM crops is also important, as there is a possibility that novel genes could have deletion effects on wild type relatives and could interfere with natural selection. (Bartsch et al., 1999).

The third of the major ecological impacts is the evolution of pest resistance to pest-protected plants. Over time, evolution could potentially change herbaceous arthropods genetic structure so that they become resistance to the pest-protected plants making them ‘superbugs’. This could impose the return and over use of harmful chemicals or the replacement of existing pesticides variety with novel varieties, which have less health and environmental impacts known about them. The way in which this can be combatted is if pest protected plant or its functioning equivalent is delivering valuable pest control, and you are growing a new transgenic pest protected plant varieties threatens the utility of existing uses of pest protectant or its functional equivalent, implementation of resistance management practices of all uses should be encourages. An example for this is Bt proteins used both in microbial sprays and in transgenic pest-protected plants.

Understanding the molecular structure of pest protected plants, genetics of target pest and population ecology will allow developing more specific expression systems for transgenes in ways that lessen target pest exposure and delay the adaption and evolution of pest resistance, an example of doing this is the use promotors would essentially limit the expression in some of the tissues.

Two examples of potential new GM crops. E.g. created via gene editing or expressing quality traits

There have been many field experiments in Britain on genetically modified crops and one of which is on potatoes, where this is being researched in Norfolk and one in Leeds. Another experiment in the UK is taking place on wheat in the Rothamsted research centre in Hertfordshire.

Over recent years, potatoes have been less common in public households but the prospects in the starch and chemical industry have been increasingly growing. For the starch industry, the taste of the potatoes is not what is important but instead it is the quality and composition of the starch within that potato, therefore an optimised starch potato is currently being tested in the UK. (GMO Compass, 2008)

Humans eat only 1 in 4 potatoes in Europe and the rest is used as animal feed or used for starch production and alcohol, therefore potatoes are becoming ever more popular in the growing of raw materials. However, the starch which is grown in non-GM potatoes are not ideal as it is composed of two different starch proteins known as amylose and amylopectin which in composition are completely different.

In starch production, the two starch compositions need to be separated; this involves an expensive and intensive procedure, which is damaging to the environment. This is why plant breeders are trying to genetically modify the potatoes so that only one type of starch is present. At the current moment more emphases has been on developing a potato with just the amylopectin compound, due to its diverse applications. Classical breeding methods have meant that plant breeders have not been successful to provide an amylose free potato that is acceptable for yield and resistance to pests and diseases, but genetic engineering approach of antisense technology which is the method of inhibiting the activity of a certain gene, in this case suppressing the production of amylose.

Genetically modified amylopectin potatoes have been trailed and tested in the UK for many years and attempts to genetically modify the potato plant that is resistant to both pests and disease has so far been unsuccessful. In Canada and the USA, they have managed to cultivate potato crops that are resistant to viruses and the potato beetle. In 1999, 25,000 hectares were planted but since then the production has ceased as it proved that these potatoes had little or no economic advantages, therefore some larger US companies refused to take GM potatoes to further processing. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (2016)

In 2008, work was being done on potatoes to protect them against one of the worst disease known to the Nightshade family Phytophthora infestans. This disease can be spread when conditions are moist and warm and is best known for causing the Irish Potato famine in 1846 – 1850. Today the disease is still a huge problem to potato farming and the disease has managed to combat every management strategy to date by coming back with a new and adapted form. Today the disease is battled with using fungicides and heavy metals treatment. The first trials of the fungus resistant GM potatoes are underway and may take years to discover if the modification is effective. (MacKenzie 2008)

The other genetically modified crop that is being tested in the UK is wheat. The GM wheat coverts sunlight into chemical energy by photosynthesis more efficiently meaning greater yields are produced. Wheat is one of the most important crops to the UK and has an annual value of 1.2 billion to the UK economy. In the spring of 2017 genetically modified wheat crops which have been edited by inserting extra copies of a gene that produces the enzyme called SBFase that plays an important role in the process of photosynthesis will be plated covering 96 square metres at the Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire alongside non – GM crops as a control method. (Ghosh, 2016)

Currently many of the wheat fields are treated with broad-spectrum pesticides to control aphid populations, which suck the sap from plants and transmit diseases such as the barley yellow dwarf virus, however continual use of these insecticides will over time cause resistant aphids and due to bioaccumulation could affect organisms further up the food chain. Scientists at Rothamsted Research site have been trying a number of field trials to reduce the use of insecticides by genetically modifying the plants to carry the pheromone that alerts aphids of danger but also attracts aphid predators such as the ladybird. This is done by genetically editing the genome of the wheat plant and inserting the gene to create the pheromone (E)-β-farnesen but so far, the experiments have been successful in laboratory but unsuccessful when tested in fields. (Cookson, 2016)

Discussion

The use of genetically modified crops is, in appropriate circumstances, can have considerable potential for improving agriculture and the livelihood of poor farmers in developing countries.

The possible costs and benefits associated with particular GM crops can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is very important to ask the question: how does the use of a GM crop compare to other alternatives? As testing these GM crops on a case-by-case basis would require large resources and expenses before becoming ecological advantageous. The health and environmental concerns over genetically modified crops is considered a barrier for the cultivation in Europe, as there is currently no justifiable evidence to show that they are safe. It is recognisable why so many of the public are against transgenic crops due to the lack of understanding and exposure to negative and manipulative media coverage.

There is an ethical obligation to explore the potential of GM crops responsibly. We therefore recommend that research into GM crops be sustained, and especially directed towards the needs of small-scale farmers in developing countries. Since there is still scepticism over environmental and human health impacts of GM crops, these cannot be dismissed and the need for long-term studies on human subjects needs to be undertaken.

The undertaking of longitudinal monitoring of the impacts from both an environmental and a human health impact needs to be advised an whilst these studies, as we assume may not reveal any unexpected results with regards to environmental and human health, it may be a way to assuring the public over any concerns they may have with cultivation of GM crops.

There appears no justifiable reason why GM crops cannot be grown in the UK or even Europe, and the reform of the regulatory system is a large stepping stone to the cultivation of GM crops as the growth of GM crops should be based on a more scientific opinion then on the current politically influenced decisions and shifting the public misconception of GM crops will be a massive step that may be necessary to see GM crops grown in the UK.