Tamed

by Alice Roberts

  With Europe’s markets effectively shut to them, Monsanto urgently needed to find other consumers, and their attention became even more focused on developing countries. They bought up biotech and seed companies in the Global South, made a public pledge to support poor farmers and to protect the environment, set up a Smallholder Programme, and poured money into research looking at the impacts of GM crops in poorer countries. It’s all too easy to stand back and assume that this was just a public-relations exercise, designed to dismantle opposition to the technology, but Monsanto’s bosses had been speaking in these pro-poor terms before the European backlash. It seems counter-intuitive, but perhaps the firestorm of controversy and opposition had done something positive for Monsanto itself – pushing its corporate direction closer to the vision of its most evangelical scientists, down a genuinely more humanitarian route. And while it’s still easy to be cynical, there’s a real possibility that some applications of GM could – as Mike McGrew at the Roslin Institute believed – end up helping some of the poorest communities in the world.

  At the same time that Monsanto was pledging to support poor farmers, it was also being generous with its intellectual property. The company freely shared knowledge and technology with public-sector scientists working on the rice genome – including scientists in Europe, working on developing Golden Rice itself.

  A golden future for Golden Rice?

  The first version of Golden Rice, developed by a team led by Dr Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Dr Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany, was unveiled in 1999. Golden Rice graced the cover of Time magazine in 2000, but ten years later it was still not available to farmers. Instead, the most common GM crop at the time was herbicide-resistant soy, followed by herbicide-resistant and insect-resistant varieties of maize – all industrial-scale commodity crops. Work on the explicitly pro-poor GM rice seemed to grind on at a much slower pace.

  The geneticists working on the original Golden Rice had successfully transferred just two genes – a daffodil gene and a bacterial gene – into a variety of rice, making the plant synthesise its own beta-carotene. In 2005, further genetic tinkering (by Monsanto’s main competitor, the Swiss agrochemical and biotech giant, Syngenta) led to the daffodil gene being swapped for a maize gene. The resultant second-generation Golden Rice produced even more beta-carotene than its predecessor.

  The originators of Golden Rice chose to stick the new genes into a variety of rice known as Oryza sativa japonica, whereas Oryza sativa indica is the most widely grown variety in Asia. In order to transfer the ‘golden’ trait from genetically modified japonica into indica strains, rice breeders have resorted to conventional breeding techniques. After US field trials in 2004 and 2005, a small-scale trial was carried out in Asia in 2008, followed by more widespread trials in 2013. Agricultural researchers in India are still working on breeding the trait into popular Indian rice varieties. But as of 2016 – there was still no Golden Rice seed of any kind available for farmers to grow. The translation of what looked like such a promising advance in the lab, into a real-world crop, has proven to be much more difficult than expected. One sticking point has been that breeding the golden trait into other rice varieties led to reduced yield. But proponents of Golden Rice are also keen to blame the anti-GM movement for slow progress – and there’s no doubt that the development of the crop has been held back by both indirect and direct action. Trial crops in the Philippines have been vandalised – not by farmers, but by activists.

  As we’ve seen, some of the antipathy to GM crops – Golden Rice included – emerges from concerns about big science, big business, industrial agriculture and the inability of governments to recognise risks and protect us and the environment. The perceived risks range from concerns over food safety to environmental ramifications, and loss of sovereignty for farmers. The first of these seems easy to dispel: there is no evidence that GM food presents any sort of threat to human health.

  The second risk, however, is very real. Wild species are highly likely to become ‘contaminated’ with genes from GM crops, and it’s difficult to predict what the ecological impact will be. In Mexico, the flow of trans-genes from GM maize into old, local varieties has prompted huge concern. In China, where the first GM crops were planted, insect-resistant cotton has been, largely, a success story. But in fact this seems to have happened precisely because regulations were flouted, with the GM trait being bred into local varieties, ‘under the radar’. Once this new technology is released, there’s no way of putting it back in the bottle.

  How we decide to tackle this issue of modified genes escaping into the environment depends a lot on whether GM is seen as merely an extension of traditional breeding techniques – accompanied by interbreeding that has always happened between domesticated species and their wild counterparts – or as an entirely new phenomenon. Proponents of GM tend to espouse the former view, downplaying concerns about switching genes between different species, and encouraging a view of GM as a natural progression within the world of plant-breeding. It’s been pointed out that this is rather like saying that the textile mills of the Industrial Revolution were a natural extension of simple spinning and weaving. Nevertheless, other hightech approaches to producing new crops – such as radiation breeding – have not excited the same level of concern.

  The anti-GM lobby is clear that this technology is a game-changer, and radically alters the relationship between humans, their domesticates, and the rest of the natural world. Without sitting on the fence, both sides may have a point. GM fundamentally changes the game – or, at least, significantly bends the rules when it comes to plant-breeding. But then, agriculture – and even hunting and gathering before it – has always impacted on the natural world. It’s practically impossible to predict what the long-term effects of this new development will be. This is always a problem with emerging new technologies, and perhaps one of the foremost reasons why governments have been very cautious about allowing GM crops to be planted, applying the precautionary principle.

  The third major area of concern – that of food sovereignty in impoverished communities – is also a serious issue. While scientists, politicians and journalists often champion GM technology as ‘pro-poor’, the evidence for any real benefit to communities in the developing world thus far has been thin on the ground. Most of the currently available transgenic crops are designed and destined for industrialised farms in rich countries. Where studies have been carried out, they generally show GM crops bringing positive economic benefits to poorer countries – but the devil is in the detail. Just because such a crop is grown in a developing country doesn’t mean it’s grown by poor farmers on small farms. Most of the GM crops in Argentina, for example, are purely cash crops, grown on massive, industrialised farms – they’re more about generating profit than feeding a local community.

  Nevertheless, GM crops are gaining a foothold in some places. Despite the risks, both real and perceived, it’s remarkable how quickly GM crops can be adopted once bans are lifted. In 2001, South Africa legalised the planting of GM white maize; less than ten years later, more than 70 per cent of all white maize grown there was GM. In 2002, Indian farmers were legally permitted to plant GM, insect-resistant cotton; twelve years later, 90 per cent of cotton grown in the country was GM. In 2003, the government of Brazil legalised GM soy; eight years later, over 80 per cent of the country’s soy production was GM. Similar, rapid expansions of GM crops happened after the legalisation of yellow maize in the Philippines, GM papaya in China and GM cotton in Burkina Faso. If the problems with yield in new varieties can be overcome, if it works economically, the future for Golden Rice should be rosy. And yet there’s one thing that sets it apart from most of these other GM success stories, which could blight its potential – Golden Rice is a food crop.

  Perceptions of risks and benefits are very different for an industrial crop – such as maize for animal feed or cotton for the textile industry – compared with a food crop. It
’s fascinating that, while Europe has been operating a de facto moratorium on GM foods for humans, with barriers at government, distributor and consumer levels, there’s plenty of GM maize and soybean being fed to animals. Nearly 90 per cent of animal feed in Europe is GM – imported from the Americas. GM food has to be labelled as such, but there’s never been any requirement to label food products coming from animals that have consumed GM feed.

  When it comes to food crops, it seems that unfounded anxieties about human health can outweigh more robust evidence of potential benefits to farmers and the economy. In 2002, the Indian government approved the planting of GM, insect-resistant cotton, but in 2009 it banned the use of a GM, insect-resistant aubergine, known as Bt Brinjal. The genetic trait in the aubergine was precisely the same as that in the cotton, based on the insertion of a single bacterial gene. The product of this gene was toxic to insect larvae, and opposition to Bt Brinjal centred around concerns – with no scientific basis – that the insecticidal protein would also be poisonous to humans. Despite protestations from scientists in India and around the world, the Indian minister of environment stuck to his guns and shot down the GM aubergine. It does sound messy. But it’s not always the same story. From country to country, from crop to crop, the political, social and economic milieu shifts. In 2013, Bangladesh legalised the planting of Bt Brinjal. So far, the results are looking promising, with reduction in pesticide use and improved yields. But the controversy continues.

  Studies suggest that consumers may change their minds if the benefits of a GM food are more obvious to them. An experiment where conventional, organic and spray-free GM fruit was offered at roadside fruit stalls, in New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, France and the UK, found that consumers were willing to buy the GM fruit – if the price was right. If the GM fruit presented a pesticide-free alternative, and came in cheaper than organic, it became a palatable option.

  If it turns out that there are clear benefits to productivity, economies and human health from incorporating GM crops, such as Bt Brinjal or Golden Rice, into our agriculture – then these need to be weighed up carefully against the risks: trans-genes will inevitably escape into the environment, and there will be social implications too. But vociferous opponents of GM, largely based in the richer countries of the world, need to prudently consider how their opposition affects the ability of farmers in developing countries to make up their own minds about growing GM crops. As political scientists Ronald Herring and Robert Paarlberg put it, ‘Farmers in most developing countries will remain unable to use [these] new varieties of food crops … until consumers in rich countries change their minds about GMOs. Not for the first time in history, the tastes of the rich will drive welfare outcomes for the poor.’

  The ill-fated attempt by Monsanto to introduce GM soy into Europe, in the wake of the BSE scandal, acted as a lightning rod for opposition to GM – just as Peter Melchett of Greenpeace predicted. Nearly two decades on, we’re starting to understand what the real impacts of GM crops might be. Only time will tell whether Golden Rice will be accepted and take root. It’s likely to be available to farmers soon, and its promise – to be a cheap and effective way of combating vitamin A deficiency, as its developers always hoped – will be tested.

  And then we’ll finally know if it was worth the wait.

  Humble origins of a global super-crop

  Today, rice is everywhere. It was the obvious crop to stick a new gene into if you wanted to combat a globally pervasive vitamin deficiency – placing rice right at the heart of the GM debate. But the origin of domesticated rice itself has also been beset with controversy.

  There are two species of domestic rice. Oryza glaberrima, or African rice, is grown in a small region of West Africa, and is also a rare crop in South America. Asian rice, Oryza sativa, is much more widespread. It includes two main subspecies, Oryza sativa japonica and Oryza sativa indica. The japonica variety, with its sticky, short grains, is essentially an upland plant, grown in dry fields. Indica is different – it has non-sticky, long grains, and thrives in lowland, submerged fields – such as Liao Jongpu’s flooded, serpentine terraces. Whereas indica is almost exclusively tropical, japonica exists in both tropical and temperate forms. Both varieties are closely related to the wild rice species, Oryza rufipogon. Was one the ancestor of the other, or had they emerged from separate origins?

  The wild ancestor of rice, Oryza rufipogon, is a wetland plant, growing across a great swathe of Asia, from eastern India, through south-east Asia – including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia – to southern and east China. But archaeological and botanical clues pointed to a specific area in this range as the original homeland of domesticated rice – in China itself. This centre of domestication had also given the world domesticated soybeans, adzuki beans, foxtail millet, citrus fruits, melons, cucumbers, almonds, mangoes and tea. The earliest archaeological evidence for crop domestication – with rice amongst those very early domesticates – goes back to around 10,000 years ago.

  In 2000, geneticists were bringing their evidence to bear on the question of rice origins, and the archaeological evidence and genetic markers appeared to be telling the same story, of a single origin of Oryza sativa indica, in southern China, with japonica developing as a later, upland adaptation. But not everyone agreed. Some geneticists argued that the differences between indica and japonica were too great to have evolved in such a short time span – suggesting that the two varieties had been domesticated independently. Later studies supported that dual-origin model – but there was a hitch: some regions of the genomes of the two subspecies seemed to be more similar than they should have been. And these regions were associated with key domestication traits including reduced shattering, a tendency to grow more upright, with fewer straggling side branches, and a change from a black to a white seed hull. If japonica and indica came from separate origins, from two different subspecies of wild rice – these genes should not have been the same.

  The unrolling of the story seemed to follow a familiar trajectory: early genetic studies, looking at just a few markers, led to the proposal of a simple, single origin; then wider genetic studies came along to suggest multiple, multiregional origins; and then, various parts of the genome seemed to provide conflicting evidence of past events.

  In 2012, Chinese geneticists tackled the problem again, publishing their finding in the journal Nature. They had carried out genome-wide studies in a range of wild and cultivated rice varieties. They found again that some regions of the genome, particularly those associated with domestication traits, suggested a recent divergence – and therefore a single origin for cultivated rice. However, other regions revealed a much deeper, ancestral story, pointing to multiple origins. It was the closeness of the cultivars to different varieties of wild rice in separate geographic areas that allowed the geneticists to resolve the puzzle. At fifty-five positions in the genome, closely associated with domestication traits, both indica and japonica were most similar to one particular group of wild rice, from southern China: the ancestors of that wild rice were also the ancestors of domesticated rice. But across the genome as a whole, while japonica still looked closest to the southern Chinese wild rice, indica was closer to south-east and south Asian wild rices. This makes sense if rice was first domesticated in southern China, as japonica then spread westwards, interbreeding extensively with local varieties of wild rice as it went. Of course, rice wasn’t migrating on its own – just as in the Near East, the Neolithic in China sparked a population expansion and farmers were on the move. The Y chromosomes of modern Tibetans contain evidence of a wave of migration coming in, between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago. Eventually, domesticated japonica rice from the east would come into contact with almost-domesticated indica. Once again, then – just as with maize – the story appears to be one of a single origin, and then a spread, involving hybridisation with other wild varieties, or other ‘proto-domesticates’, along the way.

  Musing on the origins of domesticated rice, I can
’t help thinking back to those handfuls of deeply unpromising-looking seedlings – each just a few blades of grass with roots attached – that Liao Jongpu gave me to plant in his narrow, twisting, flooded paddy fields. How did this grass species become such an important ally? Just as with wheat, and indeed maize, there seems to be a bit of a mystery around the initial use of wild rice as a food. Before domestication gets to work, before that important non-shattering rachis, before the growth in grain size and yield, it really is difficult to imagine why anyone would turn to this humble grass, with its spray of hard little grains, for sustenance.

  Part of the answer lies in the complexity of diets and the drawn-out process of domestication. Although rice seems so important, from a modern perspective, it was actually only a minor crop to begin with. Foxtail millet was more important as an early cereal – domesticated as far back as 10,000 years ago – and its spread seems to have pre-empted the spread of rice. In some ways, though, millet makes rice domestication even more surprising. The wild version of foxtail millet, let alone its domesticated counterpart, boasts an impressively loaded seed-head – something I can imagine a hunter-gatherer being drawn to. It’s much less easy to understand why anyone gave rice a chance. But rice didn’t suddenly leap from being an unpromising wild grass to being a significant staple. To begin with, it made up just a tiny part of the range of foods that people in southern China were gathering and eating. Early farmers in East Asia cultivated a wide variety of crops, including starchy roots and tubers like yams and taro, as well as non-food plants like gourds or jute. And, as shown at the 8,000-year-old site of Jiahu, near the Yellow River in modern-day Henan Province, they were eating plenty of wild foods too, such as lotus, water chestnut and fish. But – rice was in the mix, and it would gradually grow in importance.