PERHAPS YOU HAVE seen the Flavr Savr tomato in stores this summer, the country's first major genetically engineered produce to hit the market. Or perhaps you noticed people from the Pure Food Campaign demonstrating against such food outside theaters showing Jurassic Park, this summer's blockbuster movie about a genetically engineered nightmare. The movie and the tomato have corralled public attention as never before regarding the genetic frontiers being pushed by science and the biotech industry.
Will this new technology feed the world, reduce pesticide use, save energy, improve nutrition? Will we be able to grow a plastic substitute and raise naturally decaffeinated coffee? Or will gene splicing, in the end, encourage new breeds of superbugs and superweeds, produce vegetables that look beautiful and are easy to process but that lack nutrients, or cause virulent new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
Crossbreeding and genetic manipulation have been used for centuries to produce new plants such as hybrid corn, exotically colored roses, yellow-meated watermelon, and tangelos. But it takes years to achieve results. Recombinant DNA technology--replacing a specific segment of DNA that controls a certain characteristic of an organism with another characteristic--is a more precise way of doing the same thing more quickly.
The Flavr Savr tomato, developed by the California biotech company Calgene Inc., had the swatch of its DNA responsible for rotting replaced by a mirror image swatch, rendering that function inactive. The tomato can stay on the vine about five days longer, allowing for more of a vine-ripened flavor. In addition, these tomatoes can be shipped without refrigeration, and they last longer on grocery store shelves. Not a bad improvement.
Other tomato researchers have focused on the meatiness, or solids content, of tomatoes. The processing industry (makers of ketchup, sauces, and pastes) has said that if solids can be increased by only one percent, $70 million will be saved, mostly in the costly energy it takes to remove water from pureed tomatoes. Again, not a bad achievement.
BUT HOW ABOUT placing a flounder gene in a tomato to allow the plant to survive colder temperatures? This is where public hackles rise--when gene splicing crosses species lines. If a pig gene is incorporated into a vegetable, will eating that vegetable violate religious codes forbidding the eating of pork? What if a mouse gene that spurs the growth of lean muscle tissue instead of fat is placed in a hog; will we be eating mouse?
"Frankenfood" is what some critics have called these developments. Geneticists laugh at such paranoia, pointing out that the cellular building blocks of all living creatures, from bacteria to Homo sapiens, are virtually identical. A very small proportion of our DNA accounts for the differences. Public fear has been so great, however, that, for instance, the Campbell company has announced it will avoid using the genetically engineered tomato in any of its soups, sauces, or other products.
Will such fear cause us to miss some potential benefits?
In Israel, one agricultural researcher (using DNA segments from a bacteria) genetically engineered a potato with three times the protein of a standard tuber. The implications for countries where people commonly have a protein deficiency are enormously exciting.
In the United States, a gene from a bacteria toxic to bugs but not to humans has been successfully transferred to the very cells of plants such as cotton, reducing the need to spray crops manually. The ecological implications are intriguing.
But what about arguments that newly engineered disease- and frost-resistant plants could escape, creating a whole new set of problems for farmers? What if genes from shellfish, peanuts, or wheat--foods that frequently cause allergic reactions--are spliced into previously non-allergenic foods? What about the fact that much of the biogenetic agricultural research money is currently being spent to develop herbicide-resistant plants, leading to fears that farmers will spray more chemicals?
Other critics worry that unethical researchers will isolate the genes for color, creating a lusciously red tomato or forest green broccoli without the corresponding nutritional richness. Our sensory clues to quality vegetables could be rendered useless.
These are dramatic changes. They are being made at great speed, and for profit. Some say market forces and technological hurdles will keep abuses at bay. But I, for one, will hang onto my suspicions a little longer. And I will join my voice to those who are asking the Food and Drug Administration to require stricter testing, and especially labeling (currently not required), of genetically engineered foods. That way at least I will be able to choose for myself.
Carey Burkett, former assistant to the editor of Sojourners, was an organic vegetable farmer in Hallettsville, Texas when this article appeared.
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