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SCIENCE
JULY
31, 2000 VOL. 156 NO.5
Grains
Of Hope
Genetically
engineered crops could revolutionize farming. Protesters fear
they could also destroy the ecosystem. You decide
BY
J. MADELEINE NASH/ZURICH
 |
How
to Make Golden Rice
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here
for full diagram |
At
first, the grains of rice that Ingo Potrykus sifted through his
fingers did not seem at all special, but that was because they
were still encased in their dark, crinkly husks. Once those drab
coverings were stripped away and the interiors polished to a
glossy sheen, Potrykus and his colleagues would behold the seeds'
golden secret. At their core, these grains were not pearly white,
as ordinary rice is, but a very pale yellow--courtesy of beta-carotene,
the nutrient that serves as a building block for vitamin A.
Potrykus
was elated. For more than a decade he had dreamed of creating
such a rice: a golden rice that would improve the lives of millions
of the poorest people in the world. He'd visualized peasant farmers
wading into paddies to set out the tender seedlings and winnowing
the grain at harvest time in handwoven baskets. He'd pictured
small children consuming the golden gruel their mothers would
make, knowing that it would sharpen their eyesight and strengthen
their resistance to infectious diseases.
And
he saw his rice as the first modest start of a new green revolution,
in which ancient food crops would acquire all manner of useful
properties: bananas that wouldn't rot on the way to market; corn
that could supply its own fertilizer; wheat that could thrive
in drought-ridden soil.
But
imagining a golden rice, Potrykus soon found, was one thing and
bringing one into existence quite another. Year after year, he
and his colleagues ran into one unexpected obstacle after another,
beginning with the finicky growing habits of the rice they transplanted
to a greenhouse near the foothills of the Swiss Alps. When success
finally came, in the spring of 1999, Potrykus was 65 and about
to retire as a full professor at the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology in Zurich. At that point, he tackled an even more
formidable challenge.
Having
created golden rice, Potrykus wanted to make sure it reached
those for whom it was intended: malnourished children of the
developing world. And that, he knew, was not likely to be easy.
Why? Because in addition to a full complement of genes from Oryza
sativa--the Latin name for the most commonly consumed species
of rice--the golden grains also contained snippets of DNA borrowed
from bacteria and daffodils. It was what some would call Frankenfood,
a product of genetic engineering. As such, it was entangled in
a web of hopes and fears and political baggage, not to mention
a fistful of ironclad patents.
For
about a year now--ever since Potrykus and his chief collaborator,
Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany, announced
their achievement --their golden grain has illuminated an increasingly
polarized public debate. At issue is the question of what genetically
engineered crops represent. Are they, as their proponents argue,
a technological leap forward that will bestow incalculable benefits
on the world and its people? Or do they represent a perilous
step down a slippery slope that will lead to ecological and agricultural
ruin? Is genetic engineering just a more efficient way to do
the business of conventional crossbreeding? Or does the ability
to mix the genes of any species--even plants and animals--give
man more power than he should have?
The
debate erupted the moment genetically engineered crops made their
commercial debut in the mid-1990s, and it has escalated ever
since. First to launch major protests against biotechnology were
European environmentalists and consumer-advocacy groups. They
were soon followed by their U.S. counterparts, who made a big
splash at last fall's World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle
and last week launched an offensive designed to target one company
after another (see accompanying story). Over the coming months,
charges that transgenic crops pose grave dangers will be raised
in petitions, editorials, mass mailings and protest marches.
As a result, golden rice, despite its humanitarian intent, will
probably be subjected to the same kind of hostile scrutiny that
has already led to curbs on the commercialization of these crops
in Britain, Germany, Switzerland and Brazil.
The
hostility is understandable. Most of the genetically engineered
crops introduced so far represent minor variations on the same
two themes: resistance to insect pests and to herbicides used
to control the growth of weeds. And they are often marketed by
large, multinational corporations that produce and sell the very
agricultural chemicals farmers are spraying on their fields.
So while many farmers have embraced such crops as Monsanto's
Roundup Ready soybeans, with their genetically engineered resistance
to Monsanto's Roundup-brand herbicide, that let them spray weed
killer without harming crops, consumers have come to regard such
things with mounting suspicion. Why resort to a strange new technology
that might harm the biosphere, they ask, when the benefits of
doing so seem small?
Indeed,
the benefits have seemed small--until golden rice came along
to suggest otherwise. Golden rice is clearly not the moral equivalent
of Roundup Ready beans. Quite the contrary, it is an example--the
first compelling example--of a genetically engineered crop that
may benefit not just the farmers who grow it but also the consumers
who eat it. In this case, the consumers include at least a million
children who die every year because they are weakened by vitamin-A
deficiency and an additional 350,000 who go blind. MORE>>
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