Good Ideas Are Growing: Are They Safe?

Rick Kralj
RD Extension Agent

Selective plant breeding is not a new concept. Selection of observed desirable traits by our ancestors essentially tamed wild plants and made them suitable for agriculture. Such selections have been used for over 10,000 years, since the beginning of agriculture.

Not until the early eighties were researches able to speed the process of genetic selection for desirable traits through a process called genetic engineering. Genetic engineering has allowed researches to explore the effects of manually selecting the desirable traits called genes and altering the original plant and creating future plants that express the desirable traits i.e.. pest resistance. What has taken generations can now be reproduced in fewer years.

The first genetically altered plant was a tobacco plant with resistance to antibiotics in 1983. It was almost 10 years later when the first commercial genetically altered crop, a delayed ripening tomato, "Flavor-savr" was released. This was followed by the release of several crops including Roundup Ready soy and corn. They have been primarily altered so that the plants can resist pests, diseases or chemicals used to weeds in the field.

Genetically altered foods are very prevalent, at least in the United States and Western world. More than 60% of the foods we purchase from the supermarket today have ingredients derived from genetically modified crops. Most of these are either from corn or soybeans, which are the base for numerous ingredients manufactured for food industry, including starch, oils, proteins and other ingredients.

Like all new technologies, the potential for applications is great, likewise we need to understand the implications of the use of such technology. Recently in October of 2000, the detection of the genetically engineered StarLink corn in tacos and several other food products caught the attention of American consumers. Why was StarLink genetically engineered field corn, grown for the animal feed market the focus of media attention? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve StarLink corn for human food use. StarLink corn found it's way into taco shells. The result was a full recall of the taco shells marketed by Missions Foods and Taco Bell.

Crops modified by modern genetic engineering pose risks no different from those modified by earlier genetic methods for similar traits. Because genetic engineering is more specific, users of these methods will be more certain about the traits they introduce into plants. The evaluation of food safety on the food, food ingredients, and animal feed obtained through genetic engineering will continue under the standards set forth by FDA, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).