Rebecca Nesbit's Blog, page 3

A brief intro to genome editing

For decades we have been slowly improving techniques for genetic modification, and now disruptive technologies could be changing the entire biotech landscape. Genome editing technologies have the power to make much smaller, more precise changes to genomes, and so theoretically can avoid some of the arguments against GM foods.

The changes don’t need to be the introduction of a new gene, and may be so small that it will be impossible to tell whether a crop has been developed using genome editing or conventional breeding.

The most high-profile technique is CRISPR/Cas9, which is already being used to modify the genomes of plants and animals. Potential uses range from crop improvement to gene therapy for human disease, so it has been surrounded by debate.

The status of this debate isn’t entirely clear. Some countries, including the US, have declared that genome edited crops won’t be regulated as genetically modified organisms. The European Union is yet to pass comment, and organic groups seem to be deciding that it won’t be compatible with organic certification.

It is also much cheaper than current GM techniques, meaning it could allow smaller companies to get in on the action.

For more information, here are some useful links:

A quick summary from The Biologist.

A detailed analysis from Nature – history and future predictions.

An introduction to genome edited crops from BioMed Central.

The ‘productionist’ outlook

I had an amazing time in Stockholm at the 2016 Nobel Week Dialogue, and it has left me with many things to ponder about food production and consumption.

Food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart spoke out against the ‘productionist’ outlook, questioning whether producing more food will solve our problems. We already produce enough food to feed the world’s population, yet still people go hungry. 

Given the growing population, it seems clear to me that we do need to increase agricultural productivity. And we certainly need to increase resilience so yields aren’t so affected by  extreme weather events, for example. However, the whole event was a pertinent reminder that how much more food we need to produce isn’t fixed – we don’t need to keep going on this trajectory.

Reducing food waste would have an enormous affect on how much food we need to produce. Likewise, the need to reduce our meat consumption was highlighted again and again (and I would like to add dairy consumption too). If we eat crops rather than feeding them to animals, we don’t need to grow so many of them.

The good news is that we can tackle both these issues as individuals. At the amazing Nobel Prize banquet the following day, I ate meat but certainly didn’t leave any waste!

Here’s one of the talks I enjoyed, and there are many more on the Nobel Prize YouTube channel.

New Scientist vs Soil Association – this week’s organic spat

New Scientist’s recent article ‘Stop buying organic food if you really want to save the planet‘ inevitably caused a stir, and the Soil Association fought back with the accusation of ‘unscientific’. As the title suggests, there were some sweeping statements from New Scientist. The Soil Association’s response also had some bold claims, so I’m taking the opportunity to comment on a few of the claims from both sides and point out some logical flaws.

One major point in the New Scientist article is that the gap between carbon emissions from organic food and conventional food will increase because organic labels don’t accept genetic modification. As the New Scientist article points out, it seems that the organic movement also won’t accept genome editing, meaning that they will be denied any future benefits which may come from crops produced using biotechnology.

The New Scientist’s claim could be right in theory, but a few things would have to change if it was to be right in practice. For a start, we would need to actually see these promised crops which reduce carbon emissions (I hope we do). Even if this happens, GM crops are largely rejected by conventional farms in Europe so until that changes there’s no possibility of a gap materialising.

There were also about clearing forests to make way for agriculture. An important aspect of the organic vs conventional debate is whether the increased wildlife on organic farms justifies the use of more land. Organic farms have lower yields, so arguably this means more land is used for agriculture rather than wildlife. In the words of New Scientist “organic farms require more land, which in the tropics often means cutting down more rainforests.”

Sadly there’s no link in the New Scientist article backing this up. Although lower average yields from organic farms is widely documented, exactly how that links to more land use for agriculture is less clear. For a start, certified organic farming is a very small minority of food production.

The Soil Association’s opposing claim that organic certification leads to less deforestation has nothing to with avoiding the use of synthetic pesticides. Their point is that organic beef is largely grass fed rather than fed with crops grown on deforested land. The take home message is therefore nothing to do with organic farming per se – it is related to whether cows eat grass or grain (a big debate in itself, one I’m looking forward to hearing more about at the Nobel Week Dialogue tomorrow).

It is also worth pointing out that not all organic agriculture is created equal, which makes sweeping statements somewhat dangerous. The issues are very different for subsistence farmers on marginal land than for commercial organic farmers in the developed world.

The New Scientist article might not have presented all the arguments needed to justify its position, but I believe its conclusion is correct: we need an evidence-based carbon certification scheme. The organic label is often used as a proxy for an ecolabel, but it starts with an ideology rather than by looking for evidence about what foods actually have lower environmental impact.

Should you spend the extra money on organic? That’s too big a question to address in a single blog post so, unlike the New Scientist and the Soil Association, I’m not going to try. I’m interested to hear any comments though, and to know what people have chosen themselves.

New Scientist vs Soil Association – this week’s organic spat

New Scientist’s recent article ‘Stop buying organic food if you really want to save the planet‘ inevitably caused a stir, and the Soil Association fought back with the accusation of ‘unscientific’. As the title suggests, there were some sweeping statements from New Scientist. The Soil Association’s response also had some bold claims, so I’m taking the opportunity to comment on a few of the claims from both sides and point out some logical flaws.

One major point in the New Scientist article is that the gap between carbon emissions from organic food and conventional food will increase because organic labels don’t accept genetic modification. As the New Scientist article points out, it seems that the organic movement also won’t accept genome editing, meaning that they will be denied any future benefits which may come from crops produced using biotechnology.

The New Scientist’s claim could be right in theory, but a few things would have to change if it was to be right in practice. For a start, we would need to actually see these promised crops which reduce carbon emissions (I hope we do). Even if this happens, GM crops are largely rejected by conventional farms in Europe so until that changes there’s no possibility of a gap materialising.

There were also claims about clearing forests to make way for agriculture. An important aspect of the organic vs conventional debate is whether the increased wildlife on organic farms justifies the use of more land. Organic farms have lower yields, so arguably this means more land is used for agriculture rather than wildlife. In the words of New Scientist “organic farms require more land, which in the tropics often means cutting down more rainforests.”

Sadly there’s no link in the New Scientist article backing this up. Although lower average yields from organic farms is widely documented, exactly how that links to more land use for agriculture is less clear. For a start, certified organic farming is a very small minority of food production.

The Soil Association’s opposing claim that organic certification leads to less deforestation has nothing to do with avoiding the use of synthetic pesticides. Their point is that organic beef is largely grass fed rather than fed with crops grown on deforested land. The take home message is therefore not about organic farming per se – it is related to whether cows eat grass or grain (a big debate in itself, one I’m looking forward to hearing more about at the Nobel Week Dialogue tomorrow).

It is also worth pointing out that not all organic agriculture is created equal, which makes sweeping statements somewhat dangerous. The issues are very different for subsistence farmers on marginal land than for commercial organic farmers in the developed world.

The New Scientist article might not have presented all the arguments needed to justify its position, but I believe its conclusion is correct: we need an evidence-based carbon certification scheme. The organic label is often used as a proxy for an ecolabel, but it starts with an ideology rather than by looking for evidence about what foods actually have lower environmental impact.

Should you spend the extra money on organic? That’s too big a question to address in a single blog post so, unlike the New Scientist and the Soil Association, I’m not going to try. I’m interested to hear any comments though, and to know what people have chosen themselves.

Bad news in business and in Bangalore

I had two pieces of bad news when I turned my phone on yesterday morning  (not counting Trump bad news – I’ve become immune to that or mornings would be too depressing). A Whatsapp chat with my school friends explained that the violence in Bangalore had environmental causes, and a chat with my PhD friends informed me that Bayer had bought Monsanto.

In Bangalore, 15,000 security forces are currently trying to keep peace, following an uprising about a 125-yr water dispute. Bangalore is facing water shortages, and the protestors believe that the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu takes more that its fair share water from the Cauvery River. The Government disagrees, and has ordered the state of Karnataka (home to Bangalore) to release more water.

Combined with monsoon failure (yes, climate change has been implicated), this leaves both states with severe water shortages. It also comes in the wake of some other dubious water management, including drainage of lakes for golf courses, playgrounds and the like.

The other news, about Bayer and Monsanto, has attracted the attention of regulators, and as a result the deal may not go through. Both CEOs claim not to be concerned, stating that there is ‘very little overlap between the companies’ (Monsanto is more focussed on seeds and Bayer on chemicals).

The European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, says she will look at potential impact on seed prices and on crop development.

It’s a big issue, as take-overs are the name of the game in agri-businesses at the moment. It is the third recent ‘megadeal’ and would reduce the Big Six of global agribusiness to the Big Four, placing 70% of the global pesticide market under just three companies. So watch this space…

The State of Nature report the day before had left me in the mood for looking for the good in the bad. The good news is that I have must have interesting friends for these to be topics of discussion, and also that maybe, just maybe, we can learn from Bangalore that lakes are more valuable than bus stands and short-term gains can have long-term consequences.

And today there’s good news: Science has a special issue on Plant Translational biology. Lots of GM discussion in there.

State of Nature report

Today saw the release of the 2016 State of Nature report, once again reporting declines in British wildlife, and threats of extinction. The RSPB summary and the PTES infographic give some interesting facts on the declines, and one worth highlighting is the Biodiversity Intactness Index. It shows Britain doing badly, coming 189th out of 218 countries assessed.

Intensive management of agricultural land is top of the list of causes, perhaps unsurprising given that around 75% of UK land is used for agriculture.

One of the most influential farm management changes is a move to sow crops in the winter rather than the spring. This isn’t likely to be something we can change.

A lead author of the report, RSPB’s Mark Eaton, clearly understood the challenge, speaking of the need to tweak current farming practices to make them more wildlife friendly whilst acknowledging that changing practices have been ‘great for putting food on the table’. After all, milk and wheat yields have almost doubled since 1970, the period covered by the report.

Many of the changes to farm management in question actually took place decades ago, and the rate of change has declined. The report shows that many short-term biodiversity trends suggest improvement, though there was no statistical difference between long and short-term trends, and no change in the proportion of species threatened with extinction. We’ll have too see how this pans out.

Not only is food production contributing to wildlife declines directly through land use, it is also contributing indirectly through greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is listed as a primary cause, second to intensive management of agricultural land.

Of course, nothing is all good or all bad, and climate change has also brought plenty of winners, particularly as milder winters increase the survival of some species.

There were also some positive messages with case studies of success stories, and lots of suggestions of how we can all help.

Public spending on UK biodiversity has fallen from 0.037% of GDP in 2008 to 0.025% in 2014–15. What could we achieve if we reversed this trend?

There have been lots of questions about whether Brexit can mean more effective farming policies which protect the environment. Unsurprisingly, I’m yet to see any answers.

 

Challenging assumptions about smallholder farmers

Recently I was lucky enough to spend time on Jeju island, South Korea. Last time I visited, oranges were being harvested in the snow. This time it was a heatwave, and groups of women were crouched in the fields planting seedlings together.

Looking at the lush green of the fields divided by walls of volcanic rock, it was easy to have a romantic view of these small holdings. But I realised that I was making some assumptions. The groups of workers weren’t necessarily land-owners sharing the workload – many were labourers who had arrived in busloads from elsewhere. Closer inspection also revealed the dependence on chemicals.

This FAO report on the economic lives of smallholders also challenges some assumptions which many people might make. For a start, in countries such as Nepal and Kenya fertiliser input is higher on the smaller farms than other farms (which are still very small by Western standards).

Productivity was also higher on smaller farms than other farms in the same country (though still low compared to North America, for example). This is an interesting and much-debated finding, and is likely related to the high labour input seen on small family farms.

There are also situations, however, where small-scale farmers are losing their advantage. For example, they often struggle to access credit or new technology so are missing out on ways to improve their productivity.

Smallholders are of fundamental importance to food security, and in the developing world smallholders produce most of food that is consumed there. They also make up the vast majority of farmers. In China, for example, nearly 98% of farmers cultivate farms smaller than 2 hectares – accounting for almost half the world’s small farms.

We therefore need policies to support them, and the report will make valuable reading for anyone interested in what those policies might be. It recognises that transformation of food supply chains, especially the rise of supermarkets in the developing world, offers both opportunities and threats for smallholder farmers.

News – June 2016

Some interesting links for GMO-relevant news floating around at the moment:

Crop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change – University of Leeds researchers published a paper ‘Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately‘.

Seeds, Syrup and Subversion – a BBC World Service programme with a debate about corporate control and Big Ag, available on listen again.

Results of Bt eggplant field trials – looks good scientifically, although regulation in the Philippines may make that irrelevant…

Silenced Crops kickstarter campaign – interesting to see a crowdfunding campaign for a positive genetic modification story. This time it is to make a documentary about GM papaya in Venezuela.

 

The final say from my UKIP MEP

Quick recap: I wrote to my MEPs asking them to make an evidence-based decision about the regulation of New Breeding Techniques, and a UKIP MEP’s political advisor replied that he has “no mandate to support legislative proposals from the unelected European Commission”.

I emailed him back to clarify the situation, to which I got more info about why Britain should leave the EU (and a link to Nigel Farage’s book – let me know if you’re aching to read it…). I wanted to be sure I’d understood him correctly in relation to my original query, so I posed the question:

“For the McIntyre Report, am I right in thinking that there was indeed a vote, but that Mr Agnew decided not to participate because he does not wish to further the aims of the EU?”

The response:

“That is correct.  UKIP MEPs often get accused of not doing their jobs when they either abstain or choose not to vote but people forget that they were elected with a large mandate on a platform of withdrawal from the EU and it would be hypocritical of them to actively participate in supporting new EU laws which take further powers away from the UK Government and Parliament.  Where UKIPs are active is in voting for or against amendments to proposed legislation.  Sometimes they can influence the legislation in such a way that it mitigates its effects, so that the UK Government retains some influence in the matter.  However, they rarely take part in the final vote, unless it is to vote against.

“It is a difficult path to follow as constituents often get very uptight about them not supporting legislation that is their particular bonnettary bee!  However, a principle is a principle and we need more politicians who are prepared to stand by the principles upon which they were elected.  A topical example being David Cameron who was elected on a platform of reducing immigration to the ‘tens of thousands’ but each new batch of statistics shows us that it is in the hundreds of thousands.

“In this instance, the McIntyre report was non-legislative, in other words, a recommendation which may or may not be picked up by the European Commission at a later date.  Mr Agnew did not vote.  It was passed by 454 votes to 177.  As you can see, even if all 73 UK MEPs vote against anything in the European Parliament, they have very little chance of stopping anything going through.  Unfortunately, a significant proportion of the 73 are very pro-EU and will faithfully support everything, this includes, Labour, Lib Dem and quite a few Conservative MEPs.

“Please note the web address below, which you can use to monitor voting in the European Parliament: http://www.votewatch.eu/”

How terrible that his uptight constituents are cross when he doesn’t use his influence on issues which are important to them, and that his fellow MEPs actually like the EU…

I did want to highlight one bit of the earlier email which I haven’t recorded in its entirety: “The other political parties, for reasons best known to themselves, still believe that the UK should be a member of the EU…” If he doesn’t know why his fellow politicians want to remain, then he can’t have seen any news reports for the past few months. Maybe it is possible to live in a bubble and hear no Brexit-related news. I’m up for it!

I am genuinely grateful for his advisor taking the time to email me, even if it contained a subtle warning not to get uptight about issues that are my bonnettary bee. Sadly I wasn’t brave enough to ask whether Stuart Agnew MEP would resign if we vote to remain in the EU.

If he doesn’t like the lack of influence he has in that vote, perhaps he should trying being a liberal/left-wing voter in Hertfordshire.

It all comes back to Brexit – a letter from my UKIP MEP

A few days ago I blogged about the impending EU decision about whether to regulate New Breeding Techniques as GMOs, partly to distract myself from Brexit. It failed.

Writing the post caused me to stumble across a call by GM Freeze to write to your MEPs to ask them to vote to regulate New Breeding Techniques as GMOs. I promptly wrote to my MEPs asking them to make a decision based on science. 

I was a bit shocked to discover that all my MEPs were either Conservative or UKIP, and I was so surprised by the response from a UKIP MEP’s political advisor that I wanted to share it. I was very grateful to have received his opinion and shouldn’t have been surprised by its content.

The first bit made me very glad I’d written:

“Thank you for your email regarding the McIntyre Report addressed to Stuart Agnew MEP.  He has asked me to reply to you on his behalf.

“You are quite right in suggesting that Mr Agnew has received a good many emails asking him to oppose the report.  Yours is the only email taking a more balanced look at the matter.  He has an open mind about this new technology.”

It was great to hear that he has an open mind, but the first part worried me – his electorate aren’t urging him to make decisions based on evidence. Those who take them time to write are those with an axe to grind.

No doubt many voters are keen to encourage MPs to look at the evidence, but it’s not generally something you write about. You do write if you have a strong emotional attachment to a particular point of view, whether or not the evidence supports it.

Campaign groups are active in their letter writing. Do we need to follow suit? Once again, the people with extreme views are shouting the loudest. Is the same true of Brexit? This is the second part of the reply:

“However, Mr Agnew firmly believes that decisions about what we grow on our own soil and the techniques used should be a matter for our own elected Government and Parliament at Westminster.  Unfortunately, the power to control the use of GM technology was long ago surrendered to Brussels.  As an MEP elected on a platform of withdrawal from the EU, he has no mandate to support legislative proposals from the unelected European Commission.  You may not be aware that the Commission is the sole originator of new EU legislation and our country is subject to diktats from the Commission in this and many other areas.

“He is actively campaigning for a Brexit vote on 23rd June to get these powers returned to Westminster and  because he believes that the EU is a failed political experiment that has become the enemy of democracy and is proceeding from one crisis to the next, many of its own making.  He also does not wish to bequeath to future generations a system of government under which their votes in General Elections mean nothing because all the major decisions are taken by unelected European Commission bureaucrats in another country.”

I’ve replyied to ask for an explanation of ‘no mandate’.

If I believed that we would be more likely to make evidence-based decisions in Westminster than in Brussels, I’d be all for Brexit. However, the many decisions made solely by MPs in Westminster certainly doesn’t support this hypothesis.