GMO Crops - A Dangerous Solution

Abstract: Ammonia based fertilizer application increased the food supply for many populations around the world, but its use over the last century has resulted in negative biological effects as serious as Global Warming. Some scientists suggest that Genetically Modified crops be planted and distributed world-wide to increase nitrogen fixation in the soil, nitrogen use by the plants, and reduce the need for ammonia-based fertilizers. GM crops are very controversial, however, and enough studies have not been done to establish their safety for humans and the environment. Many alternatives to GM crops are available, and farmers should be taught good farm management and organic farming practices.

Introduction

Since 1908, humans have been fixing nitrogen from the air into ammonia, which can be used to produce fertilizer for plants. In the US over eighty million tons of fertilizer is applied yearly, while only seventeen million tons of it is used by the plants to produce food. The rest is leached into stream systems and the ground water supply. The Green Revolution in the 1960’s which enhanced food crop growth around the world has caused its own disruption in the nitrogen cycle. The majority of these plants have lost fifty percent of their nitrogen use efficiency in the last fifty years. It also spread the agricultural practice of excessive fertilizer application throughout the world.

The seepage of unused ammonia-based nitrogen from the soil accumulates in rivers and ground water. Many rivers across the US are saturated with nitrogen, and can no longer perform the natural process of de-nitrification to restore it into safe atmospheric molecules. It also promotes algal blooms which can clog slow-moving streams and rivers, produce neurotoxins and toxic blooms, and have created over 400 oceanic dead zones worldwide. The dead zones have depleted oxygen levels, killing fish and marine life around the mouths of the world’s rivers.

Invasive species also seem to thrive and out-perform native species in riparian and estuarine habitats where nitrogen run-off is high. Scientists are predicting that the global use of nitrogen fertilizers on farmland to double by 2050 at 220 million tons per year. This is six times the safe threshold, and they recommend that nitrogen releases into the environment should be significantly slashed to 35 million tons. With the earth’s natural nitrogen process already saturated, the oceans are becoming acidified by nitrates and nitrites from fertilizer run-off. The same molecules in the air have created world- wide acid rain and combined with chlorine and fluorine in ozone depletion.

GMO Solution

Some scientists have suggested a second green revolution, where crops will be genetically modified to increase nitrogen fixation from the soil, and nitrogen usage within the plants. Genetically Modified Organisms are monitored by most countries around the world, and only some species have been approved for human consumption, but some are pushing for more studies to increase species modifications and increase their human market. On the molecular level, generally, one gene is cut and replaced by a synthetically designed gene selected to produce a wanted trait such as an insecticidal property, pesticide resistance or nitrogen fixation.

However, problems have already arisen in approved GMO crops, and in GMO practices in underdeveloped countries. In the US, pharmaceutical and chemical companies are involved in GM seed production, and lobby the Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture heavily. There have been documentations of insecticidal resistance developed by targeted insect larvae across the US, and documentations of a transfer of herbicidal resistant transgenes from GM oilseed rape crop to the bacteria residing in the gut of honeybees.

In 2000, a livestock approved GM corn crop named Starlink, was accidentally shipped to a human corn processing plant where it went into the food supply as Taco Bell taco shells, Tostito corn chips, various corn flakes and corn syrups. The Bt toxin produced by the livestock corn resembles the molecules in baker’s yeast and some vegetables. Human allergic reactions were reported nation-wide, and large amounts of corn products were recalled.

Biologists, Conservationists, Organic gardeners, and Heritage Seed gardeners fear that GM crops threaten plant integrity and biodiversity. Since plants have polyploidy traits, organic gardeners and environmentalists are concerned that GM transgenes will be transferred to organic crops, producing food that may be lethal to beneficial insects, or that continues to produce toxins after harvesting. Heritage Gardeners feel transgene transfer can wipe out seed banks that are hundreds of years old, and biologists feel that pesticide resistant qualities can be transferred to weeds and invasive species.

In Africa, human rights groups and environmental groups claim that GM seed companies and African governments increase farmer poverty. While in areas such as the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa where sustainable, organic farming is taught by environmental justice groups, and practiced by villages of farmers, other farmers are given free GM seeds from the South African Department of Agriculture. The organic farmers are able to generate and keep seeds from season to season, while GM farmers’ crops are usually sterile, or they are prohibited and prosecuted for reusing fertile seeds produced by GM crops. The GM farmers, however, must take loans from banks to pay for the insecticides and pesticides provided by the GM seed companies, and many lose their land to the banks because they spend too much on chemicals. Organic farmers, however have good soils and keep seed banks from year to year.

Ancestral Genes Model

AGM is another type of DNA Recombinant modification, however, botanists performing AGM studies claim it enhances conventional breeding methods. The link to conventional breeding is that only the crop’s ancestrally related plants are studied for wanted characteristics such as natural insect resistance, nitrogen usage, or nitrogen fixation. The crop is bred with its genetic relative and hybrid plants are bred to select for fertility qualities. Once fertile plants with the wanted trait are produced from the cross, DNA assays are run to find the genes responsible for the trait. Those genes are then cut, reproduced in bacterial hosts, and used in DNA Recombinant modifications to transfer those selected genes to the original crop.

GM modification is done with genes from bacteria, fungus, and non-related plant species, and usually focuses on one gene in the plant. Insects quickly evolve a resistance to the single gene modification, and single transgenes are more easily transferred to other plants. Since natural plant traits are usually multi-allele, insects do not overcome toxins in nature, and multi-alleles are less likely to be completely transferred to another plant species, especially if genes are used from only related plants.

Other Alternatives

Humans need to improve agricultural practices and farm management around the world, and especially in the agriculturally productive United States. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of Ontario gives farmers a checklist of what they can do to improve nitrogen management practices:

1. Reduce total nitrogen loading – use available manure before purchasing off-farm sources

2. Prevent run-off from manure or other nutrient material – store manure properly until it is ready to be applied.

3. Manage fields to avoid excess nitrogen leaching.
-know soil types and where leaching will occur
-test nitrogen in soil and only match per crop needs
-split fertilizer applications
-practice crop rotation
-establish after-season cover crops to tie-up excess nitrogen in soil at the end of the growing season

4. Manage nutrient application –
-practice timely tilling and incorporate manure into soil
-avoid applying manure near surface water or on steep slopes
-keep application rates low
-establish buffers and erosion control to filter run-off before it enters surface water

Other ways to increase nitrogen fixation from the soil is to inoculate crop seeds or roots with nitrogen fixing rhizobacteria. These external bacteria increase surface area of roots, and fix nitrogen in soil into usable forms for the crop. During the off season, nitrogen-fixing soys and legumes can be planted as cover crop. The cover crop can be tilled just before flowering to maximize ammonia gain in the soil.