Is it GM ?

In 2003 an attempt to develop genetically engineered grass ended disastrously for the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. The grass escaped into the wild from test plots in Oregon dooming the chances that the government would approve the product for commercial use. The company nearly shut its biotech program.

Not to be discouraged by such a little lapse Scotts is once again at it developing genetically modified grass that would need less mowing, be a deeper green and be resistant to damage from the popular weedkiller Roundup. But this time the grass will not need federal approval before it can be field-tested and marketed, a new strategy athat created “a stunning array of products that are not regulated.” Scotts and several other companies are developing genetically modified crops using techniques that either are outside the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Department or use new methods — like “genome editing” — that were not envisioned when the regulations were created.

The department has said, for example, that it has no authority over a new herbicide-resistant canola, a corn that would create less pollution from livestock waste, switch grass tailored for biofuel production, and even an ornamental plant that glows in the dark. Companies using the new techniques say that if the methods were not labeled genetic engineering, novel crops could be marketed or grown in Europe and other countries that do not readily accept genetically modified crops.

Companies can get around oversight by avoiding components from plant pests. In Scotts’s newer grasses, for instance, the foreign genetic material comes only from other plants and is inserted with a gene gun rather than by the bacterium.

“If you take genetic material from a plant and it’s not considered a pest, and you don’t use a transformation technology that would sort of violate the rules, there’s a bunch of stuff you can do that at least technically is unregulated,” Jim Hagedorn, Scotts chief executive, told analysts. While Cellectis, are using new genome-editing techniques that can change the plant’s existing DNA rather than insert foreign genes. Cibus, a privately held San Diego company, is beginning to sell herbicide-resistant canola developed this way. “With our technology, we can develop the same traits but in a way that’s not transgenic,” said Peter Beetham, chief executive of Cibus, using a term for a plant containing foreign genes.

Some researchers argue that using genome editing to inactivate a gene in a plant, or to make a tiny change in an existing gene, results in a crop no different from what could be obtained through natural mutations and conventional breeding, though it is achieved more quickly.

 “Those are basically comparable to what you get from conventional breeding,” said Neal Gutterson, vice president for agricultural biotechnology at DuPont Pioneer, a seed company. “We certainly hope that the regulatory agencies recognize that and treat the products accordingly.”

The gene editing, they argue, is also more directed and precise than the existing technique of exposing plants to radiation or chemicals to induce random mutations in hopes of generating a desirable change. This technique has been used for decades and is not regulated, even though it can potentially cause unknown and unintended changes to crops.

Another category is so-called cisgenic crops, which are developed using conventional genetic engineering but with the inserted genes from the same species as the crop. An example is a potato developed by the J. R. Simplot Company that resists bruising and makes a less unhealthy French fry.

“They are using a technical loophole so that what are clearly genetically engineered crops and organisms are escaping regulation,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union. He said the grass “can have all sorts of ecological impact and no one is required to look at it.”

Critics of biotech crops say the genome-editing techniques can make changes in plant DNA other than the intended one. Also, the gene editing is typically done on plant cells or plant tissues growing in a dish. The process of then turning those genetically altered cells or tissues into a full plant can itself induce mutations.

“The technology is always one step ahead of the regulators,” said Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, head of biotechnology research at Syngenta, a seed and agricultural chemical company.

Jennifer Kuzma, co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, said that there would soon be a flood of crops seeking regulatory exemptions and that there needed to be a public discourse about what should be regulated, in part to allay possible consumer anxiety. “It’s not that I think these are risky,” she said of the crops escaping regulation. “But the very fact that this is the route we are taking without any discussion is troubling.”

SOYMB blog shares much of Kuzma’s view that GM may not be a hazard to other crops, animals or ourselves but that responsibility over a process which just possibly could have unintended consequences, no matter how slight the risk, should not rest with those who will profit financially from its production and introduction. We argue that society as a whole must have control of its science and technology.

Taken from here