Genetically modified crops
[20][21][22][23] The legal and regulatory status of GM foods varies by country, with some nations banning or restricting them, and others permitting them with widely differing degrees of regulation.
The first evidence of plant domestication comes from emmer and einkorn wheat found in pre-Pottery Neolithic A villages in Southwest Asia dated about 10,500 to 10,100 BC.
[28] The Fertile Crescent of Western Asia, Egypt, and India were sites of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild.
In 1970 Hamilton Smith's lab discovered restriction enzymes that allowed DNA to be cut at specific places, enabling scientists to isolate genes from an organism's genome.
[39] As not all plant cells were susceptible to infection by A. tumefaciens other methods were developed, including electroporation, micro-injection[40] and particle bombardment with a gene gun (invented in 1987).
[61][62] In research tobacco and Arabidopsis thaliana are the most frequently modified plants, due to well-developed transformation methods, easy propagation and well studied genomes.
Transgenic plants are used to express proteins, like the cry toxins from B. thuringiensis, herbicide-resistant genes, antibodies,[65] and antigens for vaccinations.
[78][79] The CRISPR technique has also been used by Penn State researcher Yinong Yang to modify white button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) to be non-browning,[80] and by DuPont Pioneer to make a new variety of corn.
[89] PG Economics comprehensive 2012 study concluded that GM crops increased farm incomes worldwide by $14 billion in 2010, with over half this total going to farmers in developing countries.
[95] Feed grain usage as a percentage of total crop production is 70% for corn and more than 90% of oil seed meals such as soybeans.
The meta-analysis considered all published English-language examinations of the agronomic and economic impacts between 1995 and March 2014 for three major GM crops: soybean, maize, and cotton.
In March 2022, field test results showed CRISPR-based gene knockout of KRN2 in maize and OsKRN2 in rice increased grain yields by ~10% and ~8% without any detected negative effects.
[115] Gene silencing was used to reduce the expression of polyphenol oxidase (PPO), thus preventing enzymatic browning of the fruit after it has been sliced open.
[131] A genetically modified cassava under development offers lower cyanogen glucosides and enhanced protein and other nutrients (called BioCassava).
Thus, developing crops that could withstand spraying with glyphosate would both reduce environmental and health risks, and give an agricultural edge to the farmer.
[150][151][152] Inserting a bacterial aryloxyalkanoate dioxygenase gene, aad1 makes the corn resistant to 2,4-D.[150][153] The USDA had approved maize and soybeans with the mutation in September 2014.
[155] Significant damage to other non-resistant crops occurred from dicamba formulations intended to reduce volatilization drifting when sprayed on resistant soybeans in 2017.
[157][158] Tobacco, corn, rice and some other crops have been engineered to express genes encoding for insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).
[159][160] The introduction of Bt crops during the period between 1996 and 2005 has been estimated to have reduced the total volume of insecticide active ingredient use in the United States by over 100 thousand tons.
[162] Papaya, potatoes, and squash have been engineered to resist viral pathogens such as cucumber mosaic virus which, despite its name, infects a wide variety of plants.
[175] Syngenta has USDA approval to market a maize trademarked Enogen that has been genetically modified to convert its starch to sugar for ethanol.
[177] Besides with trees, the chemically labile lignin bonds are also very useful for cereal crops such as maize,[178][179] Companies and labs are working on plants that can be used to make bioplastics.
[182] Scientists at the University of York developed a weed (Arabidopsis thaliana) that contains genes from bacteria that could clean TNT and RDX-explosive soil contaminants in 2011.
Despite its toxicity, a considerable fraction of petroleum oil entering marine systems is eliminated by the hydrocarbon-degrading activities of microbial communities.
The transgene was discovered in marine algae, which uses it to gain energy from the blue light that is able to penetrate seawater more effectively than longer wavelengths.
As of September 2013 USDA had received proposals for releasing GM rice, squash, plum, rose, tobacco, flax, and chicory.
The adoption of drought tolerant maize in Ghana was shown to increase yield by more than 150% and boost commercialization intensity, although it did not significantly affect farm income.
[1] According to the 2013 ISAAA brief: "a total of 36 countries (35 + EU-28) have granted regulatory approvals for biotech crops for food and/or feed use and for environmental release or planting since 1994 ... a total of 2,833 regulatory approvals involving 27 GM crops and 336 GM events (NB: an "event" is a specific genetic modification in a specific species) have been issued by authorities, of which 1,321 are for food use (direct use or processing), 918 for feed use (direct use or processing) and 599 for environmental release or planting.
[20][21][22][23] The legal and regulatory status of GM foods varies by country, with some nations banning or restricting them, and others permitting them with widely differing degrees of regulation.
Here, we show that a number of articles some of which have strongly and negatively influenced the public opinion on GM crops and even provoked political actions, such as GMO embargo, share common flaws in the statistical evaluation of the data.
