GM-resistant corn rootworm: getting the facts straight

guest blog

by Robert Wager

The segment GM-Resistant Rootworms and the Future of Farming was aired on May 29th on CBC’s The Current. The program reviewed a particular type of genetically modified crop – Bt corn – and how it has performed over time. The program had several guest speakers with differing points of view.  It was an interesting program overall, but there were a few keys facts missing:

  1. GM-resistant corn rootworms have been found in less than 1% of US corn fields so the context/scale of the problem was not made clear on the program (for more on this see the Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division (BPPD) IRM team’s review of Monsanto’s Cry3Bb1 resistance monitoring data (EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0922-0037) (2010), Table 2).
  2. Integrated pest management (IPM) can include organic production methods if they are deemed best for a given farming situation. The suggestion that IPM is separate from organic farming is simply not true.
  3. The suggestion that only organic farming practices enhance soil ecology is blatantly false.  The National Academy of Science 2010 report, Impact of GE crops on farm Sustainability in the US stated farmers who have adopted GE crop technology have seen “substantial economic and environmental benefits.”  The organic farmer spokesperson on the program ignores this fact.  A good example is the well documented soil enhancements that are made possible with reduced/no tillage farming that Roundup Ready crops permit.  Tilling for weeds (the organic option) is quite destructive to soil structure.
  4. Organic agriculture is not chemical free. They use a different set of chemicals (coppers, sulfates). The environmental impact quotient (EIQ) for some of the organic alternatives is far higher (more negative impact on the environment) than conventional or biotechnology counterparts.
  5. The significant yield drag for organic agriculture is not mentioned by the organic production advocate.  On average decades of research show a 15-30% yield reduction for organic crop production (see Alex Avery’s book The Truth About Organic Foods (2006)).  This would have a very significant impact on food prices and farmer incomes.
  6. There was no mention that organic agriculture use the same Bt that was the main topic of the show. Organic crop advocates often vilify Bt in GM crops and then use the very same Bt in their own agricultural practices.  Where was that fact in the discussion?
rootworm damage NDSU

Source: North Dakota State U http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/

Having outlined a few shortcomings of the show’s content, I would like to congratulate the panel on the The Current’s program for shedding light on the need for better IPM practices in farming.  No one system of agriculture will solve all of the problems inherent in food production.  The world will need to double food production by 2050 and for that we require many systems of agricultural production in order to address the challenge.

Robert Wager
Vancouver Island University
Nanaimo BC
robert.wager@viu.ca

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rob wager 1

Robert Wager has been a faculty member of the Biology Dept at Vancouver Island University for the past 18 years.  He has a BSc. in Microbiology and a Masters in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.  Rob has been interested in Genetically Modified (GM) crops and food with emphasis on public education and public policy.  He has written dozens of mainstream articles for the general public that help explain different aspects of the technology.  You can follow Rob on Twitter @RobetWager1 or review his work at: http://web.viu.ca/wager

The Triffid Flax Story: growers’ perspective (plus more)

Over the past couple of years, I have been working with the TUFGEN group (Total Utilization of Flax Genomics) at the University of Saskatchewan.  As the social scientist on the team, I was tasked with (among other things) exploring the Triffid issue that came up in 2009. So, I joined forces with the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission and together we hosted a focus group, administered a flax grower survey and conducted one-on-one interviews with industry stakeholders.  We were able to, in almost real-time, document the Triffid issue from 2009 up until present. Our findings have been published in an article in the AgBioForum journal. A background to the story and a summary of our findings are outlined below.

Background: Triffid flax was developed in the late 1980s at the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and was designed to thrive in soil containing residues from sulfonylurea-type herbices (good weed control option).  It received both feed and food regulatory approval in Canada and the US by the late 1990s.  However, negative consumer response to genetic modified crops in the EU (major flax export market) forced the Canadian flax industry to make a tough decision.  Triffid was voluntarily removed from the market. In fact, it was never even commercially grown.  Done deal, right? Nope. In 2009, Triffid flax was discovered in baking products in the EU food chain.  As you can imagine, this threw the Canadian industry into a whirlwind… “A winter of discontent turned into the perfect storm of all that can go wrong…”

Findings:

1. Wide spread low-level presence of Triffid flax across the Canadian growing belt is likely multifaceted and due to a) persistence of the variety (in fields where growers did not rotate for three years and in seed mixing/movement by equipment) and in the b) dispersal of the variety (flax seed ‘sticks’ when wet or dry).

2. Exports of flax into the EU food market (Canada’s major export market for flax) has NOT resumed but Canada is meeting exports there for industrial use.  Russia and the Ukraine have stepped up production and are filling the gaps in the EU food market.

3. Although prices have recovered to some degree and a certain amount of complacency has settled in, the Triffid situation has left some flax growers very frustrated. Particularly with the costs associated with ongoing testing (which continues according to the agreement between Canada and the EU).

4. Costs to the Canadian industry, although difficult to estimate, total CDN $30 Million. This includes demurrage, testing, segregation and other costs. The EU industry sustained ~ CDN $50 million.

This story is documented (yes, ‘academically’ in journal format – but not too difficult of a read) in pdf format here (Ryan and Smyth Triffid 2012).  A link to the article in the online journal AgBioForum (“Economic Implications of Low-level Presence in a Zero-Tolerance European Import Market: The Case of Canadian Triffid Flax” Ryan and Smyth) is here: http://www.agbioforum.org/v15n1/v15n1a03-ryan.htm. We worked with the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission and with the other industry organizations to pull this story together.  A huge component of our work revolved around a ‘farmer survey’. The article includes very passionate quotes from Canadian farmers.

I would love to hear your comments! This represents an interesting turn in Canada’s agricultural history.  I was happy to be part of the team effort to get this story out!

Slide presentation on this work available on the SaskFlax website: http://www.saskflax.com/PDFs/2012/10_2012_CamiRyan.pdf

– – – –

We (Stuart Smyth and I) are grateful for the support of The Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission, Flax Council of Canada, our colleagues at TUFGEN and in the Department of Bioresource Policy, Business and Economics at the U of S and the Canadian Agricultural Adaption Program (CAAP) and Agricultural Council of Saskatchewan, Inc. for funding.

Organic food not safer than conventional

January 7, 2012

Hey all! 

Check out Rob Wager’s and my opinion piece that was published in the Western Producer this week.  

“We cannot continue to assume that organic is the more superior food choice or agricultural practice. The process of bringing food from the farm to the fork is more complex than that.”

Untitled

http://www.producer.com/2012/01/organic-food-not-safer-than-conventional/

Swiss consumers & choice…study with organic, conventional, GMO food

November 15, 2011

Here is a peer reviewed journal article in Food Policy (August 2011) outlining the results of a study exploring consumer choice about productsproduced through different ag production methods.

 How would Swiss consumers decide if they had freedom of choice? Evidence from a field study with organic, conventional and GM corn bread

Authors: Philipp Aerni, Joachim Scholderer, David Ermen

EXCERPT: “The results of the discrete choice analysis revealed that customers are price sensitive, but not to the extent expected. 20.1% of the customers bought a GM corn bread even if it was as expensive as its organic alternative. The analysis of the questionnaire results confirmed that ‘curiosity’ rather than the price was the primary reason for buying a GM corn bread. Another reason may also be related to lifestyle conflicts in front of the market stand. On the one hand, people express a clear preference for organic and are willing to pay a premium for it, on the other hand they welcome personal initiative by local people to sell something new at open market stands – even if this new thing is a GM corn bread.”

ABSTRACT: In 2005, the Swiss expressed their negative attitude towards genetic engineering in agriculture by voting in favor of a ban to use genetically modified (GM) crops in domestic agriculture. At the same time, certain GM food products remain approved but are not on offer since retailers assume that consumers would shun labeled GM food. In our study we tested this claim by conducting a large-scale field study with Swiss consumers. In our experimental design, three clearly labeled types of corn bread were offered at five different market stands across the French and German-speaking part of Switzerland: one made with organic, one made with conventional, and one made with genetically modified (GM) corn. In addition, we tested the consistency between purchasing decision at the market stand and the previous voting decision on GMOs in 2005 by means of an ex-post questionnaire. The results of our discrete choice analysis show that Swiss consumers treat GM foods just like any other type of novel food. We conclude from our findings that consumers tend to appreciate transparency and freedom of choice even if one of the offered product types is labeled as containing a genetically modified ingredient. Retailers should allow consumers to make their own choice and accept the fact that not all people appear to be afraid of GM food.

 

McHughen and Wager address misconceptions around ag biotech

December 9, 2010

Here is a great article to follow up from what transpired on the Dr. Oz  show this week.  Alan McHughen and Robert Wager co-author an article in the December 2010 issue of New Biotechnology entitled “Popular misconceptions: agricultural biotechnology”.  I have attached the article here and I think that the Open Source Gods will shine favourably down on me for that (even if the journal doesn’t).  Without going into detail, the article explains and refutes some of the most popular misconceptions around agricultural biotechnology.

Dr. Pam Ronald was a guest on the Oz episode which covered the issue of GE tech and food earlier this week.  Dr. Ronald did a fantastic job of representing the science of biotechnology but unfortunately she had difficulty competing with the sexy soundbytes of anti-GE sentiments parlayed by “Seeds of Deception” author J. Smith.  If that wasn’t enough, I was frustrated by Dr. Oz’s apparent bias against GE technology and GMO food – and I quote:

“…and this organic cereal contains no genetically modified seeds or products so that is an advantage…”

??!!!

Back to the McHughen/Wager article…. the authors state:

“Popular misconceptions might be considered amusing if they are held only by a small ‘fringe’ group. But sometimes the misinformation and fear can become infectious and pathogenic, instigating bad public policy, with substantial negative consequences to everyone.”

I think that Dr. Oz should have a read, don’t you? (see article attached below)

I refer to some other online sources relating to the Dr. Oz show and Dr. Ronald’s appearance on it:

Dr.Ronald’s follow up to her appearance on the show: http://scienceblogs.com/tomorrowstable/

Want some GOOD, BALANCED information? Here are some sources: bioforitifed,org, ucbiotech.org and academicsreview.org

mchughen_etal_popular_misconceptions_about_ag_biotech.pdf
Download this file

What’s wrong with GM food?

Fussy Eaters – What’s Wrong With GM Food?
– Jonathan Jones. BBC, July 6, 2010

With the world’s food security facing a looming “perfect storm”, GM food crops need to be part of the solution, argues Professor Jonathan Jones. In this week’s Green Room, he wonders why there is such a fuss about biotechnology when it can help deliver a sustainable global food system. (In the US, where many processed foods contain ingredients derived from GM maize or soy, in the most litigious society in history, nobody has sued for a GM health problem)

A billion humans do not have enough to eat. Water resources are limited, energy costs are rising, the cultivatable land is already mostly cultivated, and climate change could hit productive areas hard. We need a sustainable intensification of agriculture to increase production by 50% by 2030 – but how?

Food security requires solutions to many diverse problems. In the US or Europe, improved seeds could increase yields by 10% or more, reduce pesticide use and give “more crop per drop”.

However, improved seeds can only help impoverished African farmers if they also have reliable water supply, roads to take crops to market, and (probably most important) fertiliser. Better farming methods are also part of the solution; these require investment in technology and people. Fortunately, after 25 years of “food complacency”, policymakers are taking the issue seriously again.

I want to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture while maintaining food supply. The best thing we can do is cultivate less land, leaving more for wildlife, but if we are still to produce enough food, yields must go up. There are many contributors to yield; water, fertiliser, farming practice, and choice of seed.

‘Simple method’
We can improve crop variety performance by both plant breeding (which gets better every year with new genetic methods), and by genetic modification (GM).
Ouch; yuck – GM. Did you recoil from those letters? Why? I started making GM plants (petunias, as it happens) in 1983, working at a long defunct agbiotech company in California called Advanced Genetic Sciences.

In the early 80s, we did wonder about – in Rumfeldspeak – “unknown unknowns; the unknowns we didn’t know we didn’t know about”, but 27 years later, nothing alarming has been seen. The method (GM is a method not a thing) is simple.

We take a plant, which typically carries about 30,000 genes, and add a few additional genes that confer insect resistance, or herbicide resistance, or disease resistance, or more efficient water use, or improved human nutrition, or less polluting effluent from animals that eat the grain, or more efficient fertiliser uptake, or increased yield. We could even (heck, why not?) do all of the above to the same plant.

The result is increased yield, decreased agrochemical use and reduced environmental impact of agriculture. In commercial GM, many hundreds of independent introductions of the desired new gene (the “transgene”) are made, each in a different individual plant that is selected and tested. Most lines are discarded. To be commercialised, a line must carry a simple, stable and well-defined gene insertion, and show heritable and effective transgene function, with no deleterious effects on the plant.

Growing demand
GM is the most rapidly adopted, benign, effective new technology for agriculture in my lifetime. Fourteen million farmers grow GM crops on 135 million hectares; these numbers increased by about 10% per year over the past decade, and this rate of growth continues. More than 200,000 tonnes of insecticide have not been applied, thanks to built-in insect resistance in Bt crops; how could anyone think that’s a bad thing?

Bt maize is safer to eat because of lower levels of mycotoxins from fungi that enter the plant’s grains via the holes made by corn-borer feeding; no insects, no holes, no fungal entry, no toxins in our food. There are not enough fish in the sea to provide us all with enough omega 3 fatty acids in our diet, but we can now modify oilseeds to make this nutrient in crops on land.

Protection from rootworm means maize crops capture more water and fertiliser, so less is wasted. Farmers must always control weeds; herbicide tolerant (HT) soy makes this easier, and has enabled replacement of water-polluting persistent herbicides with the more benign and rapidly inactivated glyphosate. HT soy has enabled wider low-till agriculture, reducing CO2 emissions.

And yet in Europe, we seem stuck in a time warp. Worldwide, 135 million hectares of GM crops have been planted; yet in Norfolk, I needed to spend £30,000 of taxpayers’ money to provide security for a field experiment with 192 potato plants, carrying one or another of a disease resistance gene from a wild relative of potato. It boggles the mind. What are people afraid of?

‘Wishful thinking’
Some fear the domination of the seed industry by multinationals, particularly Monsanto.
We need smart, sustainable, sensitive science and technology, and we need to use every tool in our toolbox, including GM Monsanto is certainly the most determined and successful agbiotech company. In their view, they had to be; they bet the company on agbiotech because unlike their rivals (who also sell nylon or agrichemicals) they had nothing else to fall back on.

But monopoly is bad for everyone. Here’s a part solution; deregulate GM. If it costs more than $20m (£13m) to get regulatory approval for one transgene, lots of little GM-based solutions to lots of problems will be too expensive and therefore not deployed, and the public sector and small start-up companies will not make the contribution they could. Never before has such excessive regulation been created in response to (still) purely hypothetical risks.

The cost of this regulation – demanded by green campaigners – has bolstered the monopoly of the multinationals. This is a massive own-goal and has postponed the benefits to the environment and to us all.

Some fear GM food is bad for health. There are no data that support this view. In the US, where many processed foods contain ingredients derived from GM maize or soy, in the most litigious society in history, nobody has sued for a GM health problem.

Some fear GM is bad for the environment. But in agriculture, idealism does not solve problems. Farmers need “least bad” solutions; they do not have the luxury of insisting on utopian solutions.

It is less bad to control weeds with a rapidly inactivated herbicide after the crop germinates, than to apply more persistent chemicals beforehand. It is less bad to have the plant make its own insecticidal protein, than to spray insecticides. It is better to maximise the productivity of arable land via all kinds of sustainable intensification, than to require more land under the plough because of reduced yields.

Some say GM is high risk, but they cannot tell you what the risk is. Some say GM is causing deforestation in Brazil, even though if yields were less, more deforestation would be required to meet Chinese and European demand for animal feed.

Some say we do not need GM blight resistant potatoes to solve the £3.5bn per year problem of potato blight, because blight resistant varieties have been bred. But if these varieties are so wonderful, how come farmers spend £500 per hectare on spraying to protect blight sensitive varieties? The answer is the market demands varieties such as Maris Piper, so we need to make them blight resistant.

I used to be a member of a green campaign group. They still have campaigns I support (sustainable fishing, save the rainforests, fight climate change), but on GM, they are simply wrong.

Even activists of impeccable green credentials, such as Stewart Brand, see the benefits of GM. Wishful thinking will not feed the planet without destroying it. Instead, we need smart, sustainable, sensitive science and technology, and we need to use every tool in our toolbox, including GM.

—-
Professor Jonathan Jones is senior scientist for The Sainsbury Laboratory, based at the John Innes Centre, a research centre in plant and microbial science

Full article and readers comments at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8789279.stm

Accurate GM testing: important to know how many samples are being tested but also how they have been taken

Demand growing for accurate GM testing

T. V. Padma

7 July 2010
Sci.Dev.Net

“Countries worldwide are increasingly calling for reliable and comparable testing and approval processes, which are difficult to achieve, experts said at the meeting.

“The theory of GMO testing has been developed but its actual practice is proving to be challenging,” Guy van den Eede, a researcher at the EU’s Joint Research Council, told /SciDev.Net/.

Claudia Paoletti, a senior scientist at the GMO unit of the European Food Safety Authority, said that more research is needed on the genetic variations that can occur within samples of specific GM products, which requires complicated sampling protocols which themselves create various sampling errors.”

Full article at:
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/demand-growing-for-accurate-gm-testing.html?utm…

Judging the Facts About Biotechnology – a producer’s perspective

Truth_about_trade_label

Judging the Facts About Biotechnology
– Reg Clause, AgWeb, June 25, 2010
http://www.agweb.com (Jefferson, IA – Board member, Truth About Trade & Technology)

In the Supreme Court’s first-ever ruling on genetically modified crops, the justices issued a resounding decision in favor of biotechnology. The Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s decision to impose a nationwide ban on GM alfalfa.

The Supreme Court is famous for its 5-4 split decisions, especially in cases that generate political controversy. The alfalfa ruling, however, was no nail-biter. The justices ruled 7-1 in favor of biotechnology.

The case marks a clear victory for American farmer choice in the matter of biotech seed. It affirms the idea that relevant government agencies and regulators set the rules that govern agriculture – and those rules must be science-based. The United States has benefited since its founding from a process of lawmaking and regulatory rules making. When this is subverted by finding friendly courts or endlessly clogging our processes with frivolous suits, nobody benefits except the very narrow interest groups who happen to oppose progress.

Technically, the ruling in Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms was procedural. Important legal and regulatory decisions lie ahead as the Department of Agriculture finishes an environmental assessment of GM alfalfa. Farmers like myself agree with a robust and continuous process that assures me and all Americans that our food is safe and always available.

Yet the case also sets farmers on a course that may allow them to take full advantage of what GM alfalfa has to offer and opens up the possibility for plantings to begin within a few months.

Those opposing biotechnology obviously were hoping for a different result. For them, resorting to litigation was a desperate maneuver. They’ve lost significant battles over GM crops in just about every other arena.

Farmers across the country are adopting and planting GM crops as soon as they become available because the value is there in improved productivity and quality. This spring marks the 15th year that biotech crops are being planted in the U.S. Today, the vast majority of corn, soybeans, and cotton are genetically enhanced to fight weeds and bugs. The broader public has responded favorably as well, especially when there is objective information provided. Of course the public might be against GM seed if they are told there might be a problem. That’s why I’m writing this article. I haven’t seen these problems, research scientist inside and outside the industry haven’t been able to show these problems and our regulators didn’t find these supposed problems. The American people need to know that. Let’s put some trust but verify into action on this important subject and question those who oppose important new things, “just because.”

As a farmer I do not take more risk than I can justify. My legacy is my farm and the young people I leave to farm it. When I see the decades of regulatory research into biotech seeds and the billions of acres planted over the years, I simply ask a question. When there are no negative outcomes in the environment or human health discovered after so many years, is there not a point when those fearful of biotechnology can admit there is no longer need to just fear? I want the regulatory functions to go on and get better if anything, but simply stopping progress with the courts is not a way to facilitate proper research and rules development.

Science also has come down solidly on the side of biotechnology. Research has shown that these plants pose no threat to anybody and may even enhance human health as new traits that improve nutrition become available. On the environmental front, GM crops have let farmers adopt no-till methods that fight soil erosion. Gains in yield allow farmers to produce more food on each acre of land, thereby reducing the pressure on wilderness areas.

The anti-biotech activists are applying a cynical approach to science, technology, and food production by hiring lawyers and seeking out friendly court venues. Yet these professional rabble-rousers have a lot invested in their litigious scheme. The Supreme Court’s decision probably isn’t enough to make them abandon it completely. Even if they don’t win on alfalfa, they’ll try to win on sugar beets–another important crop that they are attempting to thwart.

The good news is that the Supreme Court’s ruling will make it harder for them to succeed. My goal in farming is to improve the environment in my care and provide ever safer food for Americans and the world.

All across our land I hope for us to all come together around achievable goals like mine. If there are legitimate objections to the adoption of new farming tools such as biotech seeds, I’m waiting to hear them and would want to see such objections thoroughly handled. Right now the objections appear to come without merit attached. So sayeth our Supreme Court.

 

Why our fears don’t always match the facts… looking at GM Salmon

How Risky Is It, Really? – Why our fears don’t always match the facts

– David Ropeik, Psychology Today, June 28, 2010
http://www.psychologytoday.com
‘Uh, Oh. FrankenSalmon! Why is genetically modified food so scary?’

The psychology of risk perception is really powerful when it concerns food. Imagine sitting down to a lovely meal of grilled salmon, firm, moist, delicious—-
and genetically engineered. Does that sound different than firm, moist, delicious wild salmon? Or firm, moist, delicious farm-raised salmon? Probably. But why. Salmon is salmon is salmon right?

Well, no, you might say. With genetic engineering there might be a gene in there from a peanut or a potato or a pig. They can mix anything they want together these days. What if I told you that the only genes in the entire salmon, are salmon genes. The genetic engineering just took genes from one species that matures faster, the Chinook, and put them in the Atlantic salmon which people like to eat and which can be farm-raised and mass produced, so the salmon grows to its normal size faster. (They also put in a gene from a salmon relative, the ocean pout, to turn the Chinook growth gene on.)

But wait, you say. There was nothing on the label that said it was genetically engineered. That’s because the Food and Drug Administration long ago ruled that food that is the same after genetic engineering as it was before is, well, the same, so it doesn’t have to be labeled as different. It’s like milk produced from cows injected with Bovine Growth Hormone, the natural hormone from cows that stimulates milk production. Put more BGH in the cow and you get more milk, but the milk is the same milk. Well, this is the same salmon.

But wait, you say. These genetically engineered salmon could interbreed with wild salmon, and then humans are messing with nature. To avoid just that problem, the genetically engineered salmon will only be sold as eggs, to companies that breed their salmon in inland tanks. Oh, and the eggs will produce females that are sterile.

But wait, you say. The government won’t release all the documents on how this genetically engineered fish is being produced. The FDA says that’s because it regulates genetic modification of food the same way it regulates new pharmaceuticals. To protect companies that invest billions developing new drugs, trade secrets are kept secret. (So are the formula for Coke and the recipe for Thomas’s English Muffins, by the way, and we eat those industrially produced foods.)

That’s a lot of “Yeah, buts—” before you finally dig into the salmon, albeit hesitantly. What’s all the hesitation about? Do you know all you need to know about how genetic engineering is done to make a fully informed rational choice about this perceived risk? No? Do you have all the time to go learn up on it, or all the background knowledge and smarts you’ll need to understand all that science? Nope. Then, if we’re talking about a judgment that is not purely rational, i.e. purely fact-based, where do these fears come from?

The perception of genetically modified food is like the perception of any risk, a combination of the facts and how those facts feel, a mix of reason and gut reaction. GM food has several unique characteristics that psychologists have determined make some things feel scarier than others. It’s human-made, and that alone makes it scarier than a risk that’s natural. We’re more afraid of what we can’t detect ourselves, what we don’t understand, and what we’re exposed to involuntarily (remember your complaint about no labels?). We depend on the government to keep us safe, but we don’t completely trust the government, and that lack of trust feeds greater worry (ergo the complaints about secrets).

None of this has anything to do with the fact that the genetically modified salmon is 100% salmon, just grown up faster. But the psychological lenses of risk perception ,through which we filter what information we do have, mean that genetically modified food that is essentially identical to the natural kind, which offers the promise of more sustainable production of more protein at less cost, is going to bump up against resistance from people who, as we all do to some degree, just naturally worry about risks that are human-made, hard to understand, invisible and undetectable, imposed on us, and that a not-completely trusted bureaucracy is supposed to protect us from.

The opponents will argue all those facts that you just argued a few moments ago, but it will be their (our) underlying perception psychology doing the talking. It will be interesting, a few years from now, to listen in on the conversation they have with friends who invite them for dinner, and serve salmon.

————–

How Risk Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Match the Facts

– new book by David Ropeik, Hardcover: 288 pages, McGraw-Hill; February 8, 2010 * ISBN-10: 0071629696, Amazon.com $16.47

International risk expert David Ropeik takes an in-depth look at our perceptions of risk and explains the hidden factors that make us unnecessarily afraid of relatively small threats and not afraid enough of some really big ones. This read is a comprehensive, accessible, and entertaining mixture of what’s been discovered about how and why we fear-too much or too little. It brings into focus the danger of The Perception Gap: when our fears don’t match the facts, and we make choices that create additional risks.

This book will not decide for you what is really risky and what isn’t. That’s up to you. HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY? will tell you how you make those decisions. Understanding how we perceive risk is the first step toward making wiser and healthier choices for ourselves as individuals and for society as a whole.

David Ropeik is an international consultant and widely sought-after public speaker on risk perception and risk communication. Ropeik is an instructor at the Harvard University Extension School’s Environmental Management Program and taught risk perception and risk communication at Harvard School of Public Heath

How_risky_is_it_really

ESFA Meet on on environmental risk assessment of GM plants

The following is an article from SeedQuest  on the  outcomes of the recent meetings of EFSA around  environmental risk assessments and GM plants.  Attached are several supporting documents including: public consultation and scientific opinion docs and  reports from stakeholder meetings in December of 2009.

 

SeedQuest

http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=7935&id_region=&id_category=1&id_crop=

Berlin, Germany
June 17, 2010

Webcast of the meeting – http://www.flyonthewall.com/FlyBroadcast/efsa.europa.eu/TechnicalMeeting0610/index.php?language=english&stream=wmv

EFSA scientists held a day of discussions with experts from Member States on the newest scientific developments and approaches to assess possible environmental risks from genetically modified (GM) plants. Experts in the field of environmental risk assessment of GM plants from Member State authorities and members of GMO Panel Working Groups reviewed a guidance document outlining how EFSA carries out its environmental risk assessment (ERA) of GM plants and the data requirements which must be met by applicants.

Participants at the technical meeting held in Berlin discussed comments made by Member States following a public consultation on the draft EFSA guidance document as well as a draft scientific opinion addressing the specific issue of non-target organisms (NTOs)[1]. The meeting was webcastlive on EFSA’s website.

EFSA’s GMO Panel continuously seeks to ensure that its risk assessment approach reflects the scientific state-of-the-art in its guidance to applicants It regularly reviews all its guidance documents on GM plants with updates made in 2005, 2006 and 2008. Since 2007, the GMO Panel has been further developing and strengthening its environmental risk assessment (ERA) which is now the subject of the separate guidance document discussed in Berlin. This focuses on potential long-term environmental effects, the potential effects on non-target organisms, and criteria for setting up field trials, taking into account the diverse environments where the GM plant will be cultivated.

”The ERA should follow a step-by-step approach, according to the clearly defined framework laid out in the guidance. Each GMO is unique and must be assessed individually. This requires specific evaluation of the plant, its traits, how it will be used and its possible interactions with the receiving environment,” said Professor Salvatore Arpaia, chair of the GMO Panel’s Working Group on Non-Target Organisms.

When carrying out their assessment, independent experts of EFSA’s GMO Panel use their extensive knowledge and wide experience in evaluating the data provided by applicants as well as all other available scientific literature.

More than 250 comments were received from Member States during the public consultation of the draft ERA guidance. At the meeting, EFSA experts explained specific areas which have to be addressed by applicants and experts carrying out the risk assessment. These include: the possibility of gene transfer between the plant and micro-organisms, the potential invasiveness of the plant itself; the plant’s potential effects on: human and animal health, including both target and non-target organisms; and the implications for cultivation, management and harvesting techniques.

With respect to non-target organisms (NTOs), the draft opinion of the GMO Panel sets out proposals on the criteria for the selection of NTOs and advice on testing methodology. EFSA’s Working Group on NTOs considered the impact of GM plants on invertebrates and also took account of ecosystems that could be altered.

This meeting follows technical discussions during the preparation of the ERA and NTO opinions held last year with Member States and stakeholders such as applicants, environmental groups and non-governmental organisations.[2]

EFSA works closely with Member States in the environmental risk assessment of GMOs; for instance, for cultivation applications for GM plants, an initial environmental risk assessment is carried out by one Member State, which can be assisted by and share expertise with other Member States.

EFSA engages in dialogue with Member States and takes into consideration comments they may have.[3] The discussions at the Berlin meeting will help inform EFSA’s GMO Panel and its Working Groups in view of finalising the documents which are due to be adopted and published by November 2010.

All supporting documents of the Berlin meeting will be published on EFSA’s website as will a written report and video recording of the meeting.

Meeting documents

GMO EFSA Public cons doc April 2010.pdf
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GMO EFSA Scientific opinion doc April 2010.pdf
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EFSA Stakeholder2009.12.18_meeting_report_18June (1).pdf
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EFSA Stakeholder2009-12-18_meeting report 17 June (1).pdf
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EFSA Stakeholder2009 12 18_meeting_report_16June.pdf
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