Saving Healthful Fruits and Vegetables With Biotechnology
June 19, 2002
CHURCHVILLE, VA—One of America’s top pest control experts says biotechnology is likely to save the California wine and grape industry from Pierce’s disease, which is rapidly spreading through Golden State vineyards. He says biotech has already saved the Hawaiian papaya industry from ring spot virus, and developed a virus-resistant raspberry to fend off the bushy dwarf virus.
These are all vital advances, because fruits and vegetables are not only tasty, but offer our best defense against cancer. (The one-fourth of Americans who eat the most produce have half the cancer risk of those who eat the least—whether the fruits and vegetables are organically or conventionally grown.)
Dr. Leonard Gianessi of the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy says the scariest of the new horticultural pests—by far—is a new species of “sharpshooter,” which travels farther and faster than its other insect cousins. Sharpshooters spread the Pierce’s disease bacteria, which clog the water-carrying “arteries” of the grape vines. The disease currently threatens to destroy billions of dollars in crop value and bring tears to the eyes of wine and raisin lovers.
Fortunately, Gianessi points out, biotech helps researchers respond more quickly to Nature’s constant attacks. Grape researchers have already found several sources of potential resistance to Pierce’s disease–including genes from silkworms. Research that might have taken decades with cross-breeding can now be accomplished in a few years.
Dr. Gianessi says biotechnology is also the best bet to save our potato industry. The voracious Colorado potato beetle can no longer be controlled with the ‘safer’ pesticides still on the market, and the potatoes are also under attack from the devastating potato leaf roll virus, spread by aphids. A biotech potato that’s already commercially available controls the beetles, and is resistant to the virus. It is not being grown because processors and fast-food chains fear a consumer backlash would be touched off by environmental activists.
We could be buying sweet corn that doesn’t have earworms—those ugly little worms too often found wriggling inside the husks of sweet corn ears. The insect-resistant biotech sweet corn eliminates the earworms, needs only two insecticide applications instead of 12 per year (in Florida), and gives better yields. You can’t buy it, because the growers fear an eco-activist scare would wipe them out.
America has been invaded by plum pox, a European viral disease of plums, peaches and other “stone fruit.” The outbreak, in Pennsylvania, could spread to other States. In Europe, it already threatens millions of fruit trees. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already genetically engineered a virus-resistant plum tree.
Strawberries are getting harder to grow in America, because few people want to hand-weed strawberry beds. (You crawl across the field in the hot sun on your hands and knees, peering under the berry leaves to pull out the weeds one by one.) Dr. Gianessi says strawberries could be genetically engineered to resist herbicides, as crops such as corn, cotton and soybeans already have been. Then more growers would be encouraged to produce more strawberries at lower prices. The strawberries might also be sweeter and fresher, because they’d be grown closer to where more of us live. (California has had a weeding cost advantage because it’s close to Mexico.)
The bushy dwarf virus that attacks raspberries spreads in pollen, so the only remedy to date has been destroying the infected plants. In 1996, 84 percent of the raspberry fields in northern Washington were infected, and the raspberry bushes now live only five years instead of 15. A research collaboration between the Federal government and industry has developed a virus-resistant raspberry.
Dr. Gianessi says biotechnology is already saving 4 billion pounds of crops per year from pests in the main commodities where they’re being used: corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, papaya and squash. The biotech crops are also reducing pesticide use by about 46 million pounds per year.
He says even larger gains are possible as biotech moves into its other potential roles—especially higher yields from fungus-resistant barley, herbicide-tolerant wheat and sugar cane, and potatoes that resist both viruses and insects. These applications of biotech could eliminate another 28 million pounds per year of harsh soil fumigants, and 14 million pounds of insecticides.
In fruits and vegetables, the biotech approaches could reduce pest losses by 2.5 billion pounds annually, and eliminate another 60 million pounds of pesticide per year.
Why is this not a good idea?
DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute in Indianapolis and the Director of the Center for Global Food Issues. He was formerly a senior policy analyst for the U.S. Department of State. Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421
This article was published by Knight Ridder Tribune
Dennis T. Avery is based in Churchville, Va., and is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis
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