Economist's View: Son of Mr. Green Genes

Genetically engineered crops don't bother me. But they worry some people. Here's an alternative where scientists still identify promising genes in the laboratory, but uses nature rather than scientists to splice the genes together:

Beyond Genetically Modified Crops, by Jeremy Rifkin, Commentary, Washington Post: For years the life science companies -- Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Pioneer Hi-Bred, etc. -- have argued that genetically modified food is the next great scientific and technological revolution in agriculture and the only efficient and cheap way to feed a growing population.... Nongovernmental organizations, including my own, the Foundation on Economic Trends, have been cast as the villains ..., and often categorized as modern versions of the English Luddites, accused of continually blocking scientific and technological progress because of our opposition to genetically modified food.

Now, in an ironic twist, new, cutting-edge technologies have made gene splicing and transgenic crops obsolete... The new frontier is called genomics, and the new agricultural technology is called marker-assisted selection, or MAS. This technology offers a sophisticated method to greatly accelerate classical breeding. A growing number of scientists believe that MAS -- which is already being introduced into the market -- will eventually replace genetically modified food. Moreover, environmental organizations ... are guardedly supportive of MAS technology.

Rapidly accumulating information about crop genomes is allowing scientists to identify genes associated with traits such as yield, and then to scan "crop relatives" for the presence of those genes. Instead of using molecular splicing techniques to transfer a gene from an unrelated species into the genome of a food crop ..., scientists are using MAS to locate desired traits in other varieties of a particular food crop, or its relatives that grow in the wild. Then they cross-breed those related plants with the existing commercial varieties to improve the crop.

With MAS, the breeding of new varieties always remain within a species, thus greatly reducing the risk of environmental harm and potential adverse health effects associated with genetically modified crops. Using MAS, researchers can upgrade classical breeding and reduce by 50 percent or more the time needed to develop new plant varieties by pinpointing appropriate plant partners at the gamete or seedling stage. ...

The wrinkle here is that the continued introduction of genetically modified crops could contaminate existing plant varieties, making the new MAS technology more difficult to use. A 2004 survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that non-genetically modified seeds from three of America's major agricultural crops -- corn, soybeans and canola -- were already "pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences originating in genetically engineered varieties of these crops." Cleaning up contaminated genetic programs could prove to be as troublesome and expensive in the future as cleaning up the viruses that invade software programs.

As MAS technology becomes cheaper and easier to use, and as knowledge in genomics becomes more dispersed and easily available over the next decade, plant breeders around the world will be able to exchange information about "best practices"... Already, plant breeders are talking about "open source" genomics, envisioning the sharing of genes. The struggle between a younger generation of sustainable agriculture enthusiasts anxious to share genetic information and entrenched company scientists determined to maintain control over the world's seed stocks through patent protection is likely to be hard-fought, especially in the developing world. ...

I don't know enough about the underlying science to know whether MAS restricts the types of crops that can be derived relative to laboratory splicing, whether genetic engineering really does threaten MAS technology, or to adequately compare the two techniques generally. So, while it sounds promising, I'm guarded about jumping aboard until I know more, particularly since this group has an agenda to eliminate genetically engineered crops entirely.
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Title note: Mr. Green Jeans ... was the right-hand man to Captain Kangaroo ... on the popular children's television program, Captain Kangaroo. Mr. Green Jeans earned his moniker from his distinctive apparel, a pair of farmer's overalls in his signature green. He was a talented and inquisitive handyman who provided assistance... He frequently visited the Captain with the latest addition to his menagerie of zoo animals.

Mr. Green Jeans was the subject of an urban legend that claimed he was the father of the late musician Frank Zappa. The confusion probably arose from the title of song by Zappa, "Son of Mr. Green Genes", from Zappa's 1969 album, Hot Rats. Zappa was, in fact, the son of Francis Vincent Zappa, Sr.