Ironically, many people condemn corn ethanol as wasteful and environmentally damaging but continue to consume animal products that account for a far higher percentage of the US grain crop – but that’s another story.
So, what are we to do? The planet would breathe a metaphorical (metaphysical?) sigh of relief if each person just ate lower on the food chain a few meals per week (see Nathan’s pictorial presentation Calories in Context). We’ve been told to reduce meat consumption for our health and for the planet, but it seems like no one is listening. Nathan’s response to the environmental degradation associated with animal protein production is to use LCAs to find which types of animal agriculture provide the most return on investment. At his seminar at Iowa State, I asked how his results can be used to influence consumer habits. We talked about possible taxes based on environmental impact so that food prices reflect the actual price to the environment, but we’ll leave that to the economists.
Nathan, along with Peter Tyedmers, wrote about LCAs in Biophysical accounting in aquaculture: insights from current practice and the need for methodological development, which was part of the FAO Fisheries document Comparative assessment of the environmental costs of aquaculture and other food production sectors. One of the most striking tables in the paper was a ranking of foods “by ratio of edible protein energy output to industrial energy inputs” on page 234. Intensive carp farming is by far the most efficient (when done properly, carp is even better than plants), while cultured shrimp grown in Thailand are by far the worst. Pastured beef is better than feedlot beef (barely), and industrial eggs are a terrible waste of inputs. See the full table at the end of this post.
Industrial energy inputs only tell part of the story, though, because they do not consider any negative outputs like waste or negative effects like spread of disease to wild populations. Ecological impact assessments also do not consider many effects. That’s why we need LCAs. According to the paper, LCAs frequently consider the following Impact Categories:

Nathan and Peter have focused on salmon farming, which can greatly benefit from LCAs. Production of feed is the most energy intensive and environmentally damaging aspect of aquaculture (and all animal agriculture). Replacing conventionally grown plant based feed with organic had a little effect, but replacing animal based feed with plant based has a huge effect. Some might say that we should just eat wild salmon instead, but again, the problem is demand. Wild salmon would be extinct if we tried to supply the current demand with them exclusively.
All of the options are complex, but two lessons of LCAs stand firm – reduce or eliminate synthetic nitrogen fertilizer (which can be done at least partially with genetic engineering), and decrease per capita meat consumption.

Dr. Diana Cox Foster of Penn State spoke at Iowa State about her work with CCD. She has been studying bees for 20 years and heads a diverse team of researchers working to solve the mystery. She said that there there are quite a few “theories” that her team disagrees with.

In particular, she said that CCD is not caused by the rapture or the Russians. She puts cell phones and genetically engineered crops in the same category, choosing instead to focus on legitimate leads. She says that there are many reasons why their group is not looking into these as possible causes, but one reason sticks out: some Amish and organic beekeepers whose hives are isolated from genetically engineered crops, many pesticides, and cell phones in the case of the Amish have experienced CCD, while some conventional beekeepers have not.

In other words, there isn’t a common thread connecting colonies that have collapsed.

Despite the fact that scientists like Dr. Cox Foster have spoken on the lack of legitimacy of these theories, people continue to write about them, such as this example from the always creative Global Research. I won’t pick the article apart due to time constraints, but wanted to show the range of views. A lot of mainstream articles have less extreme views, but few if any make an effort to debunk the incorrect theories. Instead, they reinforce them! Karl over at Inoculated Mind has a nice post summarizing some issues with the cell phone and GMO theories that’s over a year old. If only the reporters would research as he did.

There is abundant evidence that the Bt protein Cry1Ab doesn’t affect non-target insects. A meta-analysis from Jan 2008 of 25 independent studies found “that Bt Cry proteins used in genetically modified crops commercialized for control of lepidopteran and coleopteran pests do not negatively affect the survival of either honey bee larvae or adults in laboratory settings.” A meta-analysis from May 2008 of a public database found no significant effect on type or number of arthropods in Bt and non-Bt crops. They did find, as have many others, that various types of insecticides decreases the type and number of arthropods.

A quick lit search did come up with a June 2008 study that showed decreased learning ability in bees that were force fed syrup containing very high concentrations of Bt that are not found in the field. This data might indicate the need for more research on bee physiology, but doesn’t mean that Bt isn’t safe for bees in the field.

Now that we know what it’s not, I’ll share with you what Dr. Cox Foster thinks are the most likely causes and solutions…

An almond grove via Klausesbees (which incidentally may be the same one that Dr. Foster used in her presentation).

First is simple stress. When they are working on a specific crop, bees don’t have many dining options. Instead of having wildflowers or even another crop such as strawberries under the almond trees, the grove is a virtual pollen desert when the trees aren’t in bloom. Other crops used to be grown with hedgerows separating smaller farms, but these have been all but eliminated as farms are consolidated. This type of agriculture is what led to bees being trucked across the country to keep up with crop flowering.

Bees did not evolve in the conditions of being moved from state to state, feeding on one type of plant one day to something entirely different the next. A related problem could be the sugar and corn syrups that bees are fed before the crops bloom, just because bees haven’t evolved with this as a food source. The stress of the move and of the ever changing food sources might be too much to bear. The solution to this would be to have areas set aside for wildflowers that would both encourage natural bee hives and serve as a food source to local cultivated bee colonies when the local crops are out of season.

Second is a combination of mites, viruses, and other diseases. Dr. Cox Foster and her associates have sequenced DNA samples from bee hives and found a variety of surprising things, including Aspergillis fungus and the parasite Leishmania. Israeli virus (IAPV) correctly predicted collapsed hives more than any other factor. The virus is transmitted by Verroa mites (shown here in a photo from the USDA ARS). When bees are stressed, they are especially susceptible to mites which in turn makes them susceptible to disease. Royal jelly from China, used to feed prospective queen bees, was also found to contain IAPV.

Also contributing to susceptibility is the decrease in genetic diversity among bee hives. One possible solution to the problem is breeding or engineering resistant bees. For example, Arizona beekeepers who have Africanized bees haven’t experienced CCD. Another solution is to develop “biocides” which would be like a medicine to help the bees fight off mites and disease. Vaccines aren’t an option because bees don’t have an adaptive immune system. Beekeepers who irradiate box components before placing a hive inside have had some success, because irradiation kills mites and bacteria.

Third is pesticides, less likely, but still under consideration. Researchers found copious residues of miticides (which some beekeepers apply to bees or to boxes) and other pesticides in the bee wax that beekeepers buy and place in new hives. Use of formic acid, considered a natural substance because it is produced by some species of ants, is widespread and may play a role in increasing bee stress and susceptibility to disease. Bees are affected by a wide range of insecticides, which obviously could play a role. However, there is no common pesticide reside in colonies that experience CCD.

Another hive related possibility is a little more difficult to understand and quantify. Some commercial beekeepers try to get a lot out of their hives. One practice that Dr. Cox Foster questions is too-frequent hive “splitting” because it leads to bee stress. I was also able to find some ruminations on the net that the large cell size used by commercial beekeepers to encourage bee growth may also encourage mite infestations, but couldn’t find any actual data on the subject (anyone need a summer project?).

After her presentation, Dr. Cox Foster shared these links that include more information and info on how individuals can help: The Pollinator Partnership, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, and The Status of Pollinators in North America. Another source is the USDA Agricultural Research Service, who has multiple fact sheets, including Colony Collapse Disorder: A Complex Buzz.

One last thing I’d like to share before I end this post – bees are not the only pollinators out there. Of course some aspects of agriculture would have to change if we were no longer able to cart bees across the country, but it wouldn’t be the end of agriculture as some people have said. A Slate article from 2007 called Bee Not Afraid explains. Much of the information in the article matches things that Dr. Cox Foster said in the course of her lecture and in the Q&A session that followed.

We should take from Rachel Carson the hope that her actions conveyed: that great change can come through research, that people do want to know more, and that narrative can bridge the gap. We need not all take on a public role to engage in this process: Carson’s influence came from her ability to synthesize work across many fields, which relied on the willingness of many researchers to take the time and effort to share their findings with her, and explain the significance and the debates. We must support our public intellectuals – question their conclusions, but champion their causes; critique their claims, but provide them with alternative information. We need to communicate our research more clearly, participate in dialogue and explanation, and engage with the issues of our time in collaborative, constructive, critical, and public ways. We have the potential to effect great change, even in the most improbable of cases, and even on the most intractable of problems.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I’m blogging, after all. I share Kate’s optimism, believing that the best way to make our world better is through new collaborations and communication that defies traditional boundaries.
Unfortunately, it seems that the movement started by Rachel Carson has forgotten the science their mentor championed and succumbed to pessimism. A few weeks ago, I flipped through Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson. Many of the essays are appropriate, but some go too far, essentially saying that we should stop many types of research in medicine and agriculture.
Rachel Carson, herself a scientist, conducted a a cost-benefit analysis. She saw that the costs of pesticide overuse and industrial pollution outweighed the benefits, and acted accordingly. I don’t think we can predict what she would think about therapeutic cloning, genetic engineering, or many other technologies that have been developed since she passed. I do think she would have considered carefully, educating herself on the ramifications each would have on ourselves and our natural world.

The United States has the world’s most extensive history of using GE crops and one of the world’s best continentalscale programs in environmental monitoring. Combining these two sources of information
provides an opportunity to lead the world in identifying agricultural pathways for the future that best serve people and the environment. Providing scientists access to data on GE crop use at the county scale is a small and relatively inexpensive step with enormous scientific and public benefits.

** I don’t know if it’s legal for me to post a link to the pdf here. If you know the rules, please fill me in!

“Scientists Worry Over GM Drug Crops“, posted on Environmental Graffiti, briefly covers the news that crops engineered to express pharmaceutical proteins will be field tested this growing season, concentrating on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ reaction. Apparently UCS is taking their typical anti-tech stance, asking the USDA to require all such crops to be grown in greenhouses or underground. I was not able to find any record of UCS’s recent comments.

I’d like to defend myself, as a scientist. I refuse to believe that any scientist or biotech company would purposefully release a dangerous plant into the food supply. Even if you think scientists and biotech companies are unethical, they certainly aren’t stupid. The first company to sell a biotech plant that’s actually dangerous would likely be burnt to the ground by activists before they had time to go bankrupt. While debates over biotech crops continue, no one has ever gotten sick from a GM plant, or any GMO. What I’ve read about proposed biopharma and industrial crops haven’t indicated that this will change.

For example, consider the Amflora potato, developed by BASF. This humble potato will be used to produce starch for industrial applications. Two types of starch are produced in plants naturally: amylose and amylopectin. Amylopectin is the starch that can be used in all sorts of industrial and food applications. Amylose is useful for other purposes, but hinders some of amylopectin’s properties. It must be removed in a process that takes energy, water, and money.

The BASF scientists simply stopped production of the enzyme that makes amylose with an antisense copy of the enzyme’s mRNA. This is the same method used in the tear-free onion. Basically, the antisense copy of the mRNA binds to the natural mRNA for the targeted gene before it can be translated into a protein. It’s very clever because no actual transgenes are needed. More details can be found at BASF and BioPro.

So, what’s the fuss? Pollen spread isn’t an issue because potatoes don’t reproduce by seed, and there are no native potato relatives in Europe for Amflora to “contaminate” anyway. Even if a tuber makes it into the food supply, Amflora potatoes are completely safe to eat, although probably shouldn’t be eaten as a primary food source becasue they don’t have amylose, thus might not be a nutritionally complete carbohydrate. I don’t know of any type of wildlife that exclusively eats potatoes.

Amflora has been ready for years, but still faces regulatory roadblocks in Europe. The European Food Safety Authority declared Amflora potatoes to be safe back in 2005, but the European Commission is just now considering approving it for use, along with four of Monsanto’s insect and herbicide resistant maize varieties. According to Farmers Guardian, “Public health watchdogs and environmental NGOs have voiced concerns, in particular relating to the BASF ‘Amflora’ potato, which contains antibiotic-resistant marker genes. They fear that parts of the potato would be used to feed livestock, ultimately entering the human food chain and subsequently conferring resistance to antibiotics.”

There is absolutely zero evidence that horizontal gene transfer can happen between plants and bacteria in nature. It happens between different bacteria species all the time, but I think we all know that plants are very different from bacteria. It is possible for bacteria to acquire plant genes via horizontal transfer – but only under specially optimized laboratory conditions and when particular genetic “tricks” are used (comment if you’d like more information on the “tricks”). GMO Compass has an excellent article on the safety of antibiotic resistance markers. They explain that two of the most common genes are for resistance to kanamycin and ampicillin. Natural bacteria in the environment already have genes for resistance to these antibiotics in much higher proportions than would ever be expected with horizontal gene transfer from transgenic plants. Regardless, “kanamycin is now rarely prescribed in human medicine. Ampicillin is still used to treat certain infections, but since resistance is so widespread, treatment is usually combined with substances (beta-lactamase inhibitors), which take away the effect of the resistance genes.”

The particular antibiotic resistance gene in Amflora is to kanamycin. I wasn’t able to find statistics on rates of kanamycin proscriptions, but according to a 2007 transcript on the House of Commons website, “there are no licensed products containing kanamycin in the United Kingdom and there are no records of kanamycin having been prescribed in the national health service in the last five years.” Despite all of these facts, Greenpeace and FoE insist that the resistance genes are dangerous. It seems that they would rather have water and energy wasted to extract starch from regular potatoes than back down from their agenda.

The image-rich January 2008 NY Times article “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” covers such issues as the problems of supplying livestock with grain and of disposing of animal waste. Basically, those who are concerned about the environment should consider their “meat footprint”. This article is one of the few (aside from those on vegetarian websites) that emphasizes the link between meat consumption and environmental impact. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) study “Livestock’s Long Shadow” from 2006 was all but ignored, despite the frightening statistics.

So, why do I bring this up now? I recently bought Good, the magazine “for people who give a damn”. I purchased “the food issue” because I’m very interested in why people choose the foods that they eat. Unfortunately, much of the magazine was cheerleading for meat. Apparently, they haven’t read “Livestock’s Long Shadow”. While it’s true that pasture-raised beef is better for the environment (and the animals) than factory-farmed, the writers didn’t bother to state that feeding the world on pasture-raised beef is impossible, given current per-capita meat eating. There just isn’t enough land. They also imply that vegetarianism is not healthy, and that vegetarians should just eat meat already. They have a 4 page spread on “America’s Tastiest Streets” that includes a whopping zero vegetarian items (unless you include fried cheese). It seems like Good might be for “people who give a damn” about justifying their bad-for-the-environment meat-eating habits.

Then, the writers have the audacity to say that “little fish” are going to be the next sushi because they are “ethically preferable”. Tuna, dolphins, and other carnivores of the sea eat those little fish. If tuna are to avoid extinction, they are going to need food. A far better way to sate a desire to eat fish is vat-farmed tilapia.

In their favor, the March/April issue of Good does have an article on Tofurky. I can’t get it in Iowa, but it’s said to be a fine meat substitute. Additional kudos for naming bibimbap as one of the next food crazes (I learned to love it while stationed in Korea). However, offal was also on the list for “The Next Sushi”. Plus, they don’t mention any vegetarian MREs, incorrectly state that all MREs come with Tabasco (sadly, they don’t anymore), and condemn raw food diets in their “What We Eat” article. I’ll keep an eye on their website, but I’ll certainly think twice before buying Good next time I’m in Borders.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Mark Bittman, author of “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” and the wonderful cookbook “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” that encourages people to eat less (but not necessarily zero) meat:

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Ok, that wasn’t really about GMOs at all. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

The rice will reduce fertilizer run off (responsible for oceanic dead zones) and decrease emissions of nitrogen oxide. How does it work? Arcadia’s website isn’t telling all, but I was able to find a paper in the Canadian Journal of Botany: Engineering nitrogen use efficiency with alanine aminotransferase. See the abstract below:

Nitrogen (N) is the most important factor limiting crop productivity worldwide. The ability of plants to acquire N from applied fertilizers is one of the critical steps limiting the efficient use of nitrogen. To improve N use efficiency, genetically modified plants that overexpress alanine aminotransferase (AlaAT) were engineered by introducing a barley AlaAT cDNA driven by a canola root specific promoter (btg26). Compared with wild-type canola, transgenic plants had increased biomass and seed yield both in the laboratory and field under low N conditions, whereas no differences were observed under high N.The transgenics also had increased nitrate influx. These changes resulted in a 40% decrease in the amount of applied nitrogen fertilizer required under field conditions to achieve yields equivalent to wild-type plants.

The first thing I like about their strategy is that they are using a root specific promoter. Plants only absorb nitrogen (N) from their roots, so don’t need N uptake enzymes in other tissues. Even better, the promoter is from the species being transformed so it will presumably work more effectively than a foreign promoter. The researchers chose a barley gene instead of simply using the corresponding rice gene, but there may be a reason that I don’t know about. The protein produced by the gene is one that is native to rice, however, so it is a little closer to cisgenic than transgenic (when compared to bacterial genes and such).
“Alanine aminotransferase (AlaAT) catalyses the reversible transfer of an amino group from glutamate to pyruvate to form 2-oxoglutarate and alanine.” The enzyme is present in virtually all organisms. In plants, AlaAT causes the breakdown of alanine during times of hypoxia (oxygen shortage). “Therefore, AlaAT appears to be crucial for the rapid conversion of alanine to pyruvate during recovery from low-oxygen stress.” [Miyashita et. al.]

So, it sounds like the engineered plants are able to absorb N at a higher rate, and that N goes on along normal pathways to create proteins – resulting in increased yield despite low N concentrations in the soil.

I don’t think I have to go into all of the benefits of using less fertilizer here – but there are many. In short, it will save farmers money while being a huge boon for the environment, and producing more food for growing human populations.

via Grist.

Good, A., Johnson, S., De Pauw, M., Carroll, R., Savidov, N., Vidmar, J., Lu, Z., Taylor, G., & Stroeher, V. (2007). Engineering nitrogen use efficiency with alanine aminotransferase Canadian Journal of Botany, 85 (3), 252-262 DOI: 10.1139/B07-019

Miyashita Y, Dolferus R, Ismond KP, & Good AG (2007). Alanine aminotransferase catalyses the breakdown of alanine after hypoxia in Arabidopsis thaliana. The Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology, 49 (6), 1108-21 PMID: 17319845