GM-free Scotland

News | May '10 | EU to cultivate hot potato

On 2 March 2010, the European Commission (EC) gave its approval for the cultivation of Amflora potatoes.

These novel potatoes have been genetically transformed to produce 'amylopectin' starch for use in industrial processes. Typical uses of amylopectin include the production of paper with a higher gloss, yarn with increased strength, spray concrete with greater adherence, and glue with prolonged liquidity.

Conventional potato starch is a combination of two types: a smaller proportion of simple molecular chains (amylose) and a larger proportion of branched-chain amylopectin. Separating these two is an expensive process in terms of energy, water and the additional raw materials required, but it is only the amylopectin component which is of value to the starch-using industries. Amflora potatoes therefore represent a source of cheap raw material for these industries.

The novel potatoes are not intended for food use, but the waste residues, such as the skins, will be fed to livestock.

Under EU quota rules, the Amflora potatoes may be grown in farms in Germany, Sweden and Netherlands and the Czech Republic, but the UK does not have a quota at present.

The decision to approve cultivation of the Amflora potato was described by one journalist as “proof of the determination of Brussels bureaucrats to spread GM crops throughout Europe, against the will of most of its people” (Geoffrey Lean). When Commissioner Barroso announced the approval, he was met with jeering MEPs holding posters which read “For a GMO-free Europe”. Austria immediately reacted by saying it would ban the cultivation of Amflora, Italy emphasised that “Not only are we against this decision, but we want to underscore that we will not allow the questioning of member states' sovereignty on this matter”, while France is to ask its own expert panel for further research.

Since the GM potatoes are not intended for human consumption, and potatoes in fields are generally not allowed to divert their energies into flowering and setting seed which would spread genetic pollution, what's the objection?

The first, and major, concern is medical: it is the presence in the Amflora potatoes of an antibiotic resistance gene. The artificial gene confers resistance to the aminoglycoside group of antibiotics which include kanamycin, neomycin, butirosin and gentamicin. Science has shown that such genes can transfer from feed into micro-organisms in the digestive tract of animals, and that microbes in livestock infect humans. In such circumstances, the effectiveness of aminoglycoside antibiotics is clearly compromised.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has previously challenged the use of such antibiotic resistance genes in agriculture. The Agency is concerned that they will add to the growing burden of 'superbugs' in exposed populations. It stresses as an example, the emergence of anti-biotic resistant tuberculosis which already infects eight million people worldwide every year; this problem is likely to be fueled by the antibiotic-resistance genes pouring into our food chain and “explode at an exponential level”.

EMA concerns also extend to the future development of new antibiotics. The sad reality is that there are no truly new such medicines in the pipeline: pharmaceutical companies are largely confined to trying out variations within the antibiotic families already in use. Since resistance to one antibiotic tends to extend to others in the same chemical family, the spreading of artificial resistance in problematic pathogens will not be controllable by new drugs. The EMA's fear of GM antibiotic resistance genes making a bad situation worse so that lives are put at risk seems well-founded.

Despite this real medical concern, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has given its opinion that GM potatoes containing kanamycin-resistance genes are safe to have in our food chain, and the EC insists there is no good reason for withholding approval of Amflora cultivation.

COMMENT Note that despite its role in food safety, the advice of the EFSA seems to support the biotech industry with no obvious regard for future health nor the precautionary principle. As usual, it also seems to say what the EC wants to hear.

If the above comments seem far-fetched consider the history of the approval of the Amflora potato.

• BASF first submitted its dossier for Amflora to the EU regulators in 1996. This got caught up in the EU moratorium on GM during 1998 to 2004 while new regulations were being put in place. A dossier for approval for cultivation was resubmitted in 2003, and one for food and feed use in 2005.
• As has been the case for every GM crop so far going through the EU approval process, the agriculture committees and others considering the application failed to reach agreement. In 2008, the EC changed hands and GM-sceptic Commissioner Dimas was replaced by Commissioner Barroso who claims to be “neither for nor against” GM, but who has earned a reputation for being strongly pro.
• The EC then asked the EFSA to prepare a new consolidated scientific opinion on the use of antibiotic resistance genes in GM crops, and BASF decided it was time to pile on some pressure by filing an action with the European courts citing the Commission's failure to act.
• In the meantime, Commissioner Barroso went down another novel route for GM approval. He invited the Prime Ministers of the EU's 27 Member States to send a personal representative to discuss how to “speed up” the spread of the technology and “deal with” public opposition. The meeting's confidential minutes show that Barroso was trying to get the Prime Ministers to over-rule their own agriculture and environment ministers. The leaders' emissaries duly called for “the speeding up of the authorisation process, based on robust assessments so as to reassure the public”.
• After two extensions in its deadline and, for the first time, a failure of agreement of the whole panel, the EFSA produced a final positive opinion on the use of the kanamycin-resistance gene in June 2009.
• Amflora potatoes were rubber stamped by the EC nine months later, still without ministerial agreement, but under a provision that allows the Commission to take decisions over its Ministers' heads if they are deadlocked. This particular provision has been the sole means whereby any GM crop for food or cultivation has ever been permitted in the EU. It is deeply controversial. Five years ago, the top EU official responsible for pesticides and biotechnology condemned the provision as totally undemocratic. It was retained, however, at the insistence of the then trade commissioner, the UK's Lord Mandelson.
• One executive director of BASF said of the approval “We hope this decision is a milestone for further innovative products that will promote a competitive and sustainable agriculture in Europe”.

T

he potato starch industry does not seem to be jumping for joy at the prospect of using Amflora. The reaction of one of the biggest European starch users, Emsland of Germany, was to hedge its bets. The Company was quick to welcome the approval of GM potatoes and as quick to say it had already “developed alternative amylopectin potatoes with the help of classical breeding”. Emsland has therefore decided “not to grow Amflora in 2010” leaving itself free to move either way as the GM wind of opinion blows.

OUR COMMENT

Besides the questionable inclusion of an antibiotic resistance gene, and the questionable bending of the regulatory system to get a biotech-friendly outcome when democracy doesn't oblige, some other serious question are raised by the history of Amflora's approval.

Consider the hope expressed by the BASF Director that Amflora would be a milestone for further innovative products promoting competitiveness and sustainability.

BASF knew the inclusion of the kanamycin-resistance gene in Amflora wold cause a regulatory problem. The Company had two decades in which to remove the offending gene:

• Is the GM process so inefficient that only a single useful amylopectin-potato line was ever developed, and the probability of producing a successful kanamycin-resistance-free version vanishingly small?
• Was BASF trying to drive EU acceptance of antibiotic-resistance genes to pave the way for other similar GM seeds already in the pipeline? The complaint to the EU courts coinciding with the EC probing more deeply into the question of antibiotic-resistance gene safety suggests this might well be the case.
• Since two non-GM amylopectin potatoes have been produced in the meantime, the GM version has become obsolete before it reaches EU fields. Is BASF really interested in the product? Or, is BASF in cahoots with the EC to push a minimal-controversy, non-food GM product into European agriculture in the hope of opening the floodgates?
• Did the unnecessary use of GM to achieve an amylopectin potato divert resources away from, and slow down, the safer non-GM development?

There are lots of GM milestones suggested in these questions, but not much in the way of GM competitiveness nor sustainability.

The use of industrial waste to feed livestock is, in itself, a questionable practice because of the risk of toxins accumulating and passing up through the food chain. In this way, unexpected biological toxins or microbes arising from the Amflora potatoes' disturbed metabolism add a whole new layer of risk to a dodgy practice.

At the end of the day, the approval of Amflora potatoes would seem to be achieving little more than encouraging sloppy genetic engineering plus biotech bullying in lieu of sorting out a recognised problem. Tell your MEPs that if they are really representing you, the electorate, they will take action to remove the regulatory provision which allows their democratic role to be by-passed.

SOURCES

Geoffrey Lean, The GM war in Europe starts here, Telegraph, 12.03.10

EU Commission under fire over GM potato, The Parliament, 2.03.10

Martin Hickman and Genevieve Roberts, Fury as EU approves GM potato, Independent, 4.03.10

Starch manufacturer Emsland Group welcomes approval of Amflora, Emsland Group News release 3.03.10

European Commission approves Amflora starch potato, PotatoPro Services for the Potato Processing industry, 2.03.10

European Commission gives green light to genetically modified potatoes, Friends of the Earth Europe Media Statement, 2.03.10

EC forces through “bad decision” on GM industrial potato and ignores health risks, GM Freeze 2.03.10GM potato cleared for EU farming, BBC News 2.03.10