GMOs: a lot of confusion”, by Matteo Giattanasio, Professor, University of Padua

<div style="text-align: justify;">The Minister of Environment
Corrado Clini recently declared that '… without genetic engeneering there would not today exist
any of the Italian most typical products', among which durum wheat, San Marzano tomatoes and the
Ligurian basil. But crossbreeding and mutagenesis that gave us these products do not generate GMOs,
because they do not introduce foreign genes into the plant organisms, but mix up (as in the case of
crosses) or modify (as in the case of mutagenesis operated on some durum wheat varieties like Creso)
those that specific organisms naturally include in their genomes. The Minister words were followed
by a lot of declarations. The famous oncologist Prof. Umberto Veronesi declared that 'Modern
biotechnologies are the natural evolution of the progress started by agromists during tha last
century with the 'Green Revolution' to solve the problem of food and hunger in the world'. But
unfortunately the data are the following: the number of the starving dropped down, it's true, to 870
million at the beginning of the 'revolution', but then increased up again to one billion and hundred
millions. The 'Green Revolution', set upon the model of the industrialized Western agriculture -very
expensive in economical, environmental and energetic terms- brought since its beginning to an
unbearable increase of costs in Africa and&nbsp; in other developing countries. And the highest cost
to be payed was, according to&nbsp; genetists, the loss of most of the species and varieties locally
used for centuries, an invaluable patrimony of genetic variability from where genetists drew on
resources to create, through crosses and conventional genetic improvement (that is: no GMOs) new
varieties more suitable to specific agronomic and pedoclimatic situations.<br><br>Professor Veronesi
furthermore declared that '… biotech plants, being more resistant to deseases, will also lead to a
decrease in the use of pesticides,&nbsp; with big economical and environmental advantages, as the
cost of crops' protection for farmers will be much lower…' But&nbsp; as the current
agricultural&nbsp; practices actually create a high number of different deseases, transgenic plants
can be resistent to a limited number of pathogens so they themselves have to be treated with
pesticides to fight all the other deseases to which they are not resistent.&nbsp; It must also be
considered the faculty of the pathogens to quickly develop each time different aggression
mechanisms. And this obviously generates the need to continuously produce new transgenic plants.
Moreover, the cost for farmers of transgenic seeds is continuously increasing, because they are
burdened with the increasing costs of the royalties imposed by the multinationals. <br><br>Two
famous Italian genetists, professor Boncinelli and professor Buiatti, expressed completely different
opinions with regard to the harmfulness of GM food. Boncinelli's opinion is that&nbsp; 'In theory
there is no possibility that they can be harmful, because it cannot be the upward or downwoard
variations of a&nbsp; gene, on the ten thousands included, that would make them dangerous'.
Buiatti's opinion on the contrary is that 'The high level of unpredictability issueing from the
transfer of genes among organisms, sometimes very different from each other, demands a specific
attention'. Given the complexity of interactions among genes today still little known, it is not
possible to foresee all the effects that the introduction of foreign genes can generate at products'
quality level.<br><br>Someone spoke about GMOs in relation to higher products quality, but food
quality is given, on the contrary, by the the 'concert' of many different qualities, nutritional
(content in nutrients), organoleptic (taste and aromas), healthy oriented (a balanced pool of
healthy substances) and sanitary (absence or reduced content of pesticides and other harmful
substances). All this can be obtained not only by using the proper varieties, but also adopting
those good agricultural practices respecting soil natural fertility and without using too many
nitrogen fertilizing. This last type of fertilzers, though they contributed to an increase of
production, while negatively influencing different aspects of quality, are suspected to&nbsp; have
part, for wheat, in the increase of celiac disease by increasing the gluten fraction.<br><br>To
conclude, while it can be important to continue the research on agrarian transgenic plants, to
improve our knowledge, other research fields exist like plant physiology, the classic genetics,
agronomy and agrarian ecology: they all can provide useful results for a productive and higher
quality agriculture. To day we have to stop and reverse environmental degradation and the waste of
water and of non-renewable energetic resources. Many aspects of our agriculture have to be reviewed
and corrected (varieties selection, soil fertility management, respect of land and biodiversity, use
of pesticides, hydric and energetic consumptions). The introduction of genetic plants in such a
context is likely to be a useless cure,&nbsp; even worse than the desease.<br><br><br>“Corriere
della Sera.it”, 24 March 2012, http://www.corriere.it</div><br&gt;