When James Cameron produced the film ‘Avatar’, he filled the planet of Pandora with colourful plants that formed a communication network into which the Na’vi connected. His design was inspired by the biophosphorescence (glowing creatures) he saw whilst diving, but he might not have realised that research was soon to unveil some very similar features – but it’s not a plant. It’s fungi that connects with plants.

It falls short of telepathy or raising people from near death, but never-the-less, this fungi acheives something that wasn’t thought possible a while ago. Fungi is neither a plant or an animal, it’s a tricky character that has its own kingdom.

Who’d have thought the same stuff as mushrooms are made from would be so fascinating. But fungi is truly remarkable. Around 90% of plants have a mutually beneficial relationship with fungi. Fungi is a bit of a lad!

But there’s a benefit to this slutty behaviour. Fungi are made up of thin threads called ‘mycelium. They spread out underground and absorb nutrients from the soil, dead bugs and decaying plant matter. But they also tap into the roots of living plants and connect everything in its neighbourhood just like the internet. If you were a tree, you would be connected through the fungi network to all the other trees in the forest.

What we know is that the fungi doesn’t just connect, it regulates. It is able to take moisture and nutrients from a robust plant and transfer it to one that is low on nutrients. This is a form of homeostasis. Each tree can only regulate itself, but the network of fungi allows an entire forest to be equally nourished, even though some trees may be growing in poor soil. Clever eh?

The mycelium strands (pink) of the fungi, form a ‘mycorrhizal’ (symbiotic) network between the roots of plants which may play a role in transferring nutrients to where they are needed.

By forming a network around the roots of a plant, it naturally expands the volume of soil that the plant can absorb nutrients from. Plants greatly benefit from growing in fungi-rich environments as the following images show. Whilst modern farming techniques can capitalise on this by introducing fungi into soils around crops, ancient farmers must have known these benefits as many old customs involve scattering ‘old’ field soil onto the new field as a blessing. This would have spread the beneficial fungi into the new field.

Biggest Living Organism in the World!

When fungi spreads…it REALLY spreads.  Some mycelium cover gigantic areas, but the biggest beast of all is A.solidipes of the genus Armillaria. Found in Oregon, US, it covers a mighty 9.6 square kilometers (3.7 square miles), and they suspect is up to 8,650 years old.  This makes it not only the largest living organism on the planet, but also the oldest.
Armillaria is commonly known as honey fungus and is an edible mushroom. Great if you’re a chef, not so good if you’re a conifer as Armillaria is a major cause of root rot in these trees across the US, Canada and Europe. Read more about fascinating fungi by clicking here.

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So here, we will put to one side the fear, and focus on the facts. You decide yourself if GMO has a place in our world.

THE GOOD

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that food containing GMO crops pose no risk to human health. Every major international science body in the world has collectively reviewed thousands of independent studies before reaching that concensus ( forbes.com).

Through genetic modification, we are able to create food products that will have:

Increased food supply: We will need to massively increase our food production as the world’s population is expected to almost double by 2050.  There will be 6 billion people and 90% will be living in the developing world, making food security the most important social issue for the next 30 years.

Increase in nutritional content: GMO crops can be grown to contain more vitamins, minerals or healthy oils. This means we could provide nutrition for more people per metre of field or orchard than regular crops. This will be vital in the future as we need to increase food production.

Ability to reduce disease in humans: It may be possible to genetically modify plants to produce vaccines or other medicines.  This means they could be distributed easily at a lower cost.

THE BAD

Although GM foods provide many benefits, there are many environmental, economic and social concerns which must be addressed.

GMO resists disease and insect attack

Gene Flow: This is the potential for genes from GMO crops to be found in non-GM crops in neighboring fields. This is naturally seen in wild plants and non-GMO crops anyhow. Scientists are researching strategies such as isolation distances and post-harvest practices to reduce or prevent gene flow occuring, but the public’s aversion to field trials is making this research difficult.

Biodiversity reduced: GM products are engineered to be the most successful crop and will out-compete other plants growing in competition. This is great in the case of crop fields where the competitors are weeds, but might be undesirable ifa GMO strain leeches into the environment and swamps ancient, native or rare forms of the crop.

Resistance:  As GMO crops are bred to deter attack, it is possible that insects and diseases will become resistant and different or more herbicides or insecticides will have to be used. Extensive ecological impact assessments have been addressing these issues.

Domination of large corporations:
This domination of the market could lead to a monopoly over smaller farming organisations. Under current legislation, new strains of GM products can be patented, thus the corporations can determine the selling price of these products. GM products can also be engineered to be dependent on chemicals that the same company provides solely. For example, Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ soybeans rely on chemical products in order to grow effectively. Domination of giant corporations is a global trend whether it’s health care, grocery shopping, the type of car you drive. Our economies are growing, but our day to day choices are reducing.

THE UGLY

Monsanto Protest

Protesting Bad Stuff

Images: Burkina crops: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images

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It’s a bit like Shrek, just as the word ‘ogre’ had villagers running for their pitchforks, the word ‘GM’ has normally sane people making placards and burning crops. Sooooo……..let’s all take a deep breath, hold hands, breathe out, and let’s start from the beginning. First, lets clear up the name bit.

Genetic modification (GM), genetic manipulation (GM) and genetic engineering (GE) are basically the same thing.  Mostly, you’ll hear people talking about ‘GM’ in a very negative way. This is because it’s new, some would say it’s ‘unatural’. But these same people wouldn’t refuse to take antibiotics because they’re ‘unatural’. So why has GM got such a bad reputation?

Here come the conspiracy theories…

Probably because if you’ve an infection, you’d be foolish not to take an antibiotic which would cure the infection,  and you only have to take them until you’re well. But we eat food all the time, we don’t have a choice not to. A lot of advertising dollars go into making us desire fresh and natural food, so many people worry that we’re tampering with something we should leave alone, even though we eat processed crud that’s been irradiated by x-rays.

There’s also a lot of people with time on their hands, yet can’t be bothered to check out the facts. Instead they choose to spread the very blinkered beliefs of those not qualified to give legitimate explanations. The fact that the research is being done by scary scientists in lab coats, who either work for the government or big corporations…well, it must be a conspiracy….(sigh).

Intially GM presented an ethical dilemma, but we’ve moved past that now into simply looking at whether GM is safe, because the benefits GM can bring to a world whose population is about to outgrow its resources, are many.

What is GM?

We share 85% of our DNA with Zebra fish.

GM is simply the use of modern biotechnology techniques to change the genes of an organism, such as a plant or animal, hence GMO ‘genetically modified organism’. This may involve the introduction of new DNA into their genome using genetic engineering. We’ve been genetically modifying our food for thousands of years, dating back to the Babylonians and Sumerians through selective breeding. Organisms which produced a higher quality and quantity were bred together to produce offspring with more favourable characteristics.

The difference is that now we can select DNA from a different type of organism to insert into the gene. This isn’t quite as scary as it sounds when you consider that humans have 85% of the same DNA as a Zebra fish. All organisms have quite a lot of the same DNA, we are only changing tiny bits of it.

Organisms are engineered for resistance to pathogens, herbicidal properties and increased nutritional properties. This is usually done by adding one or more genes to a plant’s genome using genetic engineering techniques (cloning), or gene subtraction (genes are removed or inactivated).

The genetic engineering process – simples!

The first commercial sale of GM food was in 1994 with the ‘Flavr Savr’, a tomato with a fancy name that could have its ripening delayed.

Today, around 60-70% of processed foods sold in the U.S have genetically modified ingredients. The most common GM foods are soybeans, maize, cotton and grapeseed oil. GM livestock have been experimentally developed, but none are currently available on the market.

Traditional breeding of plants and animals aims to tailor the plant or animal for a certain application. For example, a new crop variety might be bred that is more drought tolerant or resistant to a certain disease.

The process of traditional breeding involves finding individuals with favourable traits and crossing them with each other – with the aim that the progeny of the cross will have the favourable traits from both parents. In reality the progeny will have a mix of traits, both good and bad from their parents, and it takes a number of breeding cycles to eliminate the negative traits and build on the positive.

GM breeding is used because it can radically and quickly change the traits of a plant or animal in ways not possible through traditional breeding techniques.  For example, insect resistant GM cotton uses a gene from a naturally occurring soil bacterium known to repel or kill a particular type of caterpillar that eats cotton plants. By inserting the Bt bacteria gene into cotton plants, they provide them with built-in insect protection. The use of insect resistant GM cotton has reduced pesticide use over 80 per cent in Australia.

The gene splicing process

However, GM does not necessarily mean that a gene from another organism has to be used to create the GMO. GM can mean that the organism’s own genes are changed.

 For example, gene silencing turns down the activity of certain genes already within an organism, such as in oilseed crops where it is being used to turn down the production of unhealthy oils, or the Flavr Savr tomato. GM is also used for purely research purposes, for example, to discover genes.

Gene ‘silencing’ or switching off a specific gene

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