Once again, non-GM approaches are leading the way in dealing with a huge insect pest problem.

For many more examples of how non-GM approaches are massively outpacing GM, despite all the attention and resources that genetic engineering attracts, see:
http://gmwatch.org/index.php/articles/non-gm-successes
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Plant Breeding - Not Genetic Engineering - To Solve Major Pest Problem
Doug Gurian-Sherman
GM Education, 13 August 2013
http://www.gmeducation.org/farming/p213571-plant-breedingnot-genetic-engineeringto-solve-major-pest-problem.html

*Soybean aphids cost US farmers over $2 billion annually. Now scientists have identified resistance genes in the soybean plant; and it is conventional plant breeding, not genetic engineering that is at the forefront of their development. Dr. Doug Gurian Sherman explains why:

There is a huge insect pest problem on soybeans, one of America’s major crops. A recent paper estimates that after arriving from Asia in 2000, Soybean Aphids now cost growers 2 to 5 billion dollars annually in lost productivity and insecticide use.

But fortunately technology has an answer — several genes that control the pest, and can reduce or eliminate the need for chemical insecticides that harm people and the environment.

Genetic engineering to the rescue?

Have Monsanto and the other big seed/pesticide companies finally found another blockbuster, after largely failing to do so over the last 15 years?

So far, only a few of their engineered genes have been widely successful, despite huge investments of time and resources.

And on the horizon is more of the same: herbicide-resistant crops that promise to greatly increase herbicide use and lead to multiply-resistant weeds — a treadmill that farmers will have a hard time exiting, as long as they are in the thrall of GE/pesticide companies.

The biotech industry clearly needs a new success to try to win over the many sceptics around the world to “the promise” of GE. Could this be it?

Naturally occurring not engineered

The short answer is no, because these aphid resistant genes are found in some soybean varieties and soybean wild cousins, and are being utilized by conventional crop breeding, not genetic engineering.

Even though they have been known for at least seven or eight years, you probably have not heard about them. Unlike the hype that follows genetic engineering, these naturally occurring, effective genes get little attention.

So who is responsible for discovering these genes and doing the important research to develop them? You might expect that given the impact of the pest, Monsanto and its competitors would have been all over this.

The public sector comes through

Having read or examined many of the research papers on these genes, it is striking that the scientists and the funding have been from the public sector, not the chemical/seed industry.

And so far, the big seed companies have released very few soybean lines containing these genes, as seen from this recent review from Iowa State University, the heart of soybean country. Most are from small seed companies and the public sector.

To be fair, it has not been very long, in breeding terms, since these genes were discovered. But had the big seed companies been excited about this from the beginning, we would expect to see more from them, even by this time.

So far, the companies seem more interested in the lucrative business of selling insecticides to combat the soybean aphid, including neonicotinoid (neonic) seed treatments implicated in seriously harming bees and other beneficial organisms.

The untapped potential of non-GM plant breeding

And it is more and more clear, based on our latest research, that the potential of breeding is largely untapped, as the authors of a recent paper from the journal Nature point out:

“Since the mid-1990s, progress in conventional plant breeding has slowed, despite the phenomenal yield gains of the past. Part of the reason is that only the tip of the biodiversity iceberg has been explored and used.”

Biodiversity in this case means the great variety of unexplored genes found in crop varieties and wild relatives around the world that are accessible through breeding, and often under the stewardship of small farmers who should be supported in their efforts.

From drought tolerance and flood tolerance to pest resistance and nutritional enhancement, numerous examples show over and over again that despite the meagre funding, conventional breeding continues to greatly outperform genetic engineering.

This does not mean that genetic engineering cannot or will not make some contributions to agriculture. But the relative merits of these technologies should be considered when arguments about the need for them are made.

Getting on the right ecological track

Breeding alone will not solve our agricultural challenges either.

It must be done in the service of agroecological farming methods, and with the participation of the farmers who will use these varieties.

For example, use of agroecology can reduce the number of soybean aphids, reinforcing the effectiveness of resistance.

In the past, technologies like genetic engineering, has mostly served the needs of industrial monoculture agriculture, rather than sustainable agriculture, and this must change.

We must encourage public agencies that conduct or fund agricultural research to increase funding for these types of vital but neglected research, rather than continuing to favour the wrong kind of agriculture.

This is an edited version of an article which appeared in The Equation, a blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists http://blog.ucsusa.org/genetic-technologys-answer-to-a-major-insect-pest-192

Doug Gurian Sherman is Senior Scientist of the Food and Environment Programme of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has a doctorate in plant pathology. He has worked in senior positions at the Center for Food Safety in Washington, DC; the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He also worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where he was responsible for assessing human health and environmental risks from transgenic plants and microorganisms and developing biotechnology policy. Before joining the EPA, he worked in the Biotechnology Group at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From 2002 to 2005, he served on the Food and Drug Administration's inaugural advisory food biotechnology subcommittee.