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GMO

The GMO debate catches up with the banana

Posted by Anne Vézina on 16 Oct 2014 16:39

The banana that was genetically modified to produce higher levels of provitamin A carotenoids has caught the attention of Vandana Shiva, a prominent figure in the anti-GMO movement. In an open letter to the lead scientist James Dale, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that funded the project and the Convention on Biological Diversity, she argues that the biofortified GM banana is "a globe trotting case of biopiracy".

According to Shiva, the "GMO 'super banana' project on which Dr Dale holds multiple patents for 'banana transformation' now proposes to sell these purloined treasures back to the world as their patented product from which they can derive royalties and to which they can determine access is being offered up as an act of charity".

Shiva makes her claim even though the Scientific American article she mentions in the first paragraph of her open letter quotes Dale as saying that they are "offering this technology for free; anyone is encouraged to take it and use it or build off of it". In case this is interpreted as meaning that only the biofortified banana would be made freely available, Dale can confirm that neither he nor the Queensland University of Technology have attempted to patent any of the genes used in the development of the GM banana. They also do not hold patents for banana transformation.

Shiva also accuses Dale and the Gates Foundation of participating "in the biopiracy of the banana biodiversity1 and traditional knowledge2 that is the cultural and biological heritage of generations of local communities and farmers in PNG and Micronesia". Yet later in her letter, Shiva speaks favourably of a project promoting the use of Moringa leaves to alleviate vitamin A deficiency in Tanzania.

That Moringa oleifera is native to the southern foothills of the Himalayas, and is therefore somebody else's heritage, doesn’t seem to be an issue in this case. Neither are the high levels of provitamin A carotenoids measured in Moringa leaves – up to 7,564 International Units (IU) of vitamin A – compared to the 20 IU in the biofortified banana, which Shiva paradoxically qualifies as high. Her point is that because banana is a staple in Uganda, people eating the biofortified version would run the risk of developing "health problems such as liver damage". But while it is true that vitamin A is toxic at high levels, the problem arises only with retinol from animal sources. Unlike retinol, there is no upper limit to the quantities of plant carotenoids that can be ingested.

To anti-GMO activists like Shiva, there is no such thing as a good or a bad application of GM technology. All GMOs are inherently bad. Do you agree with this position or do you think that, with regards to bananas, genetic engineering has a role to play in addressing malnutrition or any other problem faced by banana growers?

1 The gene introduced in the biofortified banana comes from Asupina, a Fei banana collected in Papua New Guinea as part of a publicly-funded mission
2 The use of Fei bananas as an infant weaning food in Micronesia
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Posted by David Robert Jones on 22 Oct 2014 13:38

I am replying to the comments of Anne Vezina concerning Dr Virandana Shiva's open letter to Dr James Dale, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Shiva's letter drew attention to the views of herself and others that vitamin-A-fortified bananas are not wanted in developing countries, that it was an act of bio-piracy to exploit the vitamin A gene from a Fei banana and that to promote such bananas was an act of bio-colonialism.

Firstly, I am surprised, but pleased, that a member of Bioversity International is offering comment on a controversial banana issues. Anne has highlighted mistakes and inconsistences in Shiva's open letter, which is a somewhat 'over the top' in its anti-western biotechnology attitude. Nevertheless, some good points are made. She states that malnutrition is a complex problem that cannot be solved by monocultural solutions. She believes that the adoption and growing of those crops that are rich in this vitamin A, such as sweet potato, would help alleviate the problem of vitamin A deficiency in the developing world. I also consider the new 'super banana' to be a distraction from the real solutions.

In her article, Shiva states that Dale has given lectures in Indonesia where he claims that bananas are going extinct. I do not know if Dale said this or not, but the same message was used more than ten years ago by the then Director of INIBAP to promote genetic engineering. These sort of comments are scaremongering and blatantly untrue. They are only intended to extract funds from donors, who may believe or want to believe this codswallop, through the popular media. Anne must have been at INIBAP when this happened. What did she think?

Shiva also claims that Dale has admitted that GM bananas are a door-opener designed to facilitate the uptake of many more GM crops in Africa and globally. Again, I do not know if this was admitted by Dale or not, but the fact remains that many believe that the use of GM bananas, such as the super banana, is a 'sweetener' to overcome the current barriers that prevent big agri-businesses marketing their GMOs in Africa and elsewhere. If true, these bananas would seem more like a tool for making money rather than a charitable gesture. Is this the reason that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation many millions of dollars of Monsanto shares as has been reported? I must acknowledge here that the Gates Foundation is now also supporting conventional banana breeding in Africa which is a good thing.

Professor Norman Simmonds, the pioneer banana taxonomist and banana breeder, who was regarded as an iconoclast, gifted scientist, profound thinker and stimulating teacher, spoke out against genetic engineering in 1997. In an article in The Planter, Simmonds called genetic engineering one of the most spectacular scientific con-tricks ever perpetuated in the name of crop improvement. He stated that the subject had been 'hyped-up' not only in the popular and semi-popular press, but also by scientists themselves. He argued against the spending of scarce resources on 'trendy trickery' and a return to decent science. He noted that the strategy had also been ineffective and had failed 'to bring home the beef' despite the 'hype and raucous claims', and was a 'terrible waste of resources' that could have been put to a decent purpose 'instead of trendy irrelevance'. Simmonds believed that politicians and bureaucrats (and to these one can add research donors) wanted to believe the 'hype', wanted to be thought of as 'men of vision' and, therefore, bought the engineers their tools instead of acting intelligently. This was in 1997 and it still holds true!

The new approach to banana improvement being talked about is cisgenecs whereby banana genes coding for diseases or pest resistance, when identified in the sequenced banana genome, would be engineered into the genomes of susceptible banana cultivars. It is believed that this approach would speed up conventional breeding if the products were excluded from the current testing and other precautions that surrounded transgenic plants, which have foreign genes in their genomes. By answer to this is why not invest in conventional breeding centres, which transfer genes between interbreeding plants in the traditional way.

After 25 years of endeavour and promises, and despite utilising vast amounts of funds, what has genetic engineering really done for banana? Now it has to resort to the 'super banana' gimmick. I recommend a return to conventional breeding that at least has and still is producing viable new bananas despite a fall in revenue for such work. At least, people will eat conventionally-bred bananas, which is doubtful if they were derived by genetic engineering techniques.

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Posted by Anne Vézina on 31 Oct 2014 11:39

Dear David,

In your reply you say that you agree with Shiva 'that malnutrition is a complex problem that cannot be solved by monocultural solutions'. Yet, both you and Shiva agree that introducing crops rich in vitamin A would help alleviate vitamin A deficiency. What I don't understand is why the biofortified GM banana is a monocultural solution whereas a crop like the sweet potato is not. In the same vein, what do you mean by real solutions, as when you say that the 'super banana' is a distraction from real solutions? The GM banana is just as real as the sweet potato. 

You also agree with Norman Simmonds when he says that genetic engineering is a 'terrible waste of resources' and add that GM bananas have utilised 'vast amounts of funds'. If you know that vast amounts of funds have been invested, why not provide figures? Don't the same standards of evidence to which you want to hold people claiming that bananas are going extinct also apply to you and Simmonds?

I didn't attend the lecture in which, according to Shiva, Dale made that claim. I imagine she is referring to a 2012 media release that has the word extinction in its title. The short text doesn't quote Dale. All it says is that bananas are threatened by diseases, which is also what INIBAP used to say to drum up support for the improvement of banana and plantain embedded in its name.

You're asking me what I think of the 2003 New Scientist article in which the E word was mentioned for the first time. Leaving aside the sensationalist journalistic treatment, it doesn't strike me as much of a departure from previous INIBAP statements about genetic engineering, such as the following quote from the 1994 Plan of Action you co-wrote with then director Nicolas Mateo: 'The improvement of some Musa types, such as Cavendish, which are mostly infertile and not amenable to conventional breeding, may have to rely on genetic engineering. Genetic engineering may also be the only solution for obtaining resistance to virus diseases as it is possible that no effective natural resistance exists in banana and plantain. Resistance genes from other sources may have to be inserted into the Musa genome. KUL is developing a Musa transformation capability with funds from INIBAP, but INIBAP is also supportive of efforts elsewhere such as at Texas A and M University, IAEA, CATIE and CIRAD. INIBAP is also keen for work to commence on engineering resistance to BBTV and also to fungal diseases using antifungal protein genes. It is also possible that genes will soon be available for use against nematodes and weevil borer.'

I have no reason to suppose that at the time you and Mateo were anything but sincere, but I can understand that your views on genetic engineering could have changed, even though none of your arguments are specific to the technology. In fact, my impression is that you think that the case for genetically modifying bananas is so compelling that it would overcome opposition to GMOs. Isn't that what you mean when you say that 'the use of GM bananas, such as the super banana, is a sweetener to overcome the current barriers that prevent big agri-businesses marketing their GMOs in Africa and elsewhere'? 

However, I don't think your fear is that the super banana would open the door to agribusiness-controlled GMOs. After all, if the problem were corporate control, shouldn't you also object to the Gates Foundation funding conventional breeding because big agribusinesses like Monsanto make money out of hybrid seeds? Instead, I think you're afraid it would erode support for banana breeding, to which you would like to see more funding channeled (even though, according to your logic, banana breeders should have called it quits in the late 1940s after 25 years of fruitless efforts). 

I'll end by quoting a commentary on the GMO debate in Africa and Asia published last year in Nature: 'Excluding any technology that can help people to get the food and nutrition that they need should be done only for strong, rational and locally relevant reasons.'

PS: For technical reasons, it was not possible to link to related documents in the text. Below are links for more information on:
Norman Simmonds: http://www.promusa.org/Norman+Simmonds
2012 media release: http://www.indonesia.embassy.gov.au/jakt/MR12_022.html
INIBAP: http://www.promusa.org/INIBAP
2003 New Scientist article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17723784.800-going-bananas.html
Banana breeding: http://www.promusa.org/blogpost363-Who-s-breeding-bananas
Commentary in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7447/full/497031a.html

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Posted by David Robert Jones on 04 Nov 2014 05:48

Dear Anne,

A monoculture is when only one or two closely related genotypes are grown over vast tracts of land, such as in plantations of Cavendish cultivation for export.  One can argue that the situation at present in Uganda amounts to a monoculture. Here closely genetically-related East African Highland bananas, even though over 200 morphological genotypes have been identified, are grown small plot bordering small plot over large areas. An even greater monoculture would exist if the one or two cultivars engineered to produce more vitamin A were grown on a vast scale and it would have to be on a vast scale for them to have any effect on vitamin A deficiency. To grow such a monoculture has risks, rather like the risks faced by Cavendish or any other banana cultivar grown in plantations.

I am not an expert on diversity in cultivated sweet potato or carrot, but there must be many different genotypes, just as there are many different genotypes of banana. I would not consider the cultivation of sweet potato, carrot or other crop rich in vitamin A to be a monoculture.

I cannot provide the figures on how much money has been spent on GM programmes that have achieved nothing because this information is not readily available. This would need to be compiled from the archives of donors or those scientists who have spent the funds. However, a guideline is what is now being spent on developing a vitamin A rich banana. I am sure it is an appreciable amount. Does the ProMusa Secretariat have this data? 

INIBAP in my time used to say that banana was threatened by diseases in order to attract funds, but it never went as far as to suggest that the crop faced extinction!  'Threatened' is true, 'extinction' is untrue. When first used, this was a significant departure from previous INIBAP statements.

I have no problem with what Nicholas Mateo and I put in INIBAP's 'Plan of Action' in 1994. At that time there was a feeling that genetic engineering could achieve much and the strong opposition to GM food by the consuming public had not really galvanised into a 'voice'. It was also generally thought in 1994 that Cavendish was sterile. There was also a politic dimension. I am sure politics has a significant influence today. I would like to point out that it has been 20 years since the optimism about GM success was expressed in INIBAP's 'Plan of Action', but not one GM banana has been released to farmers. How we were wrong back then!

Incidentally, does the INIBAP 1994 Plan of Action differ a lot from the Bioversity International 2014 Plan of Action for banana? I suspect that the aims and hopes are still fundamentally the same.

I don't think that the Gates Foundation is an organisation whose total aim is to push GM food on an unwilling world. It is obviously doing much good work that is not directly related to genetic engineering. As I pointed out in my last message, it is now funding conventional banana breeding, which is a move in the right direction. However, it doesn't alter the fact that many believe that this donor agency, because of its huge stock investment in Monsanto, is involved in manipulations that will favour Monsanto's interests and increase this company's profits to shareholders. This, of course, will also increase funds for the Gates Foundation's charitable work, but do the ends justify the apparently unethical means?

I and others are concerned that donors and big agri-businesses are setting a significant part of the research agenda on banana in Africa in order to open the doors of that continent to a flood of big agri-business GM products not really wanted by Africans. GM bananas appear to be a deal 'sweetener' of lever. By this I mean that If the 'free' new GM germplasm were allowed into the field then a continued ban on the growth of other GM crops could not be justified. How do you view the ethics of all this?

Conventional banana breeding to produce a better export banana actually started in the 1920s so you could argue that it produced nothing of any commercial value for far longer than 25 years. There is still no replacement for the present export banana despite conventional breeding and genetic engineering attempts. I feel that if conventional breeding had started out to improve the small farmer's bananas in the 1920s, much would have been achieved by now. This of course is starting to happen with conventional breeding programmes releasing of genotypes that are grown in small scale farmer's fields

You have quoted a comment in Nature to the effect that the exclusion of any technology that can help people to get food and nutrition should be done only for strong, rational and locally relevant reasons. I agree with this. However, there are strong, local, and probably irrational, reasons, such as the fear of the health risks from GM foods, which influence the acceptability of GM food that a public education programme will find it hard to overcome. Also, do the poor results of GM work justify the time, effort and resources that go into them? I will end by quoting Professor Norman Simmonds, a pioneer in the field of conventional banana breeding, who stated in his article in The Planter in 1997 that genetic engineering was 'pie in the sky' in that the 'hype' promised to deliver much, but in reality the technology delivered little.

David Jones

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