Gene editing agriculture:
- USDA regulations on GMOs apply only to those constructed using plant pathogens like bacteria, or their DNA; gene-edited plants are not regulated
- Calyxt: startup that edits the genes of thousands of plants
- scientists create designer plants that don’t have foreign DNA; adds or deletes snippets of genes—”accelerated breeding”
- uses TALEN, co-developed by Calyxt founder, which was developed two years earlier than CRISPR, and as such has advanced further toward commercial crops
- has designed 19 plants
- edited soybeans to use in healthier oils (without trans fat)
- will face competition with similar beans, ie a Monsanto GMO
- including a wheat plant that grinds into a white flour with 3x more fiber
- edited soybeans to use in healthier oils (without trans fat)
- fast-to-market business model
- obstacles:
- easier to design and make DNA strands than to get them inside plants
- uncertainty over which genes should be edited
- Scientists know how oils are synthesized and why fruit turns brown, but genetic causes for other plant traits that are both well understood and easy to alter are unknown
GMOs
- 90% of the soybean crop in the US are GMOs, genetically enhanced to be immune to Roundup
- stigma: 40% of US adults think GMOs are less healthy
- warring messages from scientists, agriculture lobbies, and NGOs like Greenpeace
- legal in the US, Brazil, Argentina, and India, but banned throughout much of the rest of the world
- unclear whether gene-edited crops are considered GMOs
- no way to tell a gene-edited plant from a natural one
- Lack of scrutiny of whether the plants could harm insects, spread their genetic enhancements to wild populations, or create superweeds
- New Zealand and USDA’s organic council decided they are GMOs; the Netherlands and Sweden decided they weren’t; China and EU have yet to decide
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609230/these-are-not-your-fathers-gmos/
This might be a good reference for you related to GMO’s:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/well/eat/are-gmo-foods-safe.html