The problem with genetic engineering

Monstanto today announced that it's working on new varieties of corn, soybeans, and cotton that will yield twice as much as today's versions... and require 30% less land, water, and energy to grow.

Sounds great, eh? What could be a better path than this for solving world hunger and escalating food prices?

Well, let's see. How exactly would Monsanto go about this? Their approach is the addition of genes from other organisms, such as bacteria or insects and... who knows?

The problem with this is that Monsanto would be competing with the best genetic engineer in the business: Mother Nature.

Think about what they are suggesting: they are going to engineer a variety of corn that produces twice as much with 30% less resources.

Let's assume that's possible. So if it is, why doesn't corn already grow that way? I mean, if you are a corn plant, and you can produce more seeds with less water, you're going to be a lot more successful than your other corn cousins, not to mention other plants competing for the same patch of land. So why hasn't evolution already given corn these capabilities?

The simple reason is that there are other pressures on corn than just making more seeds with less resources. Wild corn varieties have to deal with insects and fungal and bacterial diseases. They have to be hardy enough to deal with unexpected changes in the environment, such as several years of the El Niño effect.

You don't get something for nothing in nature, so if corn is being asked to produce more with less, it's going to be spending less energy on other tasks. It's likely going to be less able to fight off insects and disease and less able to weather changing climate conditions. In short, the corn plant becomes more reliant on us to take care of it. Which means we have to apply more insecticides and pesticides and re-engineer the corn if the climate heats up.

So how about Bt corn? They've already added a gene that causes the corn to produce toxins that kill insects that try to eat it. Why not just continue that approach?

All the Bt gene is doing is causing the corn to produce a protein that it doesn't normally produce. But again, you don't get something for nothing... if the corn is using energy to make this Bt protein, it's energy that the corn wouldt have used to do something else (make another protein, store more nutrients, etc.).

Will Monstanto's proposed super-varieties of these crops be as hardy? As disease-resistant? As nutritious? Who knows. But something's got to give... and Mother Nature's had a whole lot more time than Monsanto to experiment and find the optimal solution. Not only that, our species has evolved side-by-side with the native varieties. They're already exactly what we need.

Hunger and high food prices are a real problem. I'm just not convinced that Monsanto has the solution. We're always looking for a technical fix to every problem we face. And as I told my Mom yesterday, I've been wondering about that approach since I was a kid. Sometimes it feels a little bit like we're building a house of cards...