Less Herbicide in the Water – More Rice in the Bowl

     Bioengineers shoulder major responsibility in the agriculture industry of increasing the supply of healthy food while decreasing water pollution, particularly for a global population of ten billion expected by 2030. Presently, runoff from crop cultivation contaminates many water sources. Rice, a food staple in much of the world, represents a crop integral to bioengineering. Engineers must determine which genes to alter, develop a process to manipulate them, and produce safe plants to benefit the environment.

     Historically, man has improved crops by selective breeding and hybridization. Biotechnology expands these methods by allowing scientists to transfer a greater variety of genetic information in a more controlled manner. By manipulating genes in rice, engineers help farmers produce insect and weed resistant plants causing less harm to the water supply while increasing the ability of the plants themselves to fight pests and diseases. Modified rice crops encourage farming techniques that preserve the topsoil and reduce soil erosion, thereby creating less runoffs to pollute streams and rivers.

     Once bioengineers have identified which genes in rice to alter for herbicide resistance, for example, they must devise a method to alter them. With current technology, a bar gene taken from fungi is isolated, cloned, snipped out, and inserted into a plant. Specifically, the process follows several stages. First, media is mixed in a Petri dish into which is added an immature rice kernel. A callus results. Then, under a vacuum, the DNA is coated on a gold or tungsten element and shot by a bio-rad gun into the callus. The material, cultured in another Petri dish, produces genes of which about ten percent are herbicide resistant. Prior to the early 1990’s farmers controlled weeds by spraying crops, using four pounds of herbicides per acre. With the application of biotechnology, only three-fourths of herbicide is required.

     Current technology, however, cannot control red rice, a weed that is highly disease and herbicide resistant and that infests rice crops. By expanding present scientific knowledge, engineers will reduce the world’s need to rely on chemical herbicides and pesticides. Extracting a gene from a tomato plant, susceptible to wilt fungus, and introducing the gene into red rice will make the red rice susceptible to the wilt fungus also. Allowing the susceptible red rice to propagate with the wild red rice increases the quantity of the susceptible red rice, thus further reducing the need for chemical herbicides. Similarly, by extracting genes for salt tolerance from coastal salt marsh grasses and introducing them into food crop rices, the new rice strains are capable of growing in non-traditional salt-laden waters.

     Before any genetically modified crop is marketed, it must be deemed fit by a third party objective assessment of technology. In the United States, three separate agencies evaluate genetically engineered crops: the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration. Technology is a means to an end. In agriculture, biotechnology allows fewer people to feed more people with safe crops that preserve water resources.

Bibliography

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“Plant Biotechnology: A Promising New Tool for Global Farmers.” http://www.whybiotech.com/index (18 Nov 2002)