GUELPH, Ont. –Manish Raizada set out to smash a few myths when he appeared before a panel of MPs last week.
Genetic modification is not a big deal, the University of Guelph molecular geneticist told the House of Commons agriculture committee, which is touring the country to study the biotechnology industry.
He said moving genes between species has been going on in agriculture for millennia.
And for all the public controversy about the potential danger of eating GM food, he said consumers should realize that common life-saving medicines such as insulin are the product of genetic manipulation.
Read Also
Petition launched over grazing lease controversy
Battle continues between the need for generation of tax revenue from irrigation and the preservation of native grasslands in southern Alberta rural municipality.
“I often get asked, are GMOs good or bad?” he told MPs. “My response is, well, are drugs good or bad? Some drugs are great. If I have a cold, Aspirin and Tylenol is great. Cocaine is not so great.”
Raizada said GMO technology has the potential to create useful products but it is not the answer to world hunger.
“The balanced view on this would be that so far if you look at crop improvement around the world, GMOs have played a very minor role, and I say that as a molecular geneticist,” he said. “It’s the traditional breeders who have had a much bigger impact on yields.”
Raizada used the example of modern corn, which is based on a fusion in Mexico centuries ago of a grass species and an ancient relative of sorghum. These ancient producers had no GMO labs.
“To put that into perspective, what the ancient people did was to take a Chevy Nova and made it into a Ferrari,” he said. “What GMOs do is change the cover of the steering wheel. To me, that’s really again how molecular geneticists look at it.”
Later in the session, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Randy Hoback said the controversy about GM varieties among farmers is more a political reaction against Monsanto, which holds many of the patents.
“In fact, there are some people in the ministry who are telling me that once some of the patents come off on the GMO side for Monsanto, that the people who are opposed to GMOs will all of a sudden not have a problem with it and it’s more of an anti- Monsanto trait than anything,” he said.
