I've had an interesting couple of weeks when it comes to hearing about new technology. First last week in Glasgow at the British Crop Production Council congress, a Liverpool-based company IOTA NanoSolutions, talked about the work it had been doing with formulations, which it claimed could reduce pesticide doses or increase efficacy depending which way you wanted to go. http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/11/13/118755/Nano-formulations-could-reduce-pesticide-doses.htm

Really interesting and innovative stuff. Of course, we're probably a while away from them making a commercial debut. While they have been tested on plants in a greenhouse, they haven't in the field, it seemed, so as one questioner asked, what will it mean for crop selectivity, for example? Some pesticides are right on the edge of crop safety, so maybe these more potent formulations might fall down there. But the technology seemed very exciting to me.

And then this week I met up with an American biotech firm. They claimed that they could modify plant genes only using the plant's natural DNA repair system to make very targeted changes. Already it was working on herbicide tolerance, and said other traits we really only associate with GMOs, such as complete disease resistance and drought tolerance could also be achieved using the technique.http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/11/18/118795/Drought-and-herbicide-tolerance-possible-without-GM.htm

Now I'm sure it isn't quite as straightforward as they made it seem - first of all you need to know which gene to target, and then how to modify it, and then build the right GRON (a little chemical structure that tells the gene to repair to the gene to the right genetic code) which latches onto the gene in the right way, etc. Surely that isn't very easy?

But the beauty it seems is that the technique shouldn't be classified as GMO. Under current EU law there is an exemption for techniques that are mutagenesis. This is where it gets a bit deep science (and I won't pretend I understand all the detail), but essentially it seems that if you don't introduce any foreign DNA then it shouldn't be classified as GMO. (ie it is not transgenic) and this technique doesn't, Cibus says. The GRON thing induces the plant to use its own DNA to make the change, and then is ingested by the plant cell, so the DNA never gets into the plant's genes.

What this means is that we could get some of those traits we'd so dearly love in crops, such as drought tolerance, novel oil profiles, even herbicide tolerance (!) without the crops being classified as GMO. I have read somewhere in my research that (I think) Greepeace in Germany have said they don't have a problem with the technology. It will be interesting to see whether that holds true if it takes off. 

I might be wrong, but I think both of these technologies are potentially really exciting for arable growers. And maybe, just maybe could help us reduce our dependence on pesticides without having to go down the GMO route. Surely that is a win:win?

  Any new technology need looking at carefully and as you say it is too early to pass judgement but it does look interesting. There are other non-GM technologies out there which also show promise, conventionally-bred drought resistant crops are being trialled and of course conventionally-bred herbicide tolerant canola and wheat varieties have been grown in Australia (and I think Canada) for a while.

  As you say this one does look like a win:win for most of us but maybe a bit of a lose for those telling us at BCPC conference last week that only GM technology can deliver these benefits and we are all doomed without it.

  Good letter in the Daily Telegraph yesterday from a few scientists pointing out the need to "start with the problem that needs to be addressed (i.e. global food security) rather than presupposing any particular solution":

--------------------------- 
SIR -    We are concerned about the request by the Government to the Food  Standards Agency to lead a dialogue to explore, yet again, the subject of  genetically modified food with the British public (Comment, November 14).
 
   A great deal of public funding has already been spent on shaping public views on GM. Focusing on just one technological approach to food production  means this proposed exercise is likely to encounter the same problems that  dogged past consultations.
 
   A recent Royal Society report observed that "dialogue (with members of the public) should start with the problem that needs to be addressed (global food security), rather than presupposing any particular solution".
 
   The focus of the FSA project on GM agriculture alone seems to fly in the face of the views of Britain's premier academy of science. It could also be interpreted as ignoring or manipulating public concerns in an attempt to "sell"  a policy favourable to commercial and industrial interests.
 
   We need a broader debate over agri-food and food security problems, together with the many potential solutions: social, political and technological.
 
Dr Tom Wakeford
Director of Public Engagement, Policy, Ethics and Life  Sciences Research
Centre,
Newcastle University
 
Dr Les Levidow
Senior Research Fellow, Development Policy and  Practice,
The Open University
 
Dr Tom MacMillan
Executive Director, Food Ethics Council
 
Professor Erik Millstone,
Science and Technology Policy  Research,
University of Sussex
 
Dr Bronislaw Szerszynski
Centre for the Study of Environmental  Change,
Lancaster University
 
Professor Brian Wynne
Associate Director, Centre for Economic and Social  Aspects of Genomics,
Lancaster University
 
Dr Michel Pimbert
Director, Sustainable Agriculture Programme,  International Institute for
Environment and Development
London  WC1

Mike Abram - Arable Deputy Editor:

I've had an interesting couple of weeks when it comes to hearing about new technology.

Thank you Mike for this contribution. I think you summarised what must be a very complicated argument, very well. In fact I understood what you said but I doubt I would have understood the lecturers you listened to.

Tom: Maybe my story from BCPC didn't come across quite clearly enough, but virtually everyone at BCPC seemed to agree that while GM technology would be important and was needed, it was not the ONLY solution. For example, read again this quote from Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council:

"To say the only way of producing enough food is through [better] agricultural science and technology is probably not true," Bayer CropScience's Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, said. "But without it there is no chance."

He said GM was ONE of the solutions, as did Daren Coppock from the US wheat growers association. But both were keen to point out other advances would also play a part.

Actually I've just re-read your comment more closely () and realised you were pointing out maybe that it was these traits that could only be done through genetic modification, so I guess you have point! Although, I suspect that might have been more my assumption (not knowing about Cibus prior to Monday, although I did know about herbicide-tolerant conventional OSR), that these things were only possible through GMO.

Re: Telegraph letter - I would agree with the sentiment. I suppose the problem is when do you start talking about GMO being part of the solution?

Peter: Thanks for praise.  I won't deny there were times I was confused, especially about nano-technology. And I did have to ask Steve Rannard to go through that twice with me, to get it straight in my head! I'm pleased I managed to get it down in a way that was understandable!!

Its just exploiting a loophole in the definition of GMO, the goal and end result are just the same.