The genetic modification (GM) battlefield has been extended to biofuels production, with South Africa featuring among a number of countries that are being asked to allow the import of GM maize to make ethanol.
The GM industry worldwide wants to use GM to boost the energy properties of crops for ethanol production, says an environmental lawyer.
Ethanol is attracting interest internationally as a relatively benign, renewable energy source that is cost- effective at current oil prices.
GM critics say the industry has failed to convince consumers to eat GM products. Now it hopes to cash in by using GM for non-food, fuel production.
Syngenta South Africa, a subsidiary of the Swiss agrochemical giant, gave notice last month of its intention to seek commodity clearance to import its GM maize, Event 3 272, into South Africa to be used to produce ethanol.
Syngenta, which employs 19 000 people, is a market leader in GM. Its GM business, which includes a special seed to boost ethanol production, is growing revenue at 45%, says Jim Cramer of Thestreet.com.
GM is controlled in South Africa by the Genetically Modified Organisms Act of 1997. GM is used in both maize and soya cultivation for human consumption and for cotton and cotton oil for non-food use.
The application has been launched simultaneously in the United States, the European Union and China.
Environmental lawyer Mariam Mayet says Syngenta’s Event 3 272 application is the first GM application in the world for commercial approval for a non-food (fuel) use of a food crop (maize).
The South African application is for the import of Event 3 272 maize from an unnamed country. The application is being opposed by the Washington-based Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Johannesburg-based African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).
The application, a precedent, gives rise to questions on how the industrial use of GM technology will be regulated, say the CFS’s Bill Freese and ACB’s Mayet.
Their objections include concerns that a growing permit still has to be issued for the country of origin, that the imported GM maize will contaminate food and feed supply, that GM remains untested technology with unclear consequences and that Event 3 272 uses a new micro-organism from the deep sea that has not been subject to adequate testing.
“Syngenta hopes to cash in on a potentially lucrative burgeoning global bioethanol market, while securing new markets for its GM products where there is little risk of consumer rejection,” says Mayet.
She says the ACB is concerned that Event 3 272 will be pushed through the lax regulatory regime in South Africa and present unacceptable risks to human health.
“Contamination of the South African food supply by this GM maize cannot be excluded, as the chances of contamination along the entire production chain are very high.”
Freese and Mayet cite widespread contamination in the US and world food supply of animal-feed GM Starlink in 2000 and 2001.
Syngenta, they say, mistakenly distributed large amounts of its unapproved Bt10 maize seed to farmers in the US and elsewhere for nearly four years before the error was reported, resulting in 133-million kilograms of the untested, unreviewed GM corn entering the food supply.
Freese and Mayet argue the need for strict review is more pressing in South Africa, where maize is a staple food crop. In the US or Europe very little maize is consumed.
Freese and Mayet say the enzyme in Event 3 272 is derived from novel deep-sea organisms that have never been a part of the human food supply.
“Very little is known about organisms of the Archaea domain, as they were only recently discovered, and are ubiquitous mainly in inaccessible regions such as the deep sea.”
Event 3 272 presents at least two human-health concerns that deserve extremely careful consideration: allergenicity and unintended amplification of toxic compounds through the GM process, claim Freese and Mayet.
“We urge the Department of Agriculture to demand an allergenicity assessment in strict accordance with the internationally recognised standard, FAO-WHO [Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation].”
Mayet says the application for commodity clearance for GM maize that is not yet in commercial production and that has not yet been approved in the country of export, and which is yet to be disclosed, is in contravention of the objectives, spirit and provisions of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, to which South Africa is a party.
The Department of Agriculture’s Julian Jaftha says public notification is the first step in a process required by the GMO Act. Applications go to an advisory committee, which makes a scientific assessment. Depending on the outcome, recommendations are made to an executive council.
Six government departments — agriculture, trade and industry, labour, science and technology, health and environment — are involved in the decision-making process.
More vroom
Syngenta South Africa’s head of regulatory affairs, Kulani Machaba, said the application was for a commodity clearance, meaning that Event 3 272 will be imported and not grown in the country.
He said he could not see how Event 3 272 could contaminate the maize supply as it would not be grown in South Africa and would have to be ground at the port of entry.
He said Syngenta was ready to address concerns and that GM had to pass rigorous testing otherwise it would not be brought to market.
Machaba dismissed the objections raised by Bill Freese and Mariam Mayet as “empty allegations” but said he may need more time to be able to respond in detail.
Syngenta’s public notice reads:
“This is to inform the public that an application for commodity clearance of genetically modified Event 3 272 maize has been submitted by Syngenta South Africa. Upon receiving official authorisation; Event 3 272 maize could be imported in South Africa.
“Event 3 272 maize contains the amy797E gene derived from micro-organisms of the archeal order Thermococcales and the pmi gene from Escherichia coli. The amy797 E gene encodes the thermostable amy797E alpha-amylase enzyme, which catalyzes hydrolysis of starch into smaller and less complex carbohydrate molecules during the starch liquefaction step of the dry-grind ethanol process. The pmi gene encodes the PMI enzyme as a selectable marker. PMI allows transformed cells to use mannose as a primary carbon source during the process of regenerating plant material after transformation.
“In those countries where Event 3272 maize will be cultivated, the grain will be used in the dry-grind fuel ethanol process. It is not intended to be used in other processing applications (for example wet-milling and dry-milling processes) or to be exported as a commodity crop. However, it cannot be excluded that the harvest originally intended to be used in the dry-grind fuel ethanol industry or the by-products of this processing could enter international trade routs at extremely low levels. This is not an application for cultivation or release into the environment.”– Kevin Davie
Imports go home
GrainSA will be opposing Syngenta’s application to import Event 3 272, says Fanie Brink, not because it is anti-genetic modification (GM) or new technology, but because farmers cannot grow these mealies since this technology is yet to be approved for use as a cultivar in South Africa.
This means that South African farmers are competitively disadvantaged.
“We have no problem with GM,” says Brink, manager of industry services at GrainSA. “But farmers can’t plant that cultivar because it is not approved by the local Act.”
Brink says he suspects the new cultivar will be grown in the United States. This raises the prospect that South African farmers will be asked to compete against a cultivar that they are not permitted to grow and the heavily subsidised US maize farmer.
“We are trying to develop a biofuels industry to help both the emerging and commercial farmer,” says Brink. “[Importing Event 3 272] goes against all these plans.” — Kevin Davie