How GM crops could help the North East

Jul 28 2010 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A decision by the European Commission that individual member states can make up their own minds about whether they want to grow Genetically Modified may benefit the North East’s scientific community, as Karen Dent reports.

FIELDS of GM crops may not be growing in the North East but research and development behind some of the science looking at ways to feed the increasing global population is flourishing here.

Newcastle University has a reputation as a centre for innovating technologies which could one day transform the way the world is fed.

This issue of food security is one of the key arguments in favour of using GM foods, according to Professor Andrew Cockburn, a toxicologist who runs Toxico-Logical Consulting and has been a visiting professor at Newcastle University for the past decade.

He said: “It’s relevant to everyone in the country; it is of global importance.

“Taking politics out of it, if people want to keep biodiversity like rainforests and the tigers in India, we can’t extend the agricultural footprint more than we do today or we will damage biodiversity.

“More people now live in cities than the countryside. People in cities eat more meat than in the countryside and that pushes agricultural demand.

“The evidence is we are living on 1.5 globes – using the resources of 1.5 planets. But there is no planet B.”

He says scientists must find ways to develop agriculture to feed a world population which is estimated to increase from six billion in 2000 to around nine or 10 billion by 2050, while also thinking about the impact of climate change.

Professor Cockburn works with students and staff at Newcastle and is keen to see the university’s research turned into technology which is actively used to benefit the region.

“I would like more of the brilliant work coming out of Newcastle to be exploited for Newcastle,” he said.

“The importance of chemical engineering, biological engineering and genetic engineering is there for Newcastle and also the rest of the scientific community.

“Newcastle has this wonderful innovative history. This is just another form of engineering.”

Some of the key research at Newcastle University is looking at the potential of GM crops to protect themselves against insect attack without the need for chemical pesticides.

Professor Cockburn said: “A single gene put into a plant can make it resistant to something, for example the European corn borer.

“Rather than to put chemicals on that field, if you can express a protein that is harmless to man but makes the insect fall off and die, isn’t that the way forward? Then we can stop squirting all these chemicals around and much less pesticide is used as a result.

“Newcastle is so important because it is a seat of innovation. It’s got a first class biotechnology department and historically, it is strong on agricultural sciences.

“Prof Gatehouse has grants to look into this type of thing. It provides ways for the future of blue sky research.”