tae insight 17 12bs 081113, Languages, English, Learning, bbc, BBC Radio Learning, insight
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
BBC Learning English
Talk about English
Insight plus
Part 17 – GM crops
NB: Please note this is not a word for word transcript of the audio programme
Abigail:
Genetically modified, or GM crops are grown in various parts of the world.
But GM food is the subject of very heated debate in the media. Some people
see GM as the answer to world hunger, while others think they'll bring
environmental disaster. But as you’ll discover - the media debate on GM
wasn’t always so heated - we’ll look at the way GM crops appear in the
media later in the programme.
But first, what are genetically modified crops? I asked BBC Science Unit
producer Roland Pease to give a simple definition:
Clip
Roland Pease
Genetically modified crops are where genes have been taken from different species and put into
other plants - e.g. fat grain etc. in genetically modified ones scientists have found genes -
blueprint for life - drought tolerance, resistance to herbicides - and they can take them from
any plant and put them in any plant.
Abigail:
Farmers also cross breed plants, using the pollen from one plant to fertilize
Talk about English
© BBC Learning English
Page
1 of 6
bbclearningenglish.com
another. The new plant that results will then hopefully have the good
characteristics of both its parent plants - which might be fat juicy seeds or it
might be plants which don’t need too much water - drought tolerant plants.
But that traditional farming technology is seen as being very different to
laboratory-based genetic engineering. I asked Roland Pease what the
difference is:
Clip
Roland Pease
There are two major differences with genetic engineering - you remove the element of chance.
Natural mutations are random, you look for chances - 'ah I like that mutation, I'll cross that
into my plant for next year'. This takes a long time. With genetic engineering you can identify
the gene - it's very expensive but in principle you can take the gene and grow it in much
quicker time, you've got the result you're looking for.
___________________________________________________________________________
Abigail:
Many plants have natural resistance to pests, such as insects or fungus or
bacteria. But crop pests are still a major problem to farmers round the world.
This BBC report from Spain shows the impact a pest like the corn borer can
have on a field of maize:
Clip
Report from a field of maize in Spain
The field of maize has been destroyed by a bug called the corn borer. They reckon they’ve lost
75% of the crop.
Talk about English
© BBC Learning English
Page
2 of 6
bbclearningenglish.com
Abigail:
Pest-resistant plants mean farmers can use less pesticide chemicals on their
crops. But herbicide resistance was the other GM characteristic which
Roland Pease mentioned there. Herbcide-resistant plants are designed to be
unaffected by a particular weed-killing chemical, which means that farmers
can spray their crops heavily, reducing the number wild plants in the GM
fields. Many people fear that this means that GM crops will lead to a loss of
wild plants, which will mean fewer insects. And fewer insects means a
reduction in the birds and animals that eat them.
Clip
Roland Pease
Recent trials in Britain showed weed, bird and insect population in GM fields had been
damaged. It's not the crops themselves. It's the fact that they allow more herbicide, and that
has knock-on effects.
Abigail:
Increased use of herbicides is only one of the criticisms of GM crops that we
hear in the media. You might have heard phrases like ‘playing god’ or
‘meddling with nature’. Language like that shows a strong belief that
scientists don’t have the right to change nature in this way. It’s a belief that
many people share and it leads to the fear that we'll lose control of these new
genetically modified organisms.
Clip
Roland Pease
It's dramatic when you take genes from Arctic fish who don't freeze and put them into plants
Talk about English
© BBC Learning English
Page
3 of 6
bbclearningenglish.com
so they're cold tolerant. People say this is seriously weird! The big fear is there’s something
different about transferring genes like this.
Abigail:
A phrase that people often use is 'playing God', isn't it?
Roland:
This notion of 'playing God' does play into the idea that plants we have now are
natural, even though most have been manipulated over centuries. Maize corn, barley - these
have been selected over thousands of years. But this notion of 'playing God' is the notion that
this is not quite right.
___________________________________________________________________________
Abigail:
GM crops are certainly different in one way - they're developed in
laboratories, and paid for by large, multinational companies. These are the
‘GM giants’, who patent their technology so that only they have the right to
sell it. A company which has spent a lot of money developing GM crops
needs to protect their investment in various ways - and this is why the GM
giants worry many farmers in the developing world. Perhaps the most
controversial way the biotech industry could protect its investment is the so-
called 'terminator gene', which would make sure farmers had to buy new seed
every year. Roland Pease:
Talk about English
© BBC Learning English
Page
4 of 6
bbclearningenglish.com
Clip
Roland Pease
There’s a lot of concern about the terminator gene which will make seeds infertile, so that you
plant GM wheat one year and the seed can be sold to make bread - but you can't keep back the
seed and plant it again because it's infertile and it won't germinate. The attack against this is
that it prevents what farmers have done for centuries, and this has caused a lot of upset. The
defence is twofold: it protects the intellectual property rights of the companies involved. They
say, you've got a valuable crop and it's cost us a lot of money to make it and we will get
payback by being the only people who can market this. The other defence is - people are afraid
of GM genes getting out into the wild, and this [terminator gene] would stop that. If you want
a mechanism to contain genetically engineered seed and to stop it getting everywhere, this is a
failsafe method.
___________________________________________________________________________
Abigail:
In Western Europe in particular, a lot of people are worried that GM food
will make them ill. For BBC Science producer Roland Pease that’s a very
reasonable response:
Clip
Roland Pease
In Europe there have been a number of health scares - lethal stomach upsets, foot and mouth.
People in Europe are very concerned about what the food they eat will do to them. If you say
we've put something in your food to make it herbicide-resistant, people want to know - what is
that thing you've got in there? Is it in the part of the plant I'm eating? And is it going to affect
me? So far there don't seem to be any experiments that have shown there are health effects.
Talk about English
© BBC Learning English
Page
5 of 6
bbclearningenglish.com
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]