Steve Savage has the conversation with a Greenpeace campaigner I’ve always wanted to have with the people who can constantly be found soliciting money for similar organizations on my walk to work.

Steve’s post reminded me of this awesome (and freely available article) from Plant Physiology: Forbidden Fruit: Transgenic Papaya in Thailand* which is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in genetic engineering, the developing world, and the role of NGOs like Greenpeace.

I’m considering making this a regular feature. I often read cool articles, but it feels weird to put up a post that just says “go read this” when I don’t have anything of my own to add. Anyway, the test of whether this will be a feature or a fluke will be if I remember to post another one in a week.

*I know I’d previously mentioned this in my post on virus-resistant papayas, but I think there are at least several new readers since then and I’ve been dismayed to find out how little publicity this article seems to have received when it first came out.

Pineapple. Wish I'd thought to check for a country of origin...

Since today seems to have a tropical theme, here’s another post about Hawaii:

The corn breeding industry is expanding in Hawaii*. The pineapple industry is contracting. People seem to be blaming the second on the first, and are passing this article around. My reading of the article, and some other statistics I looked, don’t seem to agree with the story line (evil GMO seed companies driving out the pineapple industry) that people seem to be suggesting.

Yes, Monsanto did buy out one of Hawaii’s three remaining large pineapple growers several years ago (as of 2007 there were also 49 small pineapple producers growing pineapples on 1-15 acres and a single medium sized grower with between 100-250 acres), but Maui Land & Pineapple Co., the company this article talks about, isn’t selling out to a seed company, they’re switching to the production of other crops instead of pineapples. One company sells its land and shuts down, another stays in the farming business but gives up on pineapples and announced plans to grow a more diverse range of crops. To me, that suggests it is becoming harder and harder to make a profit growing pineapples in Hawaii.

The data I could find on pineapple production and consumption is suggestive (though not conclusive) of a domestic industry being driven slowly out of business by foreign imports. From 1996 to 2005 the average American went from eating less than two pounds of fresh pineapple per year to 4.9 pounds per year (an increase of ~160%). Yet in roughly the same timeframe (1998-2005), American production of pineapples dropped 40% (from 354 short tons to 212 short tons). To make the figures exactly comparable I can cut out the first two years of pineapple consumption data. From 1998-2005 per capita consumption of fresh pineapples increased 78%.

Where are the extra pineapples Americans are eating coming from? Either consumption of canned pineapples and pineapple juice (the only other significant uses of the fruit) is decreasing drastically enough to compensate for decreased overall growth of pineapples, people eating more fresh pineapples AND population growth or alternatively a lot more  pineapples are being brought in from outside the country. Increased imports drive prices for pineapples grown in America down, and Hawaiian pineapple farms start going out of business.

I wish the Hawaiian pineapple industry wasn’t disappearing. It is sad for all of us who picture Hawaii as a land of exotic fruits.** It is terrible for the people who are losing their jobs (and probably won’t find new ones soon in today’s economy). If anyone has other data that suggests the seed companies are the culprit, or has any sort of direct experience with the papaya industry and would like to comment I’d be happy to publicize it hear.

Oh and one final question?

Monsanto’s operations have concerned environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Maui Tomorrow and Hui Ho’opakele Aina. They contend that SmartStax, the company’s genetically engineered corn, has not been adequately tested for long-term effects and could cross-pollinate with organic crops.[Emphasis mine]

Does anyone know if there is any organic corn grown in Hawaii? The USDA’s usually awesome agricultural statistics didn’t mention any as of 2007.

*The article mentions the Hawaiian seed industry had $176.6 million in revenue in this year, with growth of 26% over the past year. To put that in perspective, two years ago in 2007 (the most recent date for which I could find data) the crop sector of the Hawaiian economy, including seed production, was worth $430 million. The seed industry in Hawaii today is worth 41% of what their entire crop sector was worth two years ago.

**When want to picture corn I think of home.

Photo Reeding, Flickr (Click for photo stream)

Scientific Name: Carica papaya

Genetically Engineered Trait: Resistance to the papaya ringspot virus

Details of Genetic Engineering:

In the 1990s papaya ringspot virus was in the process of wiping out the Hawaiian papaya industry, then the second largest fruit industry in Hawaii. Conventional approaches such as selective breeding for resistant papayas or attempting to grow trees in isolation had failed. The virus is transmitted by small sap-sucking insects such as aphids. Infected papaya trees can be recognized by the discolored rings on their fruit (that the virus gets its name from) yellow leaves, and most importantly from a papaya farmer’s perpsective a 60-100%* loss of fruit production.

Resistant papayas were created by a collaboration between the USDA and the University of Hawaii (with help from Cornell University where the early versions of ballistic transformation** were being developed at the time) by giving papayas a gene from the papaya ringspot virus itself. It worked. Resistant papayas are so successful that they’re used to protect organic papayas from the virus. (second half of the article)

Another point to keep in mind in this case is since the transgene introduced into GE papayas to protect them from viral infection came from the papaya ringspot virus and many organic papayas are still infected with the virus, the average organic Hawaiian papaya has HIGHER concentrations of the papaya ringspot virus protein than the unnatural genetically engineered ones***

Papaya Tree Picture mattkoltermann, flickr (click for photostream)

About Papayas:

The papaya was originally domesticated in central America, and is now grow around the world. Papaya’s actually have a high concentrations of an enzyme that breaks down proteins called papain. A sufficiently concentrated extract might be able to dissolve flesh (though I don’t know that anyone has tried it) and that ability is showcased in the use of unripe papaya juice to tenderize meat.

Special Bonus Section:

While transgenic papayas have been a huge hit in Hawaii, their adoption in the rest of the world has been quite slow. Because the papayas are the product of non-profit and government agencies, there’s no one with a profit motive in their adoption, and leaving local agricultural advocates and researchers outnumbered and outspent by anti-GMO NGOs that draw most of their financial support from Europe. A great case study of the problems they face was presented a year and a half ago in Plant Physiology: “Forbidden Fruit: Transgenic Papaya in Thailand” It’s well worth a read as both a fascinating story in it’s own right, and an example of the tactics that can be used against genetic engineering when scientists aren’t engaged enough to act as a check on misinformation. To close my profile on papaya, let me quote the conclusion of that article:

It is time to meet the press. Although scientists are not generally trained in media communication, who is better qualified to discuss the risks and benefits of GE crops? If scientists do not undertake this task, where will the public get its information?

If the next generation of biotechnology crops is to make an impact on those who arguably have the most to gain and have yet to reap the benefits of the first generation—those of the developing world—then it is time for plant biotechnologists to move beyond the bench, kick around in some barren soils, man a water buffalo for a day, meet the people whose lives will be impacted, and display the same amount of passion for having their technology used in the field as they have for developing it in the laboratory. It is time to get organized, get political, get heard, and get out of the lab. Otherwise, the fruits of this fascinating research may remain forbidden.

*Losses of production per country or per region are often much greater. If papayas are less productive, fewer people will choose to grow them, so increasing yield per plant actually has a multiplicative effect as more people get back into the growing papayas.

**The original gene gun was basically a modified .22 caliber rifle. The principle of a gene gun is basically if you throw DNA hard enough at a layer of cells some of it will end up in the nucleus and get incorporated into chromosomes by natural repair mechanisms. And the crazy thing is that it actually works!

***This is an old statistic, that I believe dates from before genetically engineered papayas were incorporated as a layer of protection around organic papaya production. (The idea is aphids traveling towards the organic papayas will first reach the virus resistant papayas, bite them where the virus is ineffective.)