GMO flop in mind, firm readies public for gene-edited food
JOHNSTON, Iowa — Green stalks have only just begun to sprout in the test fields where biotech giant DuPont Pioneer is planting rows of a new genetically edited corn. But across the street, in the company’s sprawling research campus, executives are already fretting about how to sell it to the world.
On one hand, this corn is a revolution: It will probably be the first plant to market that was developed through the cutting-edge genome-editing technique called CRISPR-Cas.
On the other, the industry’s previous big breakthrough of this kind —genetically modified organisms, or GMOs — was an unqualified public-relations disaster, even according to its progenitor, Monsanto.
Wary of that, DuPont Pioneer, which is developing a strain of drought-resistant waxy corn, is proactively neutralizing skeptical consumers — years before these crops will even be available. The company recently began hosting CRISPR focus groups and launched a website on the technique, complete with animated videos.
The goal is to avoid the sort of public backlash that rocked Monsanto in the late 1990s and still plagues agriculture two decades later. In the United States, consumer skepticism of genetically modified crops has forced biotech companies into long, costly battles over issues such as whether these foods should be labeled; elsewhere in the world, the
public outcry has prevented seeds from winning government approval.
“It’s more about social science than science,” said Neal Gutterson, the vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer. “[It’s] ultimately about getting social license for this technology.”
Odes to plant technology are ubiquitous in DuPont Pioneer’s Iowa offices, where even the conference space boasts glossy, museumlike exhibits devoted to genetically modified foods. Plus-size photos show farmers standing idly in golden cornfields, and mystery hands reaching into overflowing bowls.
But the problem for DuPont Pioneer, and agribusiness generally, is that large swaths of the public do not share this sunny vision of biotech. Since the late 1990s, when Monsanto botched the introduction of genetically modified crops in Europe, consumers have treated the term “GMO” as if it were a dirty word.
According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 40 percent of Americans believe
GMOs are bad for their health. This assertion is not supported by science, which has concluded that the genetically modified crops on the market are safe for consumption.
But science has made little headway in a fierce debate that has often focused on the perceived values of the companies developing these products. Each year, activists in hundreds of cities worldwide march against Monsanto — and millions of consumers buy “Non-GMO Project Verified” products.
The biotech industry has taken strides to clean up its image in recent years: In 2013, Monsanto shook up its publicrelations team, and the industry has banded behind a consumer education effort called GMO Answers.
But with the breakthrough gene-editing tool CRISPR — clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats — the field gets a chance at its first real do-over.
Unlike conventional genetic modification, CRISPR works directly on the DNA of the plant or animal being bred. While GMOs, as we have traditionally known them, involve inserting target DNA from a
different species, CRISPR can directly “edit” an organism’s DNA for a result that falls within the genetic diversity of that animal or plant.
The technique was discovered almost simultaneously at several research universities and has since been licensed out to a number of both noncommercial researchers and private companies. Outside of agriculture, CRISPR has diverse applications in medicine, where it’s currently being used to develop everything from cancer therapies to novel disease models.
In agriculture, scientists say it takes far less time, and is more precise, than both traditional and genetically modified breeding techniques. DuPont Pioneer expects its CRISPRedited waxy corn to be on the market within three years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has indicated that it does not intend to regulate CRISPRedited crops because they do not contain another species’ genetic material.
“That comes with a lot of responsibility,” said Kerrey Kerr-Enskat, the publicist who handles DuPont’s CRISPR outreach efforts. “It’s not just about row crops — we don’t
want to waste that opportunity [to engage with the public].”
Accordingly, DuPont Pioneer has spent the past several months convening regular focus groups with leaders from government, agriculture and environmental organizations, Kerr-Enskat said. The goal is to learn more about the public’s CRISPR concerns and use them to inform future messaging efforts.
In April, the company started a website that it calls “the first step” in a larger campaign to win consumers’ trust for the technology. It’s an unusual move for a company that sees farmers, not food consumers, as its direct customers. Its product is, after all, seeds — and its first CRISPR product, waxy corn, is for industrial use, not human consumption.