Scientists alter crops with techniques outside regulators’ scope

Its first attempt to develop genetically engineered grass ended disastrously for the Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. The grass escaped into the wild from test plots in Oregon in 2003, dooming the chances that the government would approve the product for commercial use.

Yet Scotts is once again developing genetically modified grass that would need less mowing, be a deeper green and be resistant to damage from the popular weedkiller Roundup. But this time the grass will not need federal approval before it can be field-tested and marketed.

Scotts and several other companies are developing genetically modified crops using techniques that either are outside the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Department or use new methods – like “genome editing” – that were not envisioned when the regulations were created.

The department has said, for example, that it has no authority over a new herbicide-resistant canola, a corn that would create less pollution from livestock waste, switch grass tailored for biofuel production, and even an ornamental plant that glows in the dark.

The trend alarms critics of biotech crops, who say genetic modification can have unintended effects, regardless of the process.

“They are using a technical loophole so that what are clearly genetically engineered crops and organisms are escaping regulation,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union. He said the grass “can have all sorts of ecological impact and no one is required to look at it.”

Even some people who say the crops are safe and the regulations overly burdensome have expressed concern that because some crops can be left unregulated, the whole oversight process is confusing and illogical, in some cases doing more harm than good.

In November’s Nature Biotechnology, plant researchers at the University of California, Davis, wrote that the regulatory framework had become “obsolete and an obstacle to the development of new agricultural products.”

But companies using the new techniques say that if the methods were not labeled genetic engineering, novel crops could be marketed or grown in Europe and other countries that do not readily accept genetically modified crops.

Freedom from oversight could also open opportunities for smaller companies and university breeders and for the modification of less common crops. Until now, in part because of the costs associated with regulation, crop biotechnology has been dominated by Monsanto and a handful of other big companies working mainly on widely grown crops like corn and soybeans.

Healthy fries

“It enables small companies to develop products, and even university start-ups,” said Luc Mathis, chief executive of Cellectis Plant Sciences, which recently received a regulatory exemption for a potato it says will make French fries less unhealthy.

An industry-sponsored study said that the large companies spend an average of $136 million on the development of a genetically engineered crop, including $35 million in regulatory costs. The Agriculture Department once took two to five years to review applications, though it is trying to reduce that to 13 to 16 months.

Genetically engineered crops, popularly called genetically modified organisms or GMOs, typically have genes from other organisms inserted into their DNA. The most popular ones, like Roundup-resistant soybeans and insect-resistant corn, use genes from bacteria.

Under a framework announced in 1986, oversight of the crops is shared by the Agriculture Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. Rather than enact new laws for genetically engineered crops, the government covers them under existing statutes.

A step ahead

Regulators around the world are now grappling with whether these techniques are even considered genetic engineering and how, if at all, they should be regulated.

“The technology is always one step ahead of the regulators,” said Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, head of biotechnology research at Syngenta, a seed and agricultural chemical company.

Some researchers argue that using genome editing to inactivate a gene in a plant, or to make a tiny change in an existing gene, results in a crop no different from what could be obtained through natural mutations and conventional breeding, though it is achieved more quickly.

“Those are basically comparable to what you get from conventional breeding,” said Neal Gutterson, vice president for agricultural biotechnology at DuPont Pioneer, a seed company. “We certainly hope that the regulatory agencies recognize that and treat the products accordingly.”

The gene editing, they argue, is also more directed and precise than the existing technique of exposing plants to radiation or chemicals to induce random mutations in hopes of generating a desirable change. This technique has been used for decades and is not regulated, even though it can potentially cause unknown and unintended changes to crops.

But critics of biotech crops say the genome-editing techniques can make changes in plant DNA other than the intended one.