Since the end of last year, China's Ministry of Agriculture has issued "biosafety certificates" for two varieties of genetically modified rice. Genetically modified rice has received many questions. Yesterday, the reporter learned from Fudan University that a research result of Lu Baorong, a professor of the university, was published in the newly published internationally renowned magazine “Transgenic Researchâ€. This result shows that in the environment where pests occur, the two transgenic rice varieties that have obtained biosafety certificates have superior performance to their non-transgenic parent rice varieties. "Because no pesticides or less pesticides are used, GM rice is superior to ordinary rice in terms of food safety and environmental safety," said Lu Baorong.
Transgenic rice can increase insect resistance
As president of the International Society for Biosafety Research and a member of the National Biosafety Committee of China, Lu Baorong has long studied the environmental biosafety issues of genetically modified rice. He said that the paper published in "Transgenic Research" was a result of his series of studies. This study selected two genetically modified rice varieties that received a biosafety certificate in November 2009: Bt-transgenic rice, Huahui-1, and hybrid rice, Bt-汕you 63, and their non-transgenic counterparts. Parent rice varieties Minghui-63 and Shanyou 63.
In Anhui and Hubei, they conducted comparative experiments on pest and yield-related traits of the four rice varieties. The researchers set three different levels of pest occurrence: no pests (application of different types of pesticides), no non-target pests (only pesticides for non-target pests) and pests (no pesticides) in environmental conditions, for rice pest levels Yield-related traits were measured, analyzed, and compared with significant differences.
The results of this study indicate that transgenic insect-resistant rice can significantly reduce the level of pests and increase rice yield without the use of chemical pesticides and small amounts of non-target insect pests.
The problem of pesticide residues in ordinary rice
Professor Lu Baorong said that the Bt transgene is derived from a microorganism called "Bacillus thuringiensis," which contains a protein that can poison the lepidopteran pests of rice, such as rice borer, rice borer, and leaf roller. In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers used this protein as a biopesticide. Today, experts at Huazhong Agricultural University transfer the Bt gene, which produces this protein, to rice so that the locust can be poisoned after eating rice.
"But the target of the Bt gene protein is very strong. Only the lepidopteran pests can be poisoned, and there is no obvious effect on non-target pests such as rice planthoppers." Lu Baorong said, "It does not harm non-target pests, let alone harm them." It said that it has a negative impact on other animals and even humans.†Professor Lu pointed out that Bt protein will decompose when boiled in water, and rice with Bt-transgenic rice is very unlikely to be harmful to the human body.
In contrast, in order to reduce the impact of aphids on rice yield, non-transgenic rice must be used by farmers for multiple applications of chemical pesticides. According to reports, the number of chemical pesticides used in the prevention and control of rice pests in our country alone exceeds 1.67 million tons per year, which seriously pollutes the rice ecological environment and causes a vicious cycle of imbalance in pest control. “The broad spectrum of chemical pesticides is very strong. It not only kills pests, but also kills insects, beneficial insects, microbes, and small mammals. It is not because GM rice cannot be separated from pesticides during planting, and its environmental safety is better than that of transgenic rice. It is much worse.†On the other hand, if there are a lot of pesticide residues in rice, it will also bring food safety problems.
Call for commercial production of transgenic rice
"As the saying goes, the balance between the two pests is light, and I hope that the public will have a more objective understanding of the GM rice." In Lu Baorong's view, the possibility of safety problems in genetically modified rice could not be completely ruled out, but it came from the GM food in 1996. To date, there have been no reports of adverse reactions after human consumption. In the field of environmental safety, Lu Baorong, after nearly a decade of research, found that rice is a “gene drift†low-risk crop. As long as a safe isolation distance is set, planting genetically modified rice will not negatively affect non-genetically modified rice, the environment, and ecology.
Compared with the low risk of transgenic rice, non-transgenic rice must be used as pesticides, and its safety problems do exist and cannot be ignored. “We have never heard of cases of adverse reactions caused by GM foods, but we will always hear cases of pesticide poisoning caused by food poisoning.†Lu Baorong called for China to attach great importance to R&D and commercial production of transgenic insect-resistant rice. This can not only significantly improve the ecological environment of rice, but also reduce the production costs and labor input of farmers buying and applying chemical pesticides.