- What was billed by the media as the world's worst incident
of pollution by genetically-engineered crops, one that provoked a row among
scientists, has vanished, says a study published today.
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- Four years ago, researchers reported finding cobs of
genetically modified maize in Oaxaca, Mexico, suggesting that GM maize
(corn) from the US had invaded a traditional maize variety.
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- In a country whose culture and identity are linked to
maize - the crop was developed there thousands of years ago - the thought
of GM varieties that could contaminate native plants was abhorrent.
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- Then the leading journal Nature disowned the paper that
described the discovery by researchers at the University of California,
Berkeley.
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- The paper had sparked a protest to Nature by 100 biologists
and was disowned by the Mexican government after its scientists could not
repeat the experiment. The anti-GM lobby portrayed the row as an attempt
to discredit the research and as part of a biotech industry vendetta.
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- Now a two-year study published by Prof Allison Snow's
team, of Ohio State University, in Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, says genetically modified corn has not spread to native maize
crops in southern Mexico.
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- The researchers gathered more than 153,000 seeds from
870 maize plants in 125 fields in Oaxaca, for the first survey of foreign
"transgenes" in native varieties, and found no evidence of contamination.
The finding surprised the researchers, said Prof Snow, because millions
of tons of GM grain were imported from the US each year for processed food
and animal feed.
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- Transgenes in Oaxaca before this study may not have survived,
she said. Modern GM varieties may not be hardy in Oaxaca even if they could
mate with local plants.
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- The genetic diversity of native maize was an important
resource with great cultural significance. "If farmers think their
highly revered native plants have been altered by transgenes, they might
stop planting them."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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- http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/20
05/08/09/wmaize09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/09/ixworld.html
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