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Environmental biosafety and transgenic potato in a centre of diversity for this crop

Nature volume 432, pages 222–225 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics1,2 suggests that introgression of genetic material into related species in centres of crop biodiversity is an insufficient justification to bar the use of genetically modified crops in the developing world. They consider that a precautionary approach to forgo the possible benefits invokes the fallacy of thinking that doing nothing is itself without risk to the poor. Here we report findings relevant to this and other aspects of environmental biosafety for genetically modified potato in its main centre of biodiversity, the central Andes. We studied genetically modified potato clones that provide resistance to nematodes, principal pests of Andean potato crops3. We show that there is no harm to many non-target organisms, but gene flow occurs to wild relatives growing near potato crops. If stable introgression were to result, the fitness of these wild species could be altered. We therefore transformed the male sterile cultivar Revolucion to provide a genetically modified nematode-resistant potato to evaluate the benefits that this provides until the possibility of stable introgression to wild relatives is determined. Thus, scientific progress is possible without compromise to the precautionary principle.

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Figure 1: Studies on rhizosphere organisms.
Figure 2: Confirmation of hybrid progeny resulting from forced crosses.
Figure 3: Resistance to G. pallida in male-sterile S. tuberosum cv.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Salas, J. Arcos and R. Ccanto for assistance with crossing and field experiments; and C. Rasmussen for insect identification. We are grateful to the International Potato Centre and PROINPA for access to their facilities in Peru and Bolivia, respectively. The project was funded by a grant from the European Union.

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Author notes

  1. Carolina Celis, Maria Scurrah, Sue Cowgill, Susana Chumbiauca and Jayne Green: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Plant Breeding, Wageningen University, PO Box 386, 6700 AJ, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Carolina Celis & Richard G. F. Visser

  2. SENASA, Pedro de Pasaje Fransisco de Zela No. 150 piso 10, Ministerio de Agricultura, Lima 11, Lima, Peru

    Maria Scurrah & Susana Chumbiauca

  3. Centre for Plant Sciences, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK

    Sue Cowgill, Jayne Green, Daan Kiezebrink & Howard J. Atkinson

  4. Fundación PROINPA, Av. Blanco Galindo km 121/2, PO Box 4285, Cochabamba, Bolivia

    Javier Franco & Gladys Main

Authors
  1. Carolina Celis
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Correspondence to Howard J. Atkinson.

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Celis, C., Scurrah, M., Cowgill, S. et al. Environmental biosafety and transgenic potato in a centre of diversity for this crop. Nature 432, 222–225 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03048

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