The Frankenfoods debate is coming to your dinner table. Justlast month, a mini-war developed in Europe, when the European Unions chief scientist, renowned biologist Anne Glover, said that foods made through genetic engineering, such as soy beansabout 80 percent of US grown soybeans have been genetically engineered are as safe as organic or conventional foods.

Its a wholly uncontroversial commentat least among scientists. But it set off the usual scare mongering from Friends of the Earth, and other like-minded advocacy groups that finds all genetically engineered (GE) foods and crops to be, in their words stomach turning.

The incident is also adding fuel to the California wildfiresno, not the ones caused by the droughtbut the incendiary debate over a fall ballot initiative that would require warning labels on all foods with GE ingredients, despite the fact that all established health and science groups such as the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences and the World health Organizationhave rejected claims that genetically engineered crops or foods pose additional risks or have altered nutritional profiles as compared to foods derived from conventional genetic alteration.

This debate is particularly poignant because fifty years ago this September,with the publication of Silent Spring,Rachel Carson launched the modern day environmental movement by shining a harsh light on the over use of technologyin that era it was chemicalsin farming.

Although Carson never used the term, her passion was sustainability. She envisioned harnessing the knowledge of biological diversityentomology, pathology, genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and ecology- to shape a new science of biotic controls that would help control weeds, diseases and pests without further damaging the environment. Her dream of a science-based agricultural system may come as a surprise to those who believe that sustainability and technology are incompatible.

A truly extraordinary variety of alternatives to the chemical control of insects is available. Some are already in use and have achieved brilliant success. Others are in the stage of laboratory testing. Still others are little more than ideas in the minds of imaginative scientists, waiting for the opportunity to put them to the test. All have this in common: they are biological solutions, based on the understanding of the living organisms they seek to control and of the whole fabric of life to which these organisms belong. Specialists representing various areas of the vast field of biology are contributingentomologists, pathologists, geneticists, physiologists, biochemists, ecologistsall pouring their knowledge and their creative inspirations into the formation of a new science of biotic controls.

(Rachel Carson 1962, p. 278)

Together with colleagues, my laboratory at the University of California, Davis has genetically engineered rice that tolerates flooding and resists disease. As a scientist committed to sustainable agriculture, I have to believe that if Rachel Carson was alive today she would reject the anti-science fear mongering of anti-GE campaigners.

For 10,000 years, humans have altered the DNA makeup of our crops. Conventional approaches were often quite crude, resulting in new varieties through a combination of trial and error, and without knowledge of the precise function of the genes that were being moved around. Such methods include grafting or mixing of genes of distantly related species, as well as radiation treatments to induce random mutations in the genetic makeup of the seed. Today, virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that have been genetically altered in one way or another.

Over the last 20 years, plant breeding has entered the digital age of biology. Just as software engineers tinker with computer codes to improve machine performance, scientists and breeders are altering the DNA software system of plants to create new genetically engineered crop varieties, often called GMOs, that thrive in extreme environments or can withstand attacks by pests. Like the older conventional varieties, GE crops are also genetically altered, but in a manner that is much more precise and introduces fewer genetic changes. GE crops often contain genes from non-crop species.

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