Extension to host seminar on GMOs – messenger-inquirer

Fourth-graders might be on to something.

Once, during a school presentation, Paul Vincelli asked a group of students what they would do with genetic engineering.

One said he'd make broccoli taste like chocolate. Another said she'd make some foods more nutritious for poor people.

"They've got the right idea," he said with a laugh. "I tell audiences (genetic engineering) is like copying and pasting a sentence in a document on your computer."

But Vincelli, Extension professor of plant pathology at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, doesn't try to convince anyone to be in for or against genetic engineering he just presents the facts.

He'll do so at the Food Myths and Misconceptions seminar and Q&A at 6 p.m. Tuesday and at noon Wednesday in the Advanced Technology Center's Chandler Conference Room at Owensboro Community and Technical College, 4800 New Hartford Road. It is presented by the Daviess County Cooperative Extension Service.

Vincelli's presentation will cover the scientific aspects of genetic engineering in foods genetically modified organisms, or GMOs that is, the process of introducing new DNA to a plant or animal to alter its genome. Newer technology allows genome editing, a more precise method that can add, remove or substitute specific traits and target specific locations within the genome.

"GMO science is a very broad topic of study," Vincelli said during a phone interview from Fresno, California. He was there to present to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and California State University. He is also published in research journals.

"There are multiple and complex factors, but I like to focus on what we do and don't know about GMOs, and the risks and benefits."

A recent good example of GMO science, he said, lies in East Africa, where the woody root cassava is a foundational part of the diet. When a virus called brown streak disease threatened the food supply, modifying cassava to be disease-resistant was the answer.

Last May, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a report stating while genetic alteration can have unintended consequences, their review of about 900 studies and years of disease data shows no increase in health risks due to the consumption of GMOs.

Many non-GMO advocates, though, suggest GMOs pose environmental, human health and economic problems. Theres an ongoing debate among science experts on whether or not glyphosate is linked to cancer, the report states. The herbicide is often used with GMOs and was made popular when patented in the 1970s and sold as Roundup by the agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto.

Its widespread use might have weakened its ability to control weeds, which led Monsanto to create Roundup Ready soybean seeds in 1996, followed by corn. Roundup Ready crops are resistant to herbicides, thus farmers can spray for weeds without damaging their crops.

I always say it's not a sustainable weed control approach, but theres a lot of interest in the food system among urban and suburban audiences, and theres much more to it than Roundup Ready, Vincelli said.

"People would like to know what science says about all of these things, so well take a critical look the research and I think we'll have a rich discussion," he said. "I aim to be fair to all sides and just tell it like I see it.

Angela Oliver, 270-691-7360, aoliver@messenger-inquirer.com

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Extension to host seminar on GMOs - messenger-inquirer