Florida is known for its devastating hurricanes and ferocious heatwaves, but at the end of December, several parts of the state experienced consecutive nights of subzero temperatures and frost. On Dec. 23, Kevin Folta, a fruit farmer and professor of horticulture at the University of Florida, tweeted: Water, propane gas, gasoline, fire. It should be a fuss.
Never missing an opportunity for sarcasm, I replied: P.SyringeOh wait, I forgot – the EPA prevented them from being commercialized. For those who are happily ignorant of the whims of the EPA’s rule on genetic engineering, this requires some unpacking.
Floridians aren’t the only ones shivering. The storm hit most of the eastern half of the country, causing wind chills like -51 F in Chicago, powering more than a million people, just as people were traveling for vacation. Thousands of flights have been canceled. I didn’t. However, many common landscape plants and trees that adorn gardens and parks take a toll.
Frost damage to crops is not uncommon. This will cost American farmers billions of dollars each year. Peaches, plums, citrus, and other crops are regularly threatened by frost in the Southeast, but California is also susceptible. A cold snap in January 2007 cost farmers more than $1 billion in losses of citrus, avocados and strawberries. The freeze damaged agriculture about $3.4 billion and laid off 100,000 of his citrus industry workers, including pickers, packers, harvesters and salesmen. In 2002, lettuce prices across the country soared after an unseasonal frost hit lettuce-producing regions in Arizona.
As with many problems in society, from disease to energy production, technology can mitigate many of the harms. However, government regulations are a hindrance to many innovative solutions. These obstacles show what innovators face and how flawed and unscientific public policies hold back the realization of the potential of science and technology.
Today, as Professor Folta alluded to, the tools farmers use to prevent frost damage are pitifully low-tech. Methods include burning smudge pots to generate warm smoke, running wind turbines to move cold air, and spraying plants with water to form an insulating ice coat. Innovative high-tech solutions—the clever applications of biotechnology discussed below—are frozen by federal regulators. (Pun intended.)
In the early 1980s, scientists in the agbiotech (agricultural biotechnology) industry and at the University of California, Berkeley, developed an ingenious approach to limiting frost damage using recombinant DNA, or “gene splicing” technology. devised.
a harmless fungus Pseudomonas syringae, contains “ice nucleation” proteins that are found on many plants and promote frost damage. promotes frost damage in plants by inducing the formation of ice crystals.) Scientists have created mutants of bacteria that lack ice. This is because spraying plants with this mutant bacterium (called “ice-minus”) may prevent frost damage by replacing common ice-promoting strains found in nature. Using precise recombinant DNA, or “gene splicing” techniques, researchers removed the gene for the ice nucleation protein. They planned a field test with ice-minus bacteria to see if it could prevent frost damage under real-world conditions.
So far, so good. Then the government intervened.
The Environmental Protection Agency classified the harmless ice-minus bacteria as an insecticide and planned to test it on small fenced potato and strawberry plots in northern California. The regulatory rationale is that naturally occurring, ubiquitous “ice-plus” bacteria promote frost damage and are therefore “pests,” and that other bacteria intended to mitigate their effects was considered a pest. InsecticideThis ridiculously sophisticated reasoning could lead the EPA to regulate outdoor trash can lids as pesticides. This is to deter or reduce the behavior of “pests”, i.e. raccoons.
At the time, scientists inside and outside the EPA agreed that the tests posed minimal risk to humans, animals, or the environment. (I wrote the analysis submitted by the Food and Drug Administration.) They found that no new genetic material had been added, only a single gene with known functions removed, and that the organism was clearly I reasoned that it was harmless. Nonetheless, field trials underwent a lengthy and tedious review by both the National Institutes of Health and the EPA simply because the organism had been genetically modified with recombinant DNA technology.
It is worth noting that small-scale field trials using bacteria with identical traits but constructed with older and cruder techniques do not require any kind of governmental review. there is a mutant P.SyringeHowever, the gene for the ice nucleation protein has not been completely deleted, so the mutation is not permanent.Field tests on less than 10 acres of land show that unmanipulated bacteria and chemical pesticides are completely exempt from regulation. are excluded from
Moreover, there are absolutely no government regulations regarding large amounts of “Ice Plus”. P.Syringe Organisms (including ice nucleation proteins) commonly blown into the air during snow making on ski slopes (see below).
Making snow at a ski resort. Credit: rawpixel.com,
Ice-minus bacteria have proven to be safe and effective in preventing frost damage in field trials, but are subject to onerous government regulations, specifically the enormous cost of conducting experiments and considerable downstream Cost prospects and stigma discouraged further research and commercialization. pesticide registration. As a result, it is not commercialized, and plants grown for food and fiber throughout the country remain vulnerable to frost damage. Professor Folta’s farm is a prime example. After five days of sub-zero temperatures, he told me, “We have done a lot of damage to the citrus trees that are likely to survive, but we will lose a lot of fruit in 2023. The trees had to be stripped, and probably $1,000 worth of fruit wouldn’t sell,” and “the loquat fruits are frozen solid, so there will be no fruit from those trees in 2023.” , multiplying thousands of farmers in different parts of the country each year.
We have to thank the EPA for the fall, winter, and spring frosts that threatened farmers’ livelihoods, lost jobs, and increased agricultural prices. This point demonstrates the ramifications of such government actions, including public health implications. Demand for fresh fruits and vegetables is elastic, so higher prices reduce consumption and prevent consumers from reaping the benefits of antioxidants, vitamins and high fiber these products offer. is driving up food prices, the continuation of decades of irresponsible and unscientific government policies that reduce crop yields, drive up prices for consumers, and threaten farmers’ profits. This is what we most want to avoid.
The EPA’s incentives to develop products that can prevent or mitigate frost damage are another example of how regulators are creating a situation where everyone loses. Will regulators rethink policy and be guided by science and common sense? Will Congress take its oversight role seriously and hold the EPA accountable? Perhaps before hell freezes over.
