Assisted evolution techniques in agriculture (TEA): this is how genetics helps agriculture

Italian agriculture could be close to a turning point. Thanks to’genetic engineering. Which would make fruit and vegetables more resistant to drought or pests, saving our countryside insecticides And fungicides. After the green light in the joint Agriculture and Environment commissions of the Senate for the amendment to the Drought Decree, which makes it possible to experiment in the open field of Assisted evolution techniques in agriculturewhich give life to the acronym Teaa new opportunity opens up.

Able to grasp the developments of the last decade of biology techniques, in particular of genome editing, which make it possible to intervene in a timely manner to correct the DNA, in this case of plants, even at the level of a single “letter”. But if the approval, announced as an “epochal turning point” by the senator of the Brothers of Italy Luke DeCarlofirst signatory of the amendment, is welcomed with applause by the agricultural world and by the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigidathere is no shortage of the first outcry, starting with Greenpeace protest. “With this vote – denounces the association – Italy is taking a step towards abandoning its twenty-year line strictly against GMOs, opening up to experimentation in the field which represents the premise for bringing genetically modified food to Italian tables”.

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Is there really anything to worry about or, rather, is it a virtuous way to rescue nature in difficulty? He has no doubts Roberto Defezsenior researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources of the CNR: “From apple trees to vines, through rice and tomatoes, we know the fragility of plants – he says – and we can encourage their adaptive response to aggression and climate change, and finally it would be experimentation in the field of new techniques has been allowed, hitherto blocked. And it is as if up to now they had allowed the design of a new generation engine for Ferrari, forbidding the car to be tested even on a private track”.

Metaphors aside, the world of science has no doubts about the opportunities associated with tea. Underlining a fundamental difference with first generation GMOs, genetically modified organisms, which arise with the transfer of an exogenous gene from a donor organism to a recipient one, as in the case of strengthened corn in resistance to a parasite, the borer, thanks to the grafting into its DNA of a gene from a bacterium, and therefore by transferring thousands of letters of its genetic heritage. In the case of Tea, on the other hand, a predetermined point in the DNA is actually “cut”, by inserting or eliminating tiny sequences, even just one “letter”, of a gene.

“A bit as if one operates in laparoscopy – explains Defez – by precisely modifying the single gene, in order for example to close the access door of fungi to plants. With the aim of drastically reducing the use of chemicals : Italy uses 22% of the fungicides of the whole of Europe, often with long-term effects on monoculture land.And for rice, we can hypothesize a mutation in the DNA that favors an architecture of the roots that explores the depth of the soil , making it more resilient to conditions Drought“. Which are more and more frequent.

In short, the advantages could be twofold: the reduction of the environmental impact of pesticideswhich would become less indispensable, and external aid to organizations already at risk for changed climatic conditions.

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Yet the party of those who would prefer less human interference in natural processes remains nurtured. But some clarifications are appropriate. The first: contrary to what happens with GMOs, the difference between plants subject to spontaneous (and therefore completely natural) mutations and plants subject to induced mutations (and therefore the result of assisted evolution techniques) is not identifiable. “The idea that by intervening we can generate a problem, and not vice versa favor new biodiversity, is the result of our prejudice”, Defez points out for example.

In half the world, tomatoes are already “assisted”

Then there is another question. “To date – highlights the CNR biotechnologist – Italy imports 10,000 tons of genetically modified soy, with an estimated cost of around 2.5 billion euros per year. This means that it’s not fears about the future that stop innovation: it’s just a question of understanding, if we want to face a problem with scientific maturity, the survival of our crops at climate changes and to the aggression of pathogensor miss the umpteenth train, due to a nostalgia for the past and a lack of faith in research”.

And indeed some genetic diseases of manas the thalassemia, for three years already in Italy, are being “corrected” with genetic editing. As for teas, times are still long: first of all it is necessary to draw up the protocols for placing the plants in the field and then to have experiments that validate the laboratory data. It means that before four or five years we would not eat products “improved” with assisted evolution techniques.

“All of this – concludes Defez – while in supermarkets all over the world, fromAustralia to the Japanfor example, there are already tomatoes or broccoli obtained from assisted evolution techniques in agriculture, indistinguishable from the others because that variation of DNA, induced by man and functional to a better response to new external conditions, has nothing different from analogous variations and spontaneous”.