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Here’s my summary of “Un blé bio génétiquement modifié, ça existe déjà.” The article describes in detail how a popular European organic wheat variety was created using transgenic techniques. In fact, this organic wheat variety may be the only GM wheat commercially available in the world. Whoever thought that France and organic agriculture would be world leaders for the introduction of GM wheat? . . .
The variety is ‘Renan’ which is apparently popular with organic wheat growers in France and German, in part because of its good genetic resistance to several types of rust and ‘eye spot’ disease. The most notable difference between Renan and other types of GM transgenic events is that Renan has small pieces of chromosomes transferred from another species which will not cross naturally with bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) – compared to single transferred genes as with other GM events/varieties (examples, Bt corn/cotton, herbicide-tolerant crops and ‘Golden Rice’). . .
So what’s the difference between Renan and many other GM crop varieties? Not much it appears except for the fact that Renan contains much more transgenic material, has not undergone the large amount of testing for safety and environmental impact as other GM events, and little is known about the mechanisms of the transferred genes.
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Think of that while you enjoy your baguette at an organic café sur la Rive Gauche, Paris.
Read full, original post: “A Genetically Modified Organic Wheat? It Already Exists”
