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What is the decisive advantage of genetically modified plants?
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What is the risk if genetically modified plants cross-pollinate with wild plants?
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Can genetically modified plants or the food products made from them cause allergies?
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Could genetically modified plants throw the ecosystem off-balance?
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Does biotechnology not contribute to further industrialization of agriculture?
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Can world famine be eliminated by means of biotechnology?
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When will the first BASF genetically modified plants be available on the market?
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What is the decisive advantage of genetically modified plants?
Genetic engineering helps us to equip plants with particular characteristics that we would hardly be able to achieve using conventional breeding methods. Characteristics of this kind are e.g. improved ingredients such as unsaturated fatty acids and resistance to drought, salt or cold. Resistance to disease can also be increased effectively using genetic engineering. Ultimately, genetically modified plants can be used to produce high-quality substances very easily in the field. This saves resources and cuts costs.
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What is the risk if genetically modified plants cross-pollinate with wild plants?
Cross-pollination is not an issue as far as the cultivation of certain crop plants is concerned because, for example, corn does not have any related species growing in the wild in Europe. If—in the case of other crop plants—cross-pollination onto wild species does occur in a few cases, it cannot be assumed that the new characteristics will establish themselves in the wild plants.
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Can genetically modified plants or the food products made from them cause allergies?
Single and well characterized plants are used in a gene transfer. Compared to this, the human immune system is confronted with thousands of new proteins, which were not previously a component of European food, on eating newly introduced plants such as the potato, rice, corn in former times ore more recently exotic fruits such as the kiwi or papaya. Apart from that, exactly this is a topic in which the consumer will profit directly from genetic engineering. It is possible to eliminate existing allergens in food with the aid of genetic engineering.
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Could genetically modified plants throw the ecosystem off-balance?
Basically, modern crop plants are so strongly adapted to conditions in the field that they have hardly any chance of survival in the open countryside. Nevertheless, the effects of genetically modified plants on the environment are investigated in detail before the plants are approved for commercial cultivation-existing legislation requires very detailed investigations in this regard. The latter are strictly monitored by German authorities (e.g. the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Biological Research Center). A genetically modified plant that does not pass these investigations will never reach the stage of commercial cultivation.
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Does biotechnology not contribute to further industrialization of agriculture?
No. Because the plants possess in-built adaptation mechanisms against drought, diseases, etc., the amount of work required of the farmer to grow them, i.e. use of machinery, is less, not more. Subsistence farmers can cultivate plants of this kind just as well as farmers with larger farms. And even for crop plants with improved ingredients there is no need for any special or more complicated cultivation methods.
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Can world famine be eliminated by means of biotechnology?
Famine in developing countries has various causes, including political and global economic reasons as well as crop failure and a lack of agricultural productivity in densely populated countries. In this context, it must be clearly stated that genetic engineering will not solve all these problems. However, it is an important component of a comprehensive solution. This also includes the increase of agricultural productivity. Over the past several decades, considerable yield improvements have been achieved in breeding and crop protection using conventional methods. Further increases in productivity can hardly be expected without genetic engineering.
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When will the first BASF genetically modified plants be available on the market?
The first marketable plant is our starch potato - Amflora. It is currently in the process of being approved in Europe. We expect approval for commercial cultivation in the further course of 2007.
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