By Tim Cronshaw, Fairfax New Zealand Limited via Checkbiotech

European countries with strong lobbying against GM crops have reacted positively to a new technique developed by Lincoln scientists using genetic engineering without foreign DNA.

Most interest in the new way to genetically modify plants has come from Europe, to the surprise of even Crop & Food Research, which holds the technique's intellectual property rights (see related release: Precision breeding: a new genetic technique providing international opportunities for crop improvement, November 2004)

The method – called precision breeding – allows for the transfer of plant genes without introducing genetic material from another species.

Senior scientist Dr Tony Conner says the research organisation has received many inquiries from around the world since the work was introduced at international science conferences late last year.

"To our surprise (the interest is) largely from Europe, which is interesting given the concern of Europeans about genetic modification."

It is being warmly received by developing countries in Asia, South America and Africa, he says.

Dr Conner says Third World countries often lack the regulations to deal with genetic modification.

He says smaller companies that do not have the big expense accounts of large corporates view it as a means of using the technology.

"There has been a lot of support for the idea. I think people see it as a way forward in the GM debate. It overcomes the big issue of public concern about ethics and how they feel uncomfortable about moving genes across the wide boundaries from animals to plants or bacteria to plants."

Dr Conner says scientific and industry groups recognise that there is still much work that can be done with same-species genetic modification, without causing public concern.

Only genetic material that naturally crosses within the same species is transferred and the method avoids established GM methods using bacterial DNA.

The next stage is to isolate a range of valuable potato genes to improve existing potato cultivars.

The characteristics being targeted include nutritional value, visual appearance and disease resistance.

He admits the work had drawn a mixed reaction.

"We have to recognise that there are portions of the public that we will never be able to convince. But we hope to appeal to mainstream New Zealanders," he says.

Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel says the main concerns are the lack of knowledge of the effect of releasing new genetically modified organisms into the environment and the random enforced insertion of DNA into a living organism.

"We don't have an ethical issue of GM itself with its lab use. Our concern is of the long-term irreversible effects on environmental release."

Mr Abel says Crop & Food has given the precision-breeding technique a fancy name, but it is still GM and would be regarded as this by an international agreement between countries to manage international trade of live GM organisms.

Dr Conner says the random insertion issue is already present in all crop plants through other advanced breeding techniques and is not a new issue to be concerned about.

Precision breeding is being seen as valuable for any crop and particularly those that are vegetatively propagated such as potatoes and fruit trees.

Crop & Food estimates it could be a year or two before precision-bred cultivars of potato are ready for field testing.

© Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2005.