By Paul Murphy
The Guardian via Checkbiotech.org
 
The prospect of crops that can be irrigated with sea water and grown in hostile environments such as deserts has been promised by a group of American scientists whose genetic modification business was quietly floated on the London stock market yesterday.

FuturaGene, a company formed to protect patents over a series of gene discoveries, has pooled the work of plant experts at three US agricultural research institutions.

The scientists claim to be pursuing a new type of "eco-friendly" genetics, which has allowed them to develop prototype tomato and rice plants able to thrive in salt-rich soils and hibernate in conditions of extreme cold or drought.

They are now raising money to fund trials of the new crops, aiming to win approval from the US department of agriculture and the food and drug administration for commercial use. But the fact they have turned to British investors - rather than the GM-friendly US capital markets - is likely to reignite the debate in this country over whether GM crops are safe to cultivate.

The scientists, from the universities of Purdue, Arizona, and Illinois, argue that their technology overcomes earlier concerns about agricultural genetics by avoiding the introduction of foreign genes into plant species.

Their approach has been to study how plants protect themselves from environmental stresses and then to enhance the plant's natural defence systems by amplifying the relevant genes. One gene in particular, SOS1, helps plants grow in salt-rich soils, which are becoming a problem thanks to poor irrigation. The gene helps plants pump salt out of their roots before it can damage them.

Ultimately FuturaGene hopes to develop plants that can be grown by irrigating them with sea water instead of fresh water. "This is our dream," said Bruno Ruggiero, the company's chief executive. Despite the company's declared good intentions, some remained sceptical. "At this moment in time, the population is really sensitive about the whole GM issue and they don't trust these companies," said Carlo Leifert, a professor of organic agriculture at Newcastle University.

Until the trials have been completed it is impossible to know how well the plants will perform in the wild. To cope with salt-rich soils they will have to pump salt that gets into their roots back into the soil, a process which takes up energy.

FuturaGene's leading academic, Dr Ray Bressan, a professor at Purdue University, expressed frustration at the continued suspicion of the British and other European publics towards genetic modification of any type. "Those in the green movement may have their hearts in the right place, but there is very little knowledge. The debate is low-grade and alarmist.

"Our aim is to get more production on less land, which means that less land is used for agriculture. Any ecologist will tell you that conventional agriculture has a larger negative impact on the world than anything else," he says.

A third of the world's irrigated land is deemed useless because it contains too much salt. When soil is irrigated, especially in hot countries, the water evaporates, leaving salts behind. One solution is to flush the area with more water but when water is at a premium this is not an option.

In the US salt-rich soils account for £4bn in lost yields every year. The resistant crops would also find markets outside the US, primarily in China, Australia and South America.

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