The Rural Voice, 1988-08, Page 28THE GOOD AND THE BAD
OF
66
BIO-
TECH
WHAT CAN BIOTECHNOLOGY DO FOR FARMING?
IS IT DANGEROUS?
IS IT DESIRABLE?
It frightens me." That's one
of the most common responses
whenever biotechnology is mentioned.
This position is not unreasonable,
especially when you consider the
staggering number of experiments
reported in which genes from one
animal are inserted into the genes of
another. Such reports usually include
a prediction about what this biotech-
nological marvel will mean to all of
us. So if someone, somewhere, has
managed to put chicken genes into a
frog, you're likely to hear that some
day we'll be raising frogs with per-
fectly formed chicken legs and that
chicken farming as we know it will
become obsolete.
Then someone will accuse the
scientist of playing God. Opposition
to the work (and biotechnology in
general) will be voiced, and litigation
or worse threatened if the project were
ever to be put into action. Lurking in
the background are fears of mutations,
uncontrolled diseases and pests, and
the prospect of human genetic
engineering.
by Ian Wylie-Toal
If this were the reality of biotech-
nology, it would be sensible for us to
be afraid. But the reality is much
more mundane. It is true that biotech-
nology, in combination with genetic
engineering, has given us a new way
to shape the world and new possibil-
ities for the modification of organisms
so they will work to our advantage.
But what is possible is not always
probable: it may be possible to create
a frog with chicken legs, but the bio-
logical problems involved in doing so
are enormous, so enormous that the
probability of doing it successfully is
nearly zero.
This point is underscored by Dr.
John Phillips, a professor of molecular
biology at the University of Guelph.
He says that biotechnology is very
much an experimental area, and it is
important to realize that there is a lot
of hype about the subject. Experi-
ments will be publicized by the media,
he adds, but most of them will just
fade away and have little or no impact
on our lives.
So if biotechnology is not a mon-
ster, and it is not the be-all and end-all
of human existence, then what is it?
The way to start explaining bio-
technology is to say that it is simply
biological technology: the controlled
rearing of an organism so that it does
something useful for humans.
In the broadest sense, all of agri-
culture can be considered biotechno-
logical, because plants and animals
convert what humans cannot use (soil,
grasses) into what we can use (seeds,
leaves, meat, milk). More sophisti-
cated but still ancient forms of bio-
technology are used to make beer,
wine, bread, cheese, and yogurt. To
get these products, living organisms
(yeasts and bacteria) are added to a
raw material. As the organism lives
and grows, it produces substances that
modify the flavour and quality of the
raw material.
In more recent times, shortages in
the Second World War prompted the
biological manufacturing of glycerol
and acetone along with the develop-
ment of the antibiotic industry.
Organisms growing in controlled
26 THE RURAL VOICE