Posted on 06/26/2024 12:09:48 PM PDT by Red Badger
Vandals uprooted the fungus-resistant Arborio rice, which was being tested in the country’s first ever field trial of a CRISPR-edited crop
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Researchers arrived at a site near Pavia, Italy, on 21 June to find their crops uprooted and mown down. VITTORIA FRANCESCA BRAMBILLA
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Italy’s first field trial of a gene-edited crop is in tatters, after vandals completely destroyed a test plot of experimental rice near the northern city of Pavia. No one has claimed responsibility for the destruction.
The small field trial of Arborio rice altered to make it more resistant to a common fungus was the country’s first outdoor experiment allowed under a recent loosening of the laws governing such studies. The rule change opened the way to field testing crops with precise modifications to their DNA made with the gene-editing tools such as CRISPR-Cas9. Trials using older forms of genetic modification are still virtually impossible to conduct in Italy.
“What happened is very tragic, especially for the colleagues who lost an important experiment,” says Silvio Salvi, plant geneticist at the University of Bologna and president of the Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics. But he is convinced the attack won’t derail similar projects in the pipeline. “None of us will feel scared by what happened,” he says. “There will definitely be no step back.”
Like other varieties of rice, Arborio—used to make risotto—is susceptible to the pathogenic fungus Pyricularia oryzae, which causes rice blast. This devastating disease quickly infects the plants, often killing them, and is managed mainly with fungicides.
In 2017, Vittoria Brambilla, a plant scientist at the University of Milan, and her colleagues began to develop an alternative approach to fighting the disease. The team used CRISPR to edit three genes involved in susceptibility to rice blast, creating a potentially disease-resistant version of Arborio they called RIS8imo.
In lab trials, the rice performed well. But field tests only became possible last year, when the Italian government announced it was making it easier for scientists to field test plants edited using so-called new genomic techniques, such as those involving CRISPR.
After a long bureaucratic process, the researchers were able to plant the gene-edited rice in a 28-square-meter field in May. The test site was surrounded with 400 square meters of uncultivated land, in order to avoid pollen dispersion, and a fence to keep out animals.
But on 21 June, after receiving a call from the landowner, the team arrived at the site to find most of the plants had been torn up or mowed down overnight, likely with a sickle. The researchers have no clues as to who might be behind the vandalism.
“I naïvely didn’t expect it,” Brambilla says. It was “like when thieves break into your house and destroy everything.”
She says the researchers had met all the farmers in the area, who were positive about the experimental cultivation. The trial “wasn’t forced” but rather “wanted by everyone,” she says. “We always tried to keep the dialogue open.”
After being replanted in the field, some of the plants have begun to recover, but “the experiment has lost its scientific value,” Brambilla says. She worries there are now too few plants to perform proper tests of the rice’s resistance to P. oryzae in the field.
Several other experimental field trials of gene-edited crops are now being planned in Italy, including trials of wine grapes edited to be more resistant to disease while maintaining their appearance and flavor.
Brambilla says that to avoid field tests being destroyed in the future, the team wants legal changes that would allow researchers to keep the sites’ locations secret, rather than requiring them to be listed on a public database, or to have police protect them.
Despite the latest setback, Salvi thinks “the wind has changed” in Italy’s long-standing debate around the development of genetically modified and edited foods. “There is greater trust towards genetic technologies.”
Remember, putting pineapple on pizza is cause for justifiable homocide in Italy.
Almost incomparable to anywhere else in the world, food and culture are closely intertwined in Italy.
I can only imagine what distress inserting corporate DNA genes into native arborio rice might cause.
The crop failed, but don’t in any way blame on on the genetic modifications. It must be the vandals.
Bayer employees....................
” food and culture are closely intertwined in Italy.”
An awful lot of ChiCom money has been flooding into Italy over the years.
Maybe they don’t want Arborio, maybe just plain contaminated Sticky Rice like in Ping land.
Certain vegans have a cheesy look on their faces.
latter-day Luddites ...
I don’t think the genetic modifications would result in a crop ‘torn up or mowed down’.
Buy those folks a beer. This manufactured CRISPR stuff is toxic to the human body.
The crop failed? Where did you read that?
Exactly who, though, did the mowing? Was it someone hired by the genetic mods company to hide their failure?
Probably some interest who hates genetic engineering in foods.
There are crazies all over the world these days.
“There are crazies all over the world these days.”
Even here!
Well, to be clear, I don’t have a personal opinion on GMO crops. People have varying thoughts about it.
But I do think the defacement or destruction of property is a ‘crazy’ way of dealing with what one dislikes or doesn’t agree with.
Apples are good for you.
Oranges are genetically different than apples.
So oranges are poisonous.
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