ALEKSANDER TRANKOV / JOE LENA / ISTOCKPHOTO

Engineering the Future of Food

By Josh Schonwald
Tomorrows genetically modified food and
farmed fish will be more sustainable and
far healthier than much of what we eat
todayif we can overcome our fears and
embrace it. Heres how one foodie
learned to stop worrying and love
Frankenfood.
Adapted from the forth-
coming book The Taste
of Tomorrow: Dispatches
from the Future of Food
by Josh Schonwald.
Copyright 2012 by
Josh Schonwald. To be
published on April 10,
2012, by Harper, an im-
print of HarperCollins
Publishers.
24 THE FUTURIST May-June 2012 www.wfs.org
By 1997, supermarkets stopped
stocking the bioengineered tomato.
The Flavr Savr was a financial disas-
ter for Calgene.
But that was almost fifteen years
ago.
One fall day, across campus from
the Helium Particle Delivery System,
I went to visit Kent Bradford, the di-
rector of UC Daviss Seed Biotech-
nology Center and presumably
among the best-positioned people at
Davis to answer my burning ques-
tion: Whatever happened after the
Flavr Savr?
The Culinary Potential of
Frankenfood
Genetic engineering obviously
didnt stop with the Flavr Savr de-
bacle; the use of GMOs has ex-
ploded. Many genetically engi-
neer ed f oods c an be f ound
throughout our food supply. Geneti-
cally modified soybeans and canola
dominate the market, which means
t hat mos t pr oc es s ed f ood
everything from your spaghetti to
your Snickers barhas GM ingredi-
ents. More than 90% of American
cotton and 80% of corn crops come
from GM seed. All of these crops,
though, are what are called com-
modity crops. Theyre not what you
pick up at your local greengrocer.
Theyre industrial crops, secondary
ingredients. Not what interested me.
What I wanted to know is what
vor to the supermarket tomato.
Achieving backyard flavor in an
industrial-scale, California-grown to-
mato has long been one of the holy
grails of the $4 billionplus tomato
industry. During the pre-tomato
launch hype-a-thon, the president of
Calgene claimed that genetic engi-
neering could not only bring us the
tomato of our childhood dreams, but
also remake the taste of the tomato,
tailored to our every desire: Even-
tually were going to design acidic
tomatoes for the New Jersey palate
and sweet tomatoes for the Chicago
palate.
The Flavr Savr turned out to be
the Edsel of the produce world, a
spectacular failure not just for Cal-
gene, but for the whole biotech in-
dustry. This purportedly longer-
shel f - l i f e t omat o became t he
lightning rod for much of the anti-
geneti cal l y modi fi ed organi sm
(GMO) movement. People learned
about other transgenic cropsa po-
tato with a chicken gene, tobacco
with a firefly gene, and, perhaps
most notoriously, a tomato with an
Arctic flounder gene, which pro-
vided an image for a Greenpeace
anti-GMO campaign. Nongovern-
mental organizations cried foul.
Consumers were alarmed. It was an
op-ed about the Flavr Savr where the
term Frankenfood first appeared. As
for the tomatos taste, most reports
said that, far from achieving back-
yard flavor, it was not that great.
The Plant Transformation Facility
at the University of California, Da-
vis, has been the scene of more than
15,000 transgenic events, which is
the term molecular biologists use
when they blast DNA from one life
form into another. In room 192 of
Robbins Hall, a brick building not
far from the student union, thou-
sands of microscopic plantlets grow
in Petri dishes bathed in pink and
fluorescent blue light.
Here, molecular biologists can mix
what were previously sexually in-
compatible species together using a
gas-pump-like tool called the He-
lium Particle Delivery System. Using
bullets (literally) made out of gold,
they fire genes from one species into
another in a bombardment chamber.
The Davis lab has given birth to
grapes spiked with jellyfish, toma-
toes spiked with carp, transgenic
squash, transgenic carrots, trans-
genic tomatoes.
Another important site in genetic
engineering history, an innocuous
office building about a ten-minute
drive from Robbins Hall, is the birth-
place of the most audacious plant in
the history of high-tech plants.
Among biotech people and anti-bio-
tech people, this plant, a tomato,
needs no introduction. The so-called
Flavr Savr was supposed to be the
game changerlonger shelf life, bet-
ter yield, better taste. Calgene, the
company that created the Flavr Savr,
claimed it could bring backyard fla-
Engineering the Future of Food
www.wfs.org THE FUTURIST May-June 2012 25
2012 World Future Society 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. www.wfs.org All rights reserved.
Facility, it is whisked to the UC Da-
vis Controlled Environment Facility,
where it will stay in a tightly secured
warehouse. Or it will be airmailed to
some other place, where itll live out
its life in another intensely biosecure
environment.
The process is costly and time-con-
suming, which partly explains why
biotech crop development is largely
in the hands of the agribusiness gi-
antsthe Monsantos, Syngentas,
and Bayer CropSciences of the
worldwho have the resources to
undertake the process. With such
high approval costs, big companies
have favored commodity crops with
market potential for hundreds of
millions of dollars in sales, not tens
of millions.
We talked about the reasons for
what Bradford calls the bottleneck
liever, considered, Maybe
the genes werent work-
ing?
A few years ago, Brad-
ford and his collaborator
Jamie Miller set out to find
out what was going on with
bioengineered specialty crops.
They surveyed the leading plant sci-
ence journals and tracked GM crop
field trialsall subject to govern-
ment regulationfrom 2003 to 2008.
Searching for citations related to spe-
cialty crops, they found that research
not only had never stopped but was
thriving.
There was research on 46 differ-
ent species, says Bradford. More
than 300 traits were being tested. A
lot of it was on input traits (disease,
weed resistance), but breeders had
also experimented with output
traits. It was happening at the
research level, but it just didnt move
to the next step. It just stopped
there.
There was an obvious explanation,
Bradford says, sighing. It was regu-
latory.
Post Flavr Savr, in response to
growing consumer concerns about
transgenic breeding, a regulatory
process was created that treated ge-
netically modified foods differently
from conventionally bred crops. If
you have iceberg lettuce, using clas-
sic plant-breeding techniques (cross-
ing, back-crossing), the assumption
is that the resulting lettuce is safe.
Theres no requirement for pretest-
ing. You just introduce the product
into the market. But with GMOs,
Bradford says, the attitude was that
its guilty until proven innocent.
A genetically engineered crop
must pass review by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture, the Environ-
mental Protection Agency, and the
Food and Drug Administration be-
fore it is commercialized. The cost
could range from $50,000 to tens of
millions of dollars to win regulatory
approval. For every transgenic
event, the genetic engineer must
show exactly what genes went into
the plant and how they function,
and then prove how the plant
makeup has been altered. That
research is costly. So is plant storage.
Once a t ransgeni c creat i on i s
spawned at the Plant Transformation
was happening with the quest to
achieve backyard flavor? And
what I couldnt get out of my head
was this claim that tomatoes could
be engineered for precise tastes
acidic tomatoes for the New Jersey
palate and sweet tomatoes for the
Chicago palate.
What was going on? Did they just
stop working on sweet tomatoes for
the Chicago palate? Wouldnt the
Flavr Savr creators be intent on re-
demption, going back to the bench
to try again? Or did everything just
stop?
Strangely, Bradford, a plant geneti-
cist who has been at UC Davis since
the early 1980s, shared my curiosity
about the postFlavr Savr worldhe
just had a different way of explain-
ing it.
Yes. Where are all these output
traits? he said. (Input traits are
breederspeak for whats so often
critical to agriculturedisease resis-
tance, insect resistance, adaptability
to particular environments. An out-
put trait is breeder parlance for what
I was looking fortraits that im-
prove taste and texture, traits that
could change the dining experience
of the future.)
Bradford had observed that, al-
most twenty years after the biotech
revolution began, there were few
signs of any Second Generation
crops. The First Generation was the
commodity crops: soybean, maize,
cotton, canola, sugar beets. Most ex-
pected that, after the first wave of
crops proved their worth, the next
wave would be more consumer fo-
cusedbetter tomatoes, tastier let-
tuce. But biotech specialty crops
(thats the crop scientist term for
produce) hadnt appeared. In fact, a
GMO specialty crop hadnt been
commercialized since 1998. Even
Bradford, a longtime biotech be-
The process is costly and time-consuming,
which partly explains why biotech crop
development is largely in the hands of the
agribusiness giants.
RED HELGA / ISTOCKPHOTO
OMER SUKRU GOKSU /
ARTPIPI / ISTOCKPHOTO
26 THE FUTURIST May-June 2012 www.wfs.org
You can silence a gene in the potato
genome, tuning down the bitterness
or acidic quality, but its still a frac-
tional impact on taste.
Taste is complex. A tomato, for in-
stance, has between five and twenty
compounds that influence flavor.
Changing flavor requires not one
gene, but packages of genes, and the
genes must be placed precisely. Then
there is texture, inextricably linked
to flavor. Modifying taste eludes
technologists today, but in the next
ten years, that could change, as bio-
engineers will be able to choose from
a genetic cassettestacks of genes
that together confer desired traits.
With a few mouse clicks, geneticists
say, they could choose from a range
of flavors, textures, and colors.
Think of it like Photoshop, says
C. S. Prakash, director of the Center
for Plant Biotechnology Research at
Tuskegee University. At some point
that wont be a far-fetched meta-
phor. It will be technologically pos-
sible, therefore, to create a Caesar
salad without the Caesar dressing;
the flavor of the Caesar could be
bred into the lettuce.
Textures would also be far easier
to change. You could bite into an
apple that has the consistency of a
banana. In a biotech-friendly future,
fruits and vegetables would merely
be another frontier for adventurous
and often mind-bending culinary
pioneers.
Well see produce that doesnt
spoil. In a biotech future, the sell-by
dates will be different; instead of
rushing to eat your lettuce in a week,
looseleaf lettuce could languish, un-
sealed, for a month or more. One of
the huge problems in the produce in-
dustry is perishability, with close to
crops, its been ferociously op-
posed.
Now lets say that golden
rice does get approved (as
some predict it will in 2013),
and lets say it saves millions
of children from starvation
and blindness in Asia. Or
lets say bioengineered crops
slow down the creation of al-
gal dead zones in the Gulf of
Mexico. Or a low-fat, anti-cancer
potato becomes a smash hit at Mc-
Donalds. Consumer worries about
GMOs evaporate, becoming as
anachronistic as fears of microwave
ovens causing cancer. The regulatory
barriers are gone; transgenic plants
are treated the same as any other.
The Monsanto juggernaut is over;
small, boutique companies and
open-source plant breeders in the
comfort of a Brooklyn loft have a
chance to contribute to the vegetable
economy. Then what happens?
Food will look different. There
will almost surely be more varieties.
Austrian heirloom lettuce varieties
like Forellenschluss and heirloom to-
matoes like the Brandywines and
Cherokee Purples could become
readily available. So many vege-
tables today arent commercially vi-
able because of disease vulnerabilities
or production inefficiencies. But in a
genetically engineered future, all the
flaws that make them ill-suited for
commercialization become mere
speed bumps.
You could have disease immunity
almost immediately, says Bradford.
And it would be very easy to take
care of these other variables. Instead
of taking a decade to ready a crop
for commercialization, it will take a
matter of months.
Its possible that colors would
change. You could find pink lettuce
and blue arugulamaybe with a
green orange slice for St. Patricks
Day. Color becomes malleable be-
cause its often a single trait.
Food will taste different. It is
also likely, some geneticists say, that
in 2035 some lettuces wont taste
anything like lettuce. The notion of
tomatoes with customized flavor
was a reckless ambition in the 1990s
when the Flavr Savr debuted; modi-
fying taste is among the most chal-
lenging tasks for plant geneticists.
for the biotech specialty crops. It was
NGOs such as Greenpeace and the
Union of Concerned Scientists that
were the bogeymen, in his view. Big
Organic, a $20 billion industry, had a
vested interested in stopping GMOs.
Back in 2000, when the USDA was
developing the National Organic
Program standards, the first draft
did not prohibit genetically modified
foods, but then activists launched an
anti-GMO campaign, flooding the
USDA with a tidal wave of let-
ters275,026, to be exact. The USDA
then determined that genetically
modified organisms would not be
included under the standard for or-
ganic produce. Being deemed un-
kosher in the organic world is a hard
stigma to overcome.
The anti-GMO movement hasnt
lost momentum; the Non-GMO Proj-
ect has become the fastest-growing
food eco-label in North America,
with sales eclipsing $1 billion in
2011. As for Europe: After a 12-year
moratorium on GMO crops, the Eu-
ropean Union greenlighted a GMO
potatobut not for human con-
sumption. It would be used to pro-
duce higher levels of starch, which is
helpful for industries like paper
manufacturing. In short, the Euro-
pean market is still overwhelmingly
closed for genetically modified food-
stuffs.
What If the World Embraced
Agricultural Biotechnology?
According to the World Health Or-
ganization, 250 million children
worldwide, mostly in the develop-
ing world, have diets lacking in vita-
min A. Between 250,000 and 500,000
of these children go blind every year.
Yet, there is a crop, developed more
than 13 years ago, that is fortified
with vitamin A compounds. If chil-
dren unable to get vitamin A from
other protein sources simply eat this
crop, they will not go blind and die.
It is named golden rice because of
its yellowish hue, and every health
organization in the world has de-
clared it to be safe to eat.
But golden rice was not bred
through traditional means; it was
bred in a lab. So golden rice is, by its
opponents definition, Frankenfood,
and therefore, like many other GMO
With a few mouse clicks, geneticists
say, they could choose from a range of
flavors, textures, and colors.
www.wfs.org THE FUTURIST May-June 2012 27
stirring as pulling them out of a
choppy Alaskan sea. A meat-spawn-
ing bioreactor doesnt have the same
allure as a dew-covered Virginia pas-
ture.
But its time to broaden the foodie
pantheon.
Lets continue to celebrate our
heirloom-fava-bean growers and our
grass-fed-goat herders. Lets care-
fully scrutinize the claims of nutri-
tional science and keep a wary eye
on new technologies, especially
those with panacea-like claims from
multinational corporations with mo-
nopolistic aims and a history of DDT
and Agent Orange production. But
lets not be so black-and-white; lets
not be reflexively and categorically
opposed to any and all technological
solutions. Savoring the slowest food
and foraging for wild asparagus
shouldnt be viewed as at odds with
championing lab-engineered vitamin
Aenhanced rice that could save
children from blindness.
Pairing a locally grown, seasonal
mesclun mix from an organic micro-
farm with cobia, a saltwater fish
grown in an industrial-sized ware-
house, is not an incompatible, ethi-
cally confused choice.
I make this point because of the
rising tide of food-specific neo-Lud-
dism in America. While well inten-
tioned and often beneficial in its im-
pact, this foodie fundamentalism is
unfortunately often associated with
a dangerous antiscientism. If were
going to meet the enormous chal-
lenges of feeding the worlds still-
growing population, we are going to
need all the ingenuity we can bring
to bear.
My modest hope: Lets keep an
open mind. Lets consider even the
fringy, sometimes yucky, maybe
kooky ideas. Lets not miss opportu-
nities to build a long-term sustain-
able future for our planet.
About the Author
Josh Schonwald is the
author of The Taste of
Tomorrow: Dispatches From
the Future of Food (Harper,
2012). He will be speaking
at WorldFuture 2012, the
World Future Societys
annual conference, to be held in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
antioxidants, but in an agbiotech-
friendly world, the produce section
would likely be overflowing with
health enhancements. Orange pota-
toes enhanced with beta-carotene,
calcium-enhanced carrots, and crops
with enhanced antioxidants are al-
ready in the pipeline. By the 2030s,
vegetables and fruits will be vitamin,
nutrient, and beneficial-gene-deliv-
ery vehicles.
To illustrate how this would play
out, Prakash points to the work of
Cynthia Kenyon, a University of Cal-
iforniaSan Francisco molecular bi-
ologist, who extended the life span
of a ground worm by six times by
changing a gene called def 2.
While this is in the realm of basic
science, Prakash also suggests that, if
something like a fountain of youth
gene is found to benefit humans, it
could be bred into vegetables. By
combining genetics and plant sci-
ence, a whole new realm of products
would likely appear.
Some geneticists envision a future
in which crop development would
become a highly collaborative pro-
cess: Nutritionists, geneticists, physi-
cians, chefs, and marketers would
work to develop new fruits and veg-
etables aimed at various consumer
wants.
Another Kind of Foodie Hero
A scientist in a white lab coat
doesnt conjure the same feelings as
a micro-farmer in a straw hat. Grow-
ing fish in a warehouse isnt quite as
one-third of all fresh fruits and vege-
tables produced lost to overripening
or damage during shipment. But
bioengineers are already making
progress in changing the post-har-
vest behavior of plants. By having an
enzyme shut off, an apple has been
modified so that it wont turn brown
after it is sliced, and a banana has
been engineered to ripen more
slowly.
Although small organic farmers
are often the most hostile to technol-
ogized solutions and may be the
least likely group to adopt high-tech
crops, its possible that GMOs could
change the farmers markets in
places like Chicago or Buffalo.
In New York and Illinois, its
pretty hard to grow a lot of crops be-
cause theyre going to freeze, ex-
plains Dennis Miller, a food scientist
at Cornell University. But you
could engineer in frost tolerance.
You could extend the growing sea-
son and bring in more exotic crops
into new regions. I dont know if
well be growing bananas in upstate
New York, but it would expand the
options for locally grown fruits and
vegetables.
How Frankenfood Will Improve
Health
Most breeders expect that the big-
gest change for consumers would be
something thats already familiar to
any Whole Foods shopper. We al-
ready have calcium-fortified orange
juice and herbal tea enhanced with
AquAdvantage Salmon includes a gene from the Chinook salmon, which provides the fish
with the potential to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon, according
to maker AquaBounty Technologies.
BARRETT & MACKAY PHOTOGRAPHY INC.
28 THE FUTURIST May-June 2012 www.wfs.org