“The original premise of swapping genes to rapidly develop new GM varieties has been useful for informing conventional breeding and has helped inform much more targeted breeding programmes than was previously possible,” believes Fiona, “Now we know more about the specific gene we want and can select and reject progeny rapidly by testing if the desired gene is present. And where before in conventional breeding you would have to wait a year to get offspring off a plant, we are building the ability to do three, four or even six generations of crops in a year through special lighting and growth conditions not through GM.”

“This ability to speed up breeding through conventional ways offers huge potential to conventional breeding plans to get new varieties. As it stands, some plant breeding programmes will grow a crop in the northern hemisphere, then fly seed to the southern hemisphere like New Zealand to grow again, therefore you are getting two crops in a year.

Fiona is aware that there are big differences between the different genetic modification technologies. The old trans-species gene transfer in GM crops is not the same as the new CRISPR gene editing technologies. The latter technologies add or remove nothing, stitch on or off genes to encourage the plants to do different things which may either decrease pesticide use or slow the spread of diseases or enhance crop quality.

“Then beyond that you have the insertion of genes from a different species where there would have been no natural crossing. This is much closer to the GM which people don’t like. But each new variety and technique needs to be judged on its own merits.”

Public perception

Fiona feels that the public perception of GM has come about through how it was used in the beginning. “In the US glyphosate tolerance was inserted into main crops so you can spray off with the herbicide without killing what you want. The trait came from somewhere else and was inserted into the plant. This is not appealing to the public as it is associated with intensive systems and potentially increased pesticide usage and had no tangible benefit to them or their environment.”

But at the moment the Scottish Government has banned all growing of GM crops in Scotland and they are unpopular across Europe.

“There is zero GM products used on Scottish farms at the moment as they are specifically prohibited,” said Fiona. “Clearly the European public is very against the perception of GM, but for me GM is like lots of technology; there are good examples and bad examples. As it stands, ultimately there is no market demand for product and the Scottish Government’s position against GM acknowledges that. This is from our cleaner and greener produce angle.”

Whether the EU is isolated in its intolerance of GM, Fiona is not so clear. “It may become a redundant argument as continued improvements in conventionally based breeding systems incorporate what we need rapidly without overtly manipulating a genome. But priorities change, so 15 years from now there might be examples of GM crops which are acceptable to the public as they carry a much wider benefit. Everything should be judged on a case-by-case basis. It’s just like pesticides, they are not all good or bad, some are okay and some are not okay.”

But Fiona doesn’t think that Scottish farmers are currently missing out on plants which could improve their business. “Even if you took the barrier down tomorrow and said Scotland could grow GM, there are not any examples which would be improvements on the crop varieties at the moment.

In England they have permitted the John Innes Centre in Colney to work on blight-resistant potatoes but it’s still at the experimental stage. This might ultimately be a more appealing example to the public, compared to the early examples, as it would clearly reduce fungicide usage. We already have less-blight prone varieties available however the market often calls for potatoes prone to blight due to customer preference. We need to remember there needs to be customer demand for new varieties. That’s where GM methods will have advantages in terms of speed when you want to combine multiple desirable traits like taste and blight resistance.”

But it’s not just in potatoes that GM technology has the potential to make differences. Fiona knows of examples from around the world with potential, “There are now examples of including vitamin A into ‘golden’ rice to enhance the nutrition for millions of people. There are strong social benefits to traits like that. There are other projects which could have ecosystem benefits and others for human health, I am sure these would have different public perceptions.”

Plant breeding is vital for the future of Scottish agriculture no matter the techniques used. Fiona stressed the challenges we have here: “In Scotland we have some of the highest yielding and best-quality crops in the world. We do that on a very small land mass on a relatively intensive arable system so we carry a lot of disease burden. Our wet, moist climate makes us vulnerable to some pests.

“We have a list of over 900 pests on the UK risk register that could rise further in a warming climate.”

Currently it doesn’t look like Brexit will offer a sea change in breeding rules and regulations regarding GM according to Fiona. “All the talk is about aligning plant variety rights, pesticides and screening methods across the EU. Plant breeding and agri-chemical companies are all international and are keen to work on one set of rules. Plus we have strong links across Europe on plant breeding and pesticides. It’s important to have the same pesticide guidance and protocols to test efficacy and safety across borders.”