GENETICS/ Without the importation of transgenic soy, no more Parmigiano

In a previous article, we cited triticale as an example of a genetic improvement that offers insight into many considerations of the debate on GMO (genetically modified organisms). Transgenic soy is another case which had a huge turnaround regarding its DNA and the genes that contained in it and which merits further considerations.

It is folly to speak of “genetic modification” only when referring to transgenics like, for instance, a transgenic soy plant where a gene of the same plant is inserted to eliminate, for example, a potentially lethal allergen, just as it is folly to consider this modification so dangerous that commercialization of the product must be stopped (and in a country like Italy even the cultivation of the plant solely for research purposes is not allowed). At the same time, the fact that creating new species like triticale implies genetic modifications on a vast scale with non-negligible and much more real risks than the soy plant mentioned above, gets passed over in silence.

Remember that introducing a new variety of wheat or potato to the market does not require experimental verification of its danger from a health or environmental standpoint, even though cases of established damages were verified in the past, for example, with potatoes and celery. I am not calling for a normative restriction for these conventional plants equal to the suffocating one that burdens transgenic plants, but I am calling for the recognition that transgenesis is nothing more that the latest (and most precise!) way to modify the genes of organisms. The precision of the technique does not imply automatic certainty of safety, but nor does it imply the contrary. This means that one needs to judge every new plant, the product of transgenesis or of less precise methods, on the basis of its characteristics and not on what method was used to create it.
Some admit that all plants cultivated by man are in some way genetically modified and thus transgenesis would not be intrinsically dangerous, but they claim that Italy does not need transgenic products, and therefore does not need to cultivate them. Italy, they say, has its biodiversity (richness in variety) and peculiarity of products to export that would be in danger because they would become homologized.

Transgenic products are fine for areas with large expanses, but in Italy—the argumentation continues—the richness of products, profitability and intelligence of use can guarantee that Italian farmers will survive economically and that Italian consumers will have a healthy and high-quality food circuit.