CRISPR Nears As Newest Technology - KTIC

As we look back over the 2016 year in food and agriculture, it is tempting to think that the food label war, at least, could be calming down, especially since Congress pre-empted states’ food label requirements. However, that would be mostly wrong, according to Food Dive which is now providing an extensive description of a new food technology called CRISPR. The technology has been around for a while but now is causing industry officials to rethink important aspects of their future.

CRISPR is a technique that allows scientists to edit plant and animal genomes with unprecedented precision, efficiency, and flexibility. Food Dive says the past few years have seen a flurry of “firsts” with CRISPR, from creating monkeys with targeted mutations to preventing HIV infection in human cells. Recently, Chinese scientists announced they applied the technique to nonviable human embryos, hinting at the technology’s potential to cure genetic disease. Much of this potential is still unclear and will be so for some time.

What is clear is that CRISPR is one of the fastest, most precise and impactful methods for genetic engineering ever seen, Food Dive says, and notes that the big name genetic firms like Monsanto and DuPont have been working hard this for more than a year and are already growing CRISPR-edited corn and wheat plants, among others, in field trials. They report that they have been using CRISPR on plants and animals to include mushrooms that don’t brown as quickly in the refrigerator, drought-tolerant corn and virus-resistant pigs.

The increasing number of publications on the CRISPR/Cas system, the rising number of patents and the additional funding allocated for CRISPR research are all signs that CRISPR will be a core piece of the machinery in the future of bioengineering, Food Dive says.

What’s more, the technology faces a far different regulatory world than do conventional GMOs. For example, USDA has already ruled that it will not regulate CRISPR based foods because the technology does not involve inserting new genes into organisms, as today’s recombinant DNA technology does, but rather snips pieces of an organism’s existing genes.

Manufacturers do not have to wait for CRISPR to “happen” to the food industry, either, Food Dive says, because it’s already here. Companies could begin producing and selling mushrooms that don’t brown, meat that is more tender and cabbage that is more flavorful before long. In fact, it’s happening in places like China, where technologies very similar to CRISPR have been in play in the food industry already, the group says.

However, there still is an ongoing regulatory discussion, Food Dive says, regarding whether CRISPR-edited foods are “non-GMO” as USDA says. Organic certification groups also do not certify foods that have been edited using CRISPR.

Still, the food industry “doesn’t have a good foundation from which to build,” Food Dive says. Existing GMO regulations are already sorely outdated. The definition of a genetically modified organism is under debate and scrutiny. The group argues that the food label debate is more likely to be engineered around protecting special interests than actually coming up with responsible ways to keep consumers informed while allowing the food industry to adopt new technologies.

Food Dive argues that “manufacturers have to first define the technology, then recognize that labels still matter.” This, it thinks, could be a huge opportunity for the food industry to embrace CRISPR as a fundamentally good thing focused on high priority consumer needs, but “it can’t be shrouded in mystery.”

Consumers today won’t stand for that. Support for the technology will be stymied just as quickly and fiercely as support for GMOs has been in the past if companies aren’t upfront about their use of CRISPR.

So, we will see. It is clear that the industry is nearing the capacity to produce numerous new products with highly desirable attributes more efficiently than can be done with available GMO technology, but that building demand for these will take marketing skill and considerable luck. CRISPR certainly could mean enormous changes for the industry including increased demand growth, but exactly how all this will unfold remains to be seen, and should be watched carefully by producers as it evolves, Washington Insider believes.

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