Study Shows No Risk of Gene Glow from Biotech Potato in Peru

Scientists have established that natural movement of a gene in a transgenic variety (transgene), that is not under farmers' selection, from a widely grown transgenic variety into the non-improved potato varieties (landraces) over a long period of time is unlikely to happen at a detectable scale. Scientists at CIP, led by Dr. Marc Ghislain reported this in findings published in Springer in July 2014.

The findings are contained in the results of an experiment where the scientists set out to find out possible natural hybridization of landraces with an exotic variety, ‘Yungay'. The exotic variety and the landraces had coexisted for 15- 25 years in the Peruvian Andes. The experiment which involved 688 landraces concluded that none of them could be said to be a hybrid with Yungay as a parent.

The study was necessitated by concerns raised that a possible introduction of genetically modified potato in the Andean region could lead to the unintentional introduction of transgenes into the native potato germplasm because it is perceived to convey negative impacts on biodiversity. "This outcome provides convincing, significant scientific evidence for refuting the precautionary position of a unilateral ban on transgenic potatoes in their center of origin." Dr. Ghislain said.

The open-access research article is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11248-014-9854-4. For more information, contact Dr. Marc Ghislain at m.ghislain@cgiar.org.