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In 2007, the combined savings of carbon emissions from biotech crops was equivalent to removing 6.3 million cars from the road.

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Canadian Scientists Are Pioneering Crops That Produce Healthier Foods 

From corn to canola, today's foods are being bred to be better for you and the environment too.

While the world tips its hat to Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA 50 years ago, Canadian scientists can tip a pint to their own pioneering record in biotechnology.  Canada, for example, was the first country to plant commercial biotech crops, canola, in 1996.  Since then, adoption of genetically modified crops has grown exponentially, to 60 percent of canola, and 40 percent in corn and soybeans.

In the 2003 season, Canadian farmers are adopting the latest innovation:  rootworm-protected corn.  The limited supply of seed will be used mostly for research and on-farm trials designed to evaluate the technology. What's significant here is the fact that biotech science is moving towards "stacked" traits.  The corn is resistant to insects and to herbicides so the environmental benefit is reduced application of both pesticides and herbicides.

What traits biotechnology companies decide to commercialize is a complicated process of agronomic and economic analysis.1   What helps this process work is Canada's strong science-based regulatory system.2  Since 1992, Canada has had a regulatory framework in place to register plants with novel traits. A recent addition, registration number 55, is a virus-resistant papaya. Currently, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada are considering an application for herbicide tolerant wheat.3

Canada's embrace of agricultural biotechnology is understandable given our strong history of plant breeding. In 1974, Canadian scientists Drs. Baldur Steffanson and Keith Downey developed canola from inedible oilseed rape by reducing the content of erucic and glucosinolate acid, compounds that caused bitterness.  Today, the made-in-Canada crop is crushed for a healthy canola oil, a commodity that's worth millions to farmers. Without an understanding of the basics of DNA and gene heredity, these experiments would be in the greenhouse still.

While Steffanson and Downey used time-consuming conventional plant breeding, biotechnology is more direct, eliminating the need to crossbreed plants for several generations to breed in — or breed out — specific traits.  The next generation of plant biotechnology will speed the commercial availability of food with enhanced nutritional benefits.

This is where a "food chain" approach to science helps, where the health benefits of certain plant substances are identified by nutritionists first and plant science breeders then use this information to enhance the identified trait in plants.

For example, Roma tomatoes enriched with lycopene are just a few years away from commercial availability.  Research conducted by A. Venket Rao, University of Toronto, confirms that lycopene is much better absorbed into the bloodstream when the tomatoes have been processed into ketchup, soup, juice, sauces and other products.4   Lycopene in tomatoes is converted by the temperature changes involved in processing. The chemical conversion allows the body to absorb it more easily.

Heinz, the world's largest processor of tomatoes, has established The Lycopene Project, a global initiative designed to identify and fund further research into the effect of lycopene.  Studies at the University of Toronto and at the American Health Foundation are focused on lycopene's potential in the fight against cancers of the digestive tract, breast and prostate gland.

In another example, Ontario soybean growers have intuitively understood that their crop is a powerhouse of nutrition possibilities.  To further the use of soybeans, they have partnered in a not-for-profit project, called Soy 20/20, with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the University of Guelph.  Dr. Gregory Penner, director of Soy 20/20, says he's very optimistic about the market for soy-based food products. 8  "Most baby-boomers are just one doctor's visit away from adding more soyfood to their diet," he says.

"We produce a lot of food grade soybeans in Canada — up to 750,000 acres — and we consume a lot of soyfood products in Canada.  But we're not processing very much in the way of soyfood in Canada.  We're shipping these beans out to other countries, they're processing them, and we're buying them back as processed product.  One of the things I would like to see as a success from this program is encouragement of more manufacturing of soyfoods here in Canada."

In addition to nutritional uses, Penner views the soybean as an oilseed with industrial uses, such as the production of biodiesel, and industrial enzymes  like peroxidase.  Peroxidase is important to health testing such as AIDS testing because it doesn't require refrigerating.  The soybean source is better than horseradish peroxidase because it is more heat stable.  Penner suggests that soy based industrial markets will arise at the lowest possible commodity prices. Value will be added to these markets over time through the delivery of targeted improvements as a result of selective breeding and biotechnology.

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