Who's afraid of biotechnology?
If myths and food fears were discussed at length during the morning of Friday 24 February, with mass culture expert Peppino Ortoleva, biotechnology, and the GM in particular, I am certainly among the most feared bogeys of these years. Addressing the topic with a scientific approach, avoiding demonizations and radical alignments, was the objective of the panel moderated by Patrizio Roversi, that of genetic technologies in agriculture discussed with journalists and researchers, holding the reins of a dense and potentially flammable debate. "Green biotechnology doesn't just mean GMOs," the professor immediately pointed out Maria Lodovica Gullino, director of Agroinnova - Today biotechnology techniques have various potential applications in agriculture, for example to diagnose plant diseases ". The industry's reputation was, however, undeniably compromised by the first generation of genetically modified plants, "those - recalled Roversi - designed to withstand herbicides and sold by the same multinational companies together with pesticides ". "Currently it is the 85% of GMO species cultivated in the world - he stressed Manuela Giovannetti, of the nutraceutical center of the University of Pisa - There has certainly been an error in industrial strategy. It is not true, as was said, that GMOs save herbicides: recent data from the New York Times show an increase of more than 20%. Not to mention that the pollen of the modified plants ends up on those weeds that, in the long run, become themselves resistant to pesticides and super-weeds". However, the damage of a poorly considered strategy in the past should not compromise the possibility of scientific research to move in the future on a road more attentive to sustainability and health. As long as, as Gullino pointed out, "a good balance is found between public and private research". "The goal should be the marriage between science and ethics - has closed Antonio Cianciullo di Repubblica - And biogenetics is a land on which an agreement can be found ”.
