How is genetic engineering different from traditional crop breeding?

Traditional breeding is a 10,000 year old technique that allows farmers to work within the parameters of evolution by slowly selecting the best plants each growing season. This produces a stable breed of plants equipped and adapted to survive in a specific area or climate.

Genetic engineering is a dramatic departure from traditional breeding in a number of ways. First, the methods used in traditional breeding and in genetic engineering are radically different (see “What is genetic engineering?” for more information).

Also, in traditional breeding, only the same or very closely related species can be combined. There are, in fact, very strict boundaries in nature that prevent different species from reproducing. For example, donkeys and mares are not the same species but are closely related enough to produce offspring, called mules, but mules are sterile and cannot reproduce. Nature set a boundary so the genes from these two different species could not be passed on beyond one generation. Genetic engineering jumps over these boundaries, steps outside of the laws that have governed nature for the history of time, and allows totally unrelated species to come together and create offspring that can reproduce and pass on their new traits, like a tomato with fish traits, corn with pig traits, and sugarcane with human traits.

Also, in natural reproduction, the DNA of the parents is combined in a very precise way to create their offspring. A child gets one strand of DNA from its father and one strand from its mother. One or two random genes from mom are not stuck into the genes of dad to make a child.

Another thing that makes genetic engineering different from traditional breeding is the relationship of the farmer to the crop. When genetic engineers create new genetically engineered organisms, they then patent those life forms and own them. Farmers never truly own genetically engineered seeds; they sign contracts for seeds called Technology Use Agreements which is like a lease agreement with the companies, promising that they will buy new seed every year, that the companies can come onto their property at any time to make sure they are not saving and replanting seeds, and other stipulations. In traditional breeding, farmers are free to work with their crops to make them as productive as possible in the place they live, to develop seeds, to save them, and to share the best ones with neighbors. When farmers plant genetically engineered seeds, however, they give up that freedom and become in effect renters, renting the crops they grow from multinational genetic engineering companies.

Scientists have tinkered with new technologies before, like nuclear technology, which seemed very exciting in the beginning but ended up bringing our planet to the brink of annihilation and created toxic waste. Now, genetic engineering goes a step further by tinkering with the very blueprints of life, creating new species that never would have happened in nature and that can never be recalled, and the effects of this tinkering are unexplored and unknown. Past experience shows us that we must be careful with new technologies and proceed slowly and cautiously, with comprehensive regulations and strict standards for safety testing. Unfortunately, as we will see, this is not the way that genetic engineering is being handled.

Find out more:
	What is genetic engineering?		How is genetic engineering different from traditional crop breeding?
	What crops are being genetically engineered?		Who is doing genetic engineering? Why are they doing it?
	How are these crops regulated?		What impact will genetic engineering have on Hawaii's farmers?
	How do genetically engineered crops and foods affect our health?		What effect will genetic engineering have on Hawaii's environment?
	Where are these experiments being conducted?		What are pharmcrops?