Heritage Hogs

  • Barbara Schaefer thinks locally raised heritage meat makes economic and environmental sense. (Photo by Lucy Martin)

Variety isn’t just the spice of life. You could say it is life. And you can’t have variety without lots and lots of genes.

Farmers have spent thousands of years developing livestock that do well in different conditions.

Modern agriculture usually concentrates on just a few breeds that maximize profit. But a lot of people don’t want to see all the valuable genes in older breeds just disappear.

Lucy Martin visited a farmer who says the future needs to include heirlooms from the past:

Transcript

Variety isn’t just the spice of life. You could say it is life. And you can’t have variety without lots and lots of genes.

Farmers have spent thousands of years developing livestock that do well in different conditions.

Modern agriculture usually concentrates on just a few breeds that maximize profit. But a lot of people don’t want to see all the valuable genes in older breeds just disappear.

Lucy Martin visited a farmer who says the future needs to include heirlooms from the past.

(Schaefer entering barn: “Watch your head, it’s a little mucky in here…”)

It’s a bright winter day, inside a classic red barn in Southern Ontario. We’re admiring docile animals whose name says it all: Large Black Pig. They look fine. Even though this pig is listed as critically endangered.

Schaefer: Sometimes you’ll be standing here and you think there are no piglets and suddenly one rises out of the straw!

(Sound of contented grunting)

Barbara Schaefer used live in Toronto. Until a few years ago, her career revolved around managing environmental projects. But when she got laid off, she decided to put theory into practice.

Schaefer: I can’t save the polar bear, but I can save this breed. How many things can you say that about? And that’s why what I’m doing now is 200 times more relevant.

What she’s doing now, is weaving different environmental threads together. Preserving the genetic diversity of rare livestock. Putting marginal land to higher use. Trying to revitalize rural economies. Offering an alternative to factory farming.

Nearly all commercial pork across North America comes from just a few main breeds, usually reared in confinement systems. A lot of science goes into maximizing production. But Schaefer doesn’t think that’s the whole picture.

Schaefer: They’re packed in fairly close, they don’t get the benefit of being outside in the sunlight. They have a artificial concrete floor, which for them, is a horror. Because these guys think with their nose, they want to be turning things up all the time and there’s no opportunity for that.

(Sounds of distant tractor and more pigs grunting)

In the barn yard, I mingle with small herds of thigh-high, curious pigs as they as they mill about, soaking up sun. Some amble over to near-by pastures for naps inside cosy hay huts.

Schaefer’s customers include local restaurants and ‘foodies’, people who like to cook and eat.

Fans admire heritage breeds because these animals were bred to thrive in the specific conditions of small-scale, local agriculture.

Lawrence: They’re rustic, they’re hardy, they’re often good mothers.

Ted Lawrence has spent years on this cause with Rare Breeds Canada. Some really admire the animals. And then there’s the whole ‘insurance’ argument: odd breeds have genes worth keeping. As base stock for even newer breeds, to adapt to changes in climate, or to survive some epidemic.

Lawrence: Food security, that will turn heads more quickly than saying we have to preserve the genetic diversity of minor breeds.

If these animals are special, why slaughter them?

Lawrence: That is actually a slogan that has been used in Great Britain: ‘We must eat them to save them’. It sounds counter-intuitive but what’s the purpose of breeding them if you can’t make any money, if you can’t sell them? Then the genetics will not continue. The breed will go extinct.

(kitchen clatter and music playing at Murray Street Restaurant)

Chef Steve Mitton co-owns a restaurant in Ottawa which features Schaefer’s pork. He’d hate to see old breeds die out.

Mitton: I mean, I get entire animals in and break them down from head to toe, and we use every last bit of it. The yield of the Large Black, in particular, is outstanding.

Mitton says more and more people care about where their food comes from and how animals are treated.

Mitton: I just want to broaden their horizons, open people’s minds a little bit, so they know that this is out there. And it’s just as good as commercial pork.

Most meat eaters have no idea what breed of animal ends up on their plate. But making sure there are lots of breeds around can help keep those plates full, and tasty.

For the Environment Report, I’m Lucy Martin in Ontario.

Related Links

The Future of Corn

  • Scientists say this research could allow us to breed new corn varieties faster than ever before. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)

You might think you know corn –
as in corn tortillas, corn-flakes,
corn-bread and so on. But do you
really know corn? Like, did you
know that our last harvest could
be one of our biggest, or that most
American corn is genetically modified?
Shawn Allee reports experts
want us to get re-acquainted with
our biggest crop because we need
to make huge decisions about its
future:

Transcript

You might think you know corn –
as in corn tortillas, corn-flakes,
corn-bread and so on. But do you
really know corn? Like, did you
know that our last harvest could
be one of our biggest, or that most
American corn is genetically modified?
Shawn Allee reports experts
want us to get re-acquainted with
our biggest crop because we need
to make huge decisions about its
future:

Virginia Walbot researches corn genetics at Stanford University, and recently she got news that didn’t just make her day – it kinda made her decade. Walbot says scientists just finished sequencing genes of an important corn genome.

“The genes are like the words in different languages and what you need is a dictionary that lists all those words, and that dictionary for us, is the genome sequence.“

Walbot says this research could allow us to breed new corn varieties faster than ever before. That’s a big deal because even though we benefit from corn we have now, we could make it better. For example, corn creates environmental problems – take corn fertilizer.

“Of course, adding fertilizer really boosts a lot of yield, but the downstream effects aren’t really great. So, there’s runoff from farms that contaminates the water supply. Making corn as efficient as possible and just giving enough fertilizer to sustain yields, those would be fantastic goals.“

Now, most corn researchers want to meet environmental goals, but there’s a question science alone can’t answer – what kinds of corn should we grow or improve?

Kinds of corn? Maybe you’re thinkin’ “corn chips” versus “popcorn” but there’re bigger differences. We eat sweet corn – most corn’s starchy industrial stuff.

“I think that’s one thing consumers get confused about. Today, only one percent of corn production goes into sweet corn.“

That’s Pam Johnson. She’s with the National Corn Growers Association. Johnson says about half our corn goes to animal feed, then we eat the meat or dairy products from that.

But a lot goes to industrial products, too. Ethanol uses more than a third of the corn in the American corn market.

Johnson says corn farmers want scientists to create specialty industrial corn that can fetch premium prices – like corn just for ethanol or corn just for renewable, corn-based plastic.

“You know, we’ve always said for a long time that anything that’s made from petroleum might be able to be made from a renewable and I think that’s an exciting thing to ponder as a corn grower.“

Johnson predicts new genetic science will also improve corn we eat directly, but is that likely to happen?

“I have my doubts.“

That’s Rainer Bussman. He’s with The Missouri Botanical Garden, and he studies how people use plants.

“Feeding people is less economic incentive than producing large amounts of corn for animal feed or biofuels, so I do have my doubts there.“

Bussman says it’s a shame food varieties of corn will get less attention from genetic research. He says he worries about food security. He figures if we grow more types of food corn we’ll be better protected from crop diseases.

It’s also a matter of taste, though. Bussman’s traveled the world and tasted corn we don’t grow here – like a blue kind in South America.

“They would call that maize murada which means purple corn and that is mostly used to produce a very refreshing, sweet beverage, so you get this get this deeply purple, sugary drink. It’s all natural, no sugar added.“

Bussman says Native Americans and the earliest settlers produced hundreds of varieties of corn for all kinds of food dishes – corn for just pudding, just bread, just porridge, and so on. They created this food diversity without modern genetic science, but we do have it.

Bussman asks why should our science just improve animal feed, ethanol, and bio-plastic? Why not make food our priority, too?

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Genetically Engineered Crops in Your Stuff

  • The USDA reports, this past year, 85% of the corn crops planted were genetically altered. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

The soda-pop you drink, the
t-shirt you wear, the cooking
oil you use – all might contain
genetically engineered material.
Lester Graham reports on a
continuing trend in agriculture:

Transcript

The soda-pop you drink, the
t-shirt you wear, the cooking
oil you use – all might contain
genetically engineered material.
Lester Graham reports on a
continuing trend in agriculture:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, this past year, 88% of cotton, 91% of soybeans and 85% of the corn crops planted were genetically altered.

That means corn syrup, cotton cloth, and hydrogenated soybean oil are all more than likely are from genetically engineered crops.

Margaret Mellon is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. She says farmers might embrace them, but genetically engineered crops have not really advanced American agriculture that much.

“I’m not saying there are not benefits, but they’re really modest. In particular, I think it’s important to note that it really hasn’t had an impact on yield – which is what we need if we’re going to increase the amount of food in the world and feed more people.”

The makers of genetically engineered seeds, companies such as Monsanto, say their crops do increase yields by stopping weeds and insect damage. The big bio-tech companies say their crops save farmers money, mean fewer harmful pesticides and reduce soil erosion.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Genetically Altered Eucalyptus Trees

  • A company called ArborGen is working on altering Eucalyptus trees, so they can be turned into paper and biofuels more easily. (Photo courtesy of the National Biological Information Infastructure)

There’s already a lot of genetically
modified corn and soybeans out there.
Now, Mark Brush reports, one company
is working on genetically modifying
trees:

Transcript

There’s already a lot of genetically
modified corn and soybeans out there.
Now, Mark Brush reports, one company
is working on genetically modifying
trees:

The company is called ArborGen. And it’s working on altering Eucalyptus trees, so they can be turned into paper and biofuels more easily.

Eucalyptus is native to Australia and New Zealand.

But ArborGen has already got 330 acres of these genetically altered trees planted scattered across the South.

And now it wants the government to allow these trees to flower. And that has people like George Kimbrall worried.

He’s an attorney with the International Center for Technology Assessment. He says if they spread they’ll be bad for the environment.

“They’re water suckers. They don’t allow for much undergrowth. They’re poisonous to most animals. The leaves, the animals can’t eat them. Why would we want the south covered in Eucalyptus trees?”

When eucalyptus was brought over to California – it did become invasive. And there are some reports that it’s invasive in Florida too.

ArborGen says it’s altering these trees so they won’t spread in the wild.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Shape-Shifting Fruits and Veggies

  • van der Knaap's team tests tomato starts for the SUN gene - the gene they isolated. SUN is responsible for tomato length. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Vegetables can be really odd shapes.
But what if you could alter fruits
and vegetables into just about any
shape you wanted? Some avid gardeners
come up with strange looking hybrids,
but Julie Grant talked with a researcher
who’s taking the shape of produce to
a whole new level:

Transcript

It’s time to start planting your garden this year. But maybe you’re tired of long, thin
carrots, huge watermelons, and round tomatoes. Julie Grant spoke with one researcher
who’s trying to give us some more options in the shape of fruits and veggies:

Ester van der Knaap steps gingerly around the greenhouse.

We’re at the Ohio State Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.
The plants here are as tall as we are.

Van Der Knaap points out short, round tomatoes – and some odd-looking long, thin
ones.

“That’s one gene. One gene can make that difference.”

Van der Knaap’s team discovered that gene and isolated it. They call it the SUN gene.
And they’ve been able to clone it in tomatoes.

“You see this one is pretty round. It does not have the SUN gene. And that first one
makes a very elongated fruit, and it does have the SUN gene.”

Van der Knaap’s research could lead to square-shapes – something she thinks the
tomato industry might like. Square tomatoes fit better into packages. And, overall,
square tomatoes might be easier to work with than the common round tomatoes.

“They are mechanically harvested. So if you have a very round tomato, it would roll off
conveyor belts, it’s not very handy.”

So far money for her research has come from the National Science Foundation – not big
ag.

Van Der Knaap is quick to note – her tomatoes are not genetically modified.

You might remember the Calgene tomato which was made firmer by manipulating the
tomato genes with a gene from chickens. Van der Knapp’s just isolating the genes that affect the
shape of the tomatoes. Turning them on or off alters the shape.

Designer fruit shapes are gaining popularity. Check out any seed catalog, and there’s
a huge variety – some large and segmented, some pear-shaped, some oval, some
resembling chili peppers.

People have been cross-breeding tomatoes to make the shapes they want for a long
time. But this is not the same thing.

“It’s just funny, ‘cause my brother was working with some genetic things with tomatoes in
our attic.”

Dick Alford is a chef and professor of hospitality management at the University of Akron.

The difference between what his brother – and lots of other folks have been doing – and
what van der Knaap is doing is the difference between cross-breeding and locating a
specific gene that affects the shape of tomatoes.

The only other gene like this that’s been found so far was discovered by van der Knaap’s
advisor at Cornell University.

[sound of a kitchen and cutting veggies]

Chef Alford watches students as they cut yellow crookneck squash and carrots.

They’re trying to make uniform, symmetrical shapes out of curvy and pointed vegetables.
There’s a lot of waste. Chef Alford hates to see so much get thrown away. So he’s got
a request of Dr. van der Knaap.

“If we could get square carrots, it would be great. If you could get a nice long, a tomato
as long as a cucumber, where you could get 20 or 30 slices out of it, it would be great.”

In a country that loves hamburgers, Van der Knaap has heard that request before. But
the long, thin tomato hasn’t worked out just yet. She says there’s more genetics to be
studied.

Once we know all the genes responsible for making different shapes in tomatoes, Van
der Knaap says we’ll have a better idea of what controls the shape of other crops, such
peppers, cucumbers, and gourds.

And maybe then we’ll get those square carrots.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

‘Beefalo’ vs. Buffalo

  • Some American bison are contaminated with cow genes. The genes are left over from the early days of cross-breeding. (Photo by Paul Frederickson, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

In iconic images of the Great Plains, you always see the land dotted with bison. Those bison helped make the prairies what they were. But the bison that you see on prairie preserves today are not exactly the same as the ones that once roamed the plains. The Environment Report’s Charity Nebbe has more:

Transcript

We have a handful of ranchers to thank for the fact that we have any bison today. At one point there were only about a thousand and now there are half a million. Bob Hamilton is the Director of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma. He says the ranchers who saved the bison also put them at risk.

“Part of their motivation was also to see if they could cross breed bison with domestic livestock to see if they could produce a hardier winter resistant ‘beefalo’.”

The beefalo were not hardy and the ranchers abandoned their project, but the cattle genes remain. Bob Hamilton’s herd consists of 2,700 bison. Thanks to genetic testing, Hamilton has been able to weed out all of the bison carrying the most damaging kind of cattle DNA. But, there is some genetic material he just can’t get rid of. Chances are, there will always be a little bit of beef in the buffalo.

For the Environment Report I’m Charity Nebbe.

Related Links

Super Mosquito to Fight Malaria?

  • (Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)

Researchers have created a genetically
modified mosquito. Rebecca Williams reports the
scientists hope the mosquito will help save lives:

Transcript

Researchers have created a genetically
modified mosquito. Rebecca Williams reports the
scientists hope the mosquito will help save lives:

Malaria kills more than one million people every year. The disease is
spread by mosquitoes.

Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena is a researcher at Johns Hopkins Malaria
Research Institute. He’s part of a team that has bred a genetically
modified mosquito. It can’t get infected by the malaria parasite.

“If we go to a region where malaria is prevalent and we are able to
substitute the local mosquito population by the modified mosquito that
cannot carry the parasite, then the net effect will be interruption of
transmission.”

Jacobs-Lorena says they’re confident the super mosquito is safe to
release into the wild.

But he says they’ll have to convince a lot of people that it’s okay to let it
out of the lab.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Wheat Farmers Reconsider Biotech

  • Wheat farmers are re-considering the genetically modified seed question (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

You’ve probably noticed the price of
bread is a lot higher than just a year ago.
A big reason is higher wheat prices. Bakeries
are trying to figure how to keep costs down,
and farmers think they have an answer: develop
genetically modified wheat seeds. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

You’ve probably noticed the price of
bread is a lot higher than just a year ago.
A big reason is higher wheat prices. Bakeries
are trying to figure how to keep costs down,
and farmers think they have an answer: develop
genetically modified wheat seeds. Julie Grant
reports:

Nearly every major US crop is grown with genetically modified seeds – corn,
soybeans, cotton.

Biotech companies take genes from other organisms and put
them into corn and soybean seeds. This alters the behavior
of crops. One of the most used alters crops to withstand
herbicides. So, when an herbicide is sprayed, it kills the
weeds, but the crops survive.

But wheat producers said thank you, but no, to those genetically altered seeds.

Daren Coppock is chief of the National Wheat Growers Association. He says a
lot of wheat farmers didn’t need the genetically altered traits being offered.

First, weeds just aren’t a big problem in some types of wheat.

And second, Coppock says wheat growers were worried about the export market
in Europe and Japan. In those countries, they call genetically altered crops
‘Frankenfoods’.

“And so, it was something where some of our members would get the benefit, but
everybody faced potential risk of having customers say, ‘we don’t want this in
wheat.’”

Since the farmers didn’t want it, Coppock says Monsanto and the other big seed
companies dropped research into biotech wheat. That was five years ago.
Coppock says turning down biotech has since proven to be a bad move for
wheat growers.

Now, the big biotech companies don’t do as much research on how to improve
wheat, including breeding drought resistant varieties. Drought in Australia and
Canada is part of the reason there’s a wheat shortage now, making prices
higher.

“And so the conclusion that the industry basically has come to is, we have to do
something to change the competitiveness equation or we will end up, wheat will
end up, being a minor crop.”

And that could mean wheat shortages in the future.

So wheat farmers are re-considering the genetically modified seed question.
They think asking for new biotech wheat strains might kick start research on
wheat.

Bakers say something needs to be done – wheat prices are way high. And the
people who bake breads, muffins, cookies, and cakes are concerned.

Lee Sanders is with the American Bakers Association, which represents
Pepperidge Farms, Sara Lee, and many smaller bakeries.

“When wheat prices go up 173% in one year, it certainly effects how bakers can
do business. And how smaller bakers, in particular, if they can keep their doors
open.”

Those rising wheat prices are being passed on to consumers. A loaf of bread
that cost $2.50 last year has jumped to $2.85.

But bakers aren’t convinced biotech seeds will lower wheat prices. They’re more
concerned about how their customers will respond to the idea of genetically
modified wheat.

(supermarket sound)

Shoppers in the bread aisle at this Ohio supermarket have mixed views.

“We buy the cheapest bread we can find, so it wouldn’t make much difference.”

(laughs) “If it’s bread and it’s 70 cents, I buy it. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“I don’t know, it just doesn’t sound good. I mean, I don’t mind paying a little bit
more for bread. Everything else is more expensive now too.”

“If it would keep prices down, I’d probably actually go with genetically altered
wheat.”

You might not realize it, but you’re already eating lots of genetically modified
foods. They’re added to all kinds of processed foods, from frozen foods to juices
and cereals.

The US government says they’re safe – so they’re not labeled.

But people in many other countries are more aware – and a lot more concerned
about biotech foods.

Doug Gurian Sherman is a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned
Scientists. If American wheat goes biotech, he says farmers will probably lose
their export markets.

“They can go elsewhere and they will go elsewhere. They really are trying to
avoid it for any kind of human food use.”

Even if wheat growers can persuade Monsanto and the others to start
researching genetically modified wheat, it will take at least five to ten years
before anything is in the field.

By then, farmers say, climate change may make
some places so dry that people will need biotech wheat whether they like it or
not.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Humans Evolve – Fast!

A new study says modern humans are in the evolutionary fast lane. Scientists say world
population growth is leading to beneficial genetic mutations. Chuck Quirmbach has
more:

Transcript

A new study says modern humans are in the evolutionary fast lane. Scientists say world
population growth is leading to beneficial genetic mutations. Chuck Quirmbach has
more:


Some scientists contend modern culture and conveniences have basically halted human
evolution. But anthropologist John Hawks says that’s not so. He’s been analyzing data
from an international gene-cataloguing study. He says many genes have rapidly changed
within the last 5-thousand years. For example, Hawks says one positive development is
that humans have more genes that fight off some diseases:


“Things that resist malaria, things that resist smallpox, things that are resistant to new
diseases that have emerged in the last 10,000 years.”


Hawks says there have also been changes related to what some groups can eat and drink,
for example, many northern Europeans can now drink milk their whole lives. The study
of genetic change is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Hatchery Fish Unprepared for Wild World

A new study finds if fish raised in captivity breed with fish in the
wild that might hurt the wild fish populations. Rebecca Williams
reports that’s because the captive fish are genetically weaker:

Transcript

A new study finds if fish raised in captivity breed with fish in the
wild that might hurt the wild fish populations. Rebecca Williams
reports that’s because the captive fish are genetically weaker:


Billions of fish are raised in hatcheries and released into lakes and
rivers.


But a new study in the journal Science says there could be
problems with that. The researchers found a type of salmon bred in
captivity quickly adapted to their less stressful life in the hatchery.
So they weren’t prepared for a cutthroat life in the wild.


Michael Blouin is an author of the study. He says the babies of
captive-bred fish have trouble finding food and aren’t very good at
escaping predators.


“If you have large numbers of hatchery fish mixing with wild
populations, the fear is they’ll be passing those genes to the wild
population and thereby dragging down the fitness of the wild
population.”


Blouin says this has not been proven outside of the laboratory yet, but he says the lab results raise some concerns about the widespread
use of captive fish to boost wild fish populations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.