(book excerpt from The Food Revolution by John Robbins)
A few years ago, a German biotech company engineered a common soil bacterium, Klebsiella planticola, to help break down wood chips, corn stalks, wastes from lumber businesses and agriculture, and to produce ethanol in the process. It seemed like a great achievement. The
genetically engineered Klebsiella bacterium could help break down rotting organic material and in the process produce a fuel that could be used instead of gasoline, thus lessening the production of greenhouse gases. It was assumed that the post-process waste could be added to soil as an amendment, like compost. Everybody would win".
With the approval of the EPA, the company field tested the bacterium at Oregon State University. As far as the intended goals were concerned - eliminating rotting organic waste and producing ethanol the genetically engineered bacterium was a success. But when a doctoral student named Michael Holmes decided to add the post processed waste to actual living soil, something happened that no one expected. The seeds that were planted in soil mixed with the engineered Klebsiella sprouted, but then every single one of them died.
... The genetically engineered Klebsiella turned out to be highly competitive with native soil micro-organisms... the genetically modified bacteria were able to persist in the soil... When the data first started coming in, says Elaine Ingham, the soil pathologist at Oregon State
University who directed Michael Holmes' research on Klebsiella, the EPA charged that we couldn't have performed the research correctly.
They went through everything with a fine tooth comb, and they couldn't find anything wrong with the experimental design - but they tried as hard as they could... If we hadn't done this research, the Klebsiella would have passed the approval process for commercial release. Geneticist David Suzuki understands that what took place was truly ominous. "The genetically engineered Klebsiella," he says, "could have ended all plant life on this continent..."
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
