So I went to the U of G on Thursday night to hear a debate featuring one of the inventors of the enviropig squaring of against the Ontario NFU chapter president Sean McGivern, and the head researcher for the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, Lucy Sharrat. The enviropig researcher, Dr. Cecil Forsberg, was joined by Richard Moccia, who is the current vice president of research for the “Agri-food and Partnerships†portfolio. Ontario Pork was invited to participate in the debate, and did not appear, strange considering that Ontario Pork has been the major funder of the enviropig program. Professor Moccia spoke for the university, with Dr. Forsberg only adding technical detail specific to Enviropig. Moccia explained that the university had applied for and received Environment Canada's approval to commercialize enviropig, and that their application to Health Canada is currently under review. Moccia, with occasional help from Forsberg, explained the premise behind enviropig. As an aquatic systems biologist, Professor Moccia understands the damage done by phosphorous loading in surface water. That was the angle that the university seems to be coming from, that this innovation will reduce phosphorous loading in surface water. That's the happy side of Enviropig. The down side? This reduction in phosphorous output is achieved by splicing in a bacterial gene fragment that triggers the pig to produce phytase, a digestive enzyme that allows the pig to metabolize previously indigestible phosphorous in feed. This tendency is helped along by the further splicing of a mouse derived “promoter gene†that accentuates the phytase production trait. This modification gave the pig a “fitness trait for diet usually encountered†(read – corn and soybeans, produced in excess by cash croppers across Canada). So then the “against†team got to speak. First up was Sean McGivern, organic farmer from Grey County and Ontario chapter president of the National Farmer's Union. He talked about the thirty hogs and six sows that he raised on his farm, and how as part of a mixed system, pig manure was part of his compost mix, which in turn fed the crops. Sean made the very good point that small scale livestock production did not need enviropig, but that it was developed to suit the needs of large agribusiness giants. Lucy Sharrat pointed out that initial discussions between the University and Ontario Pork, the rationale for this genetic modification was to allow the pork industry to continue current practice and at the same time be in (tightening wrt phosphorous) regulatory compliance. When presented with this, Professor Moccia agreed that the enviropig was not the answer to industrial farming's woes, but simply a tool that hog producers could use to reduce phosphorous loading in their effluent. Lucy Sharrat countered this with a discussion of the current solution to this problem – a phytase supplement that, when fed to hogs, reduces phosphorous in their poop by between 20 to 50% depending on what part of their growth cycle they are in. By comparison, the enviropig with its' own phytase production shows a reduction of “up to 60 to 70%,†again depending on life cycle. By this point it seemed clear that Ontario Pork is trying to help reduce the cost of hog feeding by eliminating the need for a phytase supplement and marginally decreasing the cost of feed. They achieve this by partially funding research at Guelph. Professor Moccia stated that the university's position on these sorts of matters is that they are working on behalf of the funders of research to solve problems that the funders present them with. Academic institutions seem to be functioning as research and development labs for industry. A “client/service provider†mentality seems to be driving this sort of research, and there is, particularly in this case, no chance for the public to have their say on whether this is a door that we as a society want to open – would you eat transgenetic bacon? A couple of years ago due to a logistical mix-up, several enviropigs were sent to slaughter along with other pigs. When the error was discovered, the whole load of meat was condemned and destroyed as unfit as it was impossible to know what cuts were from what animal. I'm having a Mr. Burns and Blinky moment. Lucy Sharrat and CBAN are formally asking the University to withdraw their application to Health Canada to approve Enviropig as a “novel food†(really, what the f**k is a novel food anyway?) and not to re-submit until there has been a wider discussion about the impact of GM meat in the food system. The "debate" wrapped up with mot audience members feeling as though the anti-enviropig side won. the well dressed gentleman next to me asked me what i thought of the evening's presentation. i explained that i had come to hear someone explain why the world needed enviropig, and that i felt let down. He looked thoughtfully at me and then told me that he was one of the professors in charge of the enviropig program, and told me that there are hundreds of millions of pigs in china, and that if this innovation could reduce phoshorous loading in chinese rivers, then they have made a difference. when i asked him whether keeping fewer pigs was a solution, he asserted that this would drive the price of food up and cause all manner of trouble. hmmmm....
