Given that every field of activity is unfortunately permeated by well-defined forms of obtuseness, it happens that at an environmental level, obtuseness idealizes fictitious representations of Nature , while charisma pushes us to interact with it to achieve concrete objectives. Among these the possibility of producing more and better through targeted genetic modifications of animal and plant species. All over the world, not surprisingly, we are proceeding in this direction to intervene on production processes without giving rise to risks to health or the environmentand an example in this sense is given by the studies on potato downy mildew, a disease common to tomatoes as well and caused by a microorganism called Phytophthora infestans capable of destroying crops in the space of a few weeks. In Italy , however, biotechnologies continue to be opposed in the name of the "principle of prevention".
Treatments reduced by 90 percent
This makes multiple fungicide treatments necessary whenever the weather conditions require it, applications which, however, according to a recent study could be reduced by up to 90 percent by crossing the genes of "normal" potatoes with those of a genetically modified variety precisely to resist downy mildew .
The resistance gene was obtained from a variety of wild potatoes by researchers at the Dutch Wageningen University in collaboration with the Irish Authority for Agriculture and Food Development and therefore the gene has nothing chemical or artificial. Positive returns could also be expected from soybean production after in 2019 the US-based Calyxt, based in Minnesota, marketed a variety whose oil contains 80 percent oleic acid,a healthy polyunsaturated fatty acid for the cardiovascular system. Again, Calyxt researchers are also working on the development of a genetically modified soybean capable of replacing palm oil, increasing the range of possible genetic solutions capable of producing the most widely used fat in the world.
Genetically Modified Organisms
The two examples mentioned above could then be accompanied by those relating to advanced studies on the animal husbandry front to make animals indifferent to some serious pathologies that cause deaths and significant economic damage. Suffice it to say that two and a half billion dollars are lost annually in the United Kingdom and the United States due to respiratory diseases in pigs, that again in the United States, in 2022, there was an avian flu epidemic which killed 160 million 80 different species and that bovine tuberculosis caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis is also transmissible to humans. Although the pathogen is well controlled via antibioticsin most advanced countries, in those still developing there are frequent deaths in livestock, a situation aggravated by the emergence of drug-resistant bacterial strains.
Great strides in the fight against swine fever
For the reasons set out above, pig, cattle and poultry farmers would make false cards to count on some specific genetic innovations such as the one developed at the Roslin Institute, in Scotland, where a strain of pigs genetically modified to resist the plague was developed swine and swine reproductive and respiratory syndrome. The same Institute, together with Imperial College London, has also engineered chickens in order to make them resistant to the avian flu virus while the Chinese are credited with having found a way to make cattle resistant to tuberculosis through Genome editing techniques .
Genetic modifications for animals and plants bring innovation benefits
There will therefore be millions of farmers and breeders who will derive significant benefits from these innovations , but in all likelihood they will however be foreign farmers and breeders, since in Europe and above all in Italy there is still a medieval ostracism towards biotechnological research , a position which is moreover consistent for a Continent and a country that instead of moving towards a sustainable future of the primary sector prefer to stand still in the name of the notorious "Principle of prevention".
