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With GMO Struggle In Mind, Food Industry Vying For Public Trust With CRISPR Discussion

Using CRISPR technology, researchers at the University of Missouri and Kansas State University developed pigs that are resistant to a deadly virus.
Courtesy of the University of Missouri
Using CRISPR technology, researchers at the University of Missouri and Kansas State University developed pigs that are resistant to a deadly virus.

There’s a genetic technology that scientists are eager to apply to food, touting its possibilities for things like mushrooms that don’t brown and pigs that are resistant to deadly diseases.

And food industry groups, still reeling from widespread protests against genetically engineered corn and soybeans (aka GMOs) that have made it difficult to get genetically engineered food to grocery store shelves, are looking to influence public opinion.

The technology is called Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR. It’s a technique that Alison Van Eenennaam, an animal genetics professor at University of California,  Davis, says can de-activate a gene. Or, as she puts it: “It’s editing. It’s like going into a Word document and basically replacing one letter, maybe that instead of wind, you want it to say wine,” she says.

 Harvest Public Media's Kristofor Husted explains how major food-industry companies are looking to change the conversation around CRISPR technology.

Dozens of crops and livestock developed with CRISPR technology are years from the market, though the U.S. Department of Agriculture already said it won’t regulate CRISPR-developed products like other genetically engineered food since no foreign genetic material is introduced in the process. The Food and Drug Administration will decide which new products are safe.

To get ahead of any criticism, a group of heavyweights in the food industry have joined forces to form the Coalition for Responsible Gene Editing in Agriculture, which is funded by members like the U.S. Pork Board, Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer.

The board’s CEO, Bill Even, says the food industry missed a chance to do this when the earlier wave of genetically engineered food made it to the market.

“There was never any conversation with consumers around what is this and what did it mean,” he says. “Fast forward now today, there’s a lot of debate around GMOs and food. The public rightly has … they’re interested in knowing what’s in their food.”

People don’t often trust big companies, says Charlie Arnot, who leads the coalition and is the CEO of the Center for Food Integrity. But when it comes CRISPR, there are three key strategies Arnot says will help get consumers on board.

First: CRISPR is not a secret.

“Those in technology have to be more transparent and be much more engaged in a public conversation and dialogue, in order to answer those questions, address the skepticism and ultimately result in earning consumer trust in what they're doing in gene editing,” he says.

Second, the coalition wants to show that it shares the same values that shoppers do. So, its members are sponsoring and attending events like CRISPRcon to engage in public discussions about the technology and its potential animal welfare, societal and environmental benefits.

“If people trust you, science doesn’t matter. If people don’t trust you, science doesn’t matter,” Arnot says. “It only matters after you cross that trust threshold. So you really have to engage in that values based dialogue to build trust, and then you’re give the permission to introduce the science.”

And that’s the third strategy: These companies want consumers to know that CRISPR isn’t like other forms of genetic engineering. CRISPR changes the way genes are expressed, it doesn’t add genetic material from another species.

“That’s going to be the path that will ultimately lead to greater trust,” Arnot says. “If we shortcut that path, we run the risk of potentially having this significantly beneficial technology not be accepted.”

But persuading consumers to buy into CRISPR will be an uphill battle for Arnot and other industry groups. Food and environmental advocacy groups already are asking questions about CRISPR, as well as raising concerns over tracing genetically edited food in the system and the potential lack of regulatory oversight.

Follow Kris on Twitter: @krishusted

Copyright 2017 Harvest Public Media

Kristofor Husted is a senior reporter at KBIA in Columbia, Mo. Previously Husted reported for NPR’s Science Desk in Washington and Harvest Public Media. Husted was a 2013 fellow with the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources and a 2015 fellow for the Institute for Journalism and Justice. He’s won regional and national Edward R. Murrow, PRNDI and Sigma Delta Chi awards. Husted also is an instructor at the Missouri School of Journalism. He received a B.S. in cell biology from UC Davis and an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University.