Enviropig - A piggy you hope never to meet at market

As technology grows increasingly complex and our environmental problems ever more serious, the proposed "technological fixes" from industry grow more ludicrous and dangerous. And so it is with genetic engineering. The common disconnect between science and reality is represented perfectly by the ridiculous, and yet threateningly real GM Enviropig project. Enviropig is the grotesque realization of early scientific aspirations and laboratory accidents. Born of scientific curiosity, hubris and a complete misunderstanding of the real world, a GM pig with less phosphorus in its feces is being proposed as a solution to water pollution caused by run-off from factory farms.

Enviropig is a classic false technological fix that ignores the real causes of a problem and instead tries to develop, at great cost, a shiny, new, patented product for sale to mask the symptoms.

Enviropig is expressly designed to support existing factory farming practices. In the early days, before the advent of extensive public relations, University of Guelph scientist and Enviropig developer John Philips said as much. (item 1)
---
---
http://www.commonground.ca/iss/227/cg227_enviropig.shtml

Fifteen years ago in a lab at the University of Guelph in Ontario - then home to some of Canada's most ardent supporters of the new science of genetic engineering - an idea was conceived. Five years later, "Wayne," a genetically modified (GM) pig was born. Now, the so-called "Enviropig™" could soon be approved for human consumption in Canada and possibly the US as well.

As technology grows increasingly complex and our environmental problems ever more serious, the proposed "technological fixes" from industry grow more ludicrous and dangerous. And so it is with genetic engineering. The common disconnect between science and reality is represented perfectly by the ridiculous, and yet threateningly real GM Enviropig project. Enviropig is the grotesque realization of early scientific aspirations and laboratory accidents. Born of scientific curiosity, hubris and a complete misunderstanding of the real world, a GM pig with less phosphorous in its feces is being proposed as a solution to water pollution caused by run-off from factory farms.

Enviropig™ is the trademarked industry name for a pig that has been genetically engineered to excrete less phosphorous in its feces. It will produce the enzyme phytase in its salivary glands to enable more effective digestion of phytate, the form of phosphorus found in pig feed ingredients like corn and soybeans. Scientists inserted a transgene sequence that includes an E-coli bacteria phytase gene and a mouse promoter gene sequence.

Enviropig is a classic false technological fix that ignores the real causes of a problem and instead tries to develop, at great cost, a shiny, new, patented product for sale to mask the symptoms.

Phosphorous from animal manure is a nutrient for plants that becomes a pollutant if there's too much of it for crops to absorb and the excess runs off into streams and lakes. When pig manure spread on farmland exceeds the amount crops can use while growing, the excess phosphorus runs off as fields drain into surface waters. There, it promotes excessive algae growth. The algae form thick mats, blocking sunlight from reaching deeper waters and when the algae dies and decomposes, it uses up dissolved oxygen in the water, killing fish and other organisms. Blue-green algae, which often grow in phosphorus-rich waters, produce cyanotoxins that can kill livestock and pets if they drink the polluted water.

But phosphorus pollution is a problem specific to the industrial model of hog production where tens of thousands of pigs under one roof produce too much manure for the surrounding land to use productively. Such intensive, concentrated production means that operations import tonnes of pig feed from distant sources and must then pay the cost of disposing of millions of gallons of liquified hog manure. Operations prefer to spread manure on land within a mile or two of the industrial pig barns rather than pay to transport heavy liquid manure to more distant fields.

Enviropig is designed to reduce the amount of phosphorous produced by the pigs themselves so factory farms don't have to pay for other measures, such as reducing the number of pigs they raise in one place, trucking liquid manure longer distances or expanding the area of land for spreading manure. The real solution, however, lies in changing the model of production, not in genetically engineering the pigs.

Enviropig is expressly designed to support existing factory farming practices. In the early days, before the advent of extensive public relations, University of Guelph scientist and Enviropig developer John Philips said as much. In 1999, a Reuters article* included Philips articulating the economic rationale that, if phosphorous in pig manure is reduced by 50 percent, theoretically, farmers can raise 50 percent more pigs and still meet environmental restrictions. Philips went on to say that, in North America, Europe and in some parts of Asia, the only thing holding back a farmer's hog output is the restriction on phosphorous leaching into the water table. (*This Little Piggie Smells Better.)

Smaller farms means less "waste"

In an alternative model characterized by smaller hog production units dispersed over a wide geographic area, phosphorus in pig manure does not become an environmental problem; it is used as a valuable fertilizer instead. Phosphorus is an important plant nutrient and an essential element of soil fertility in farming. Animal manure is a source of phosphorus for growing field crops, including those used to feed pigs.

Twenty years ago, hog production in Canada was based on a successful model where tens of thousands of farmers earned a livelihood raising pigs in modest-sized operations. Now, the hog industry is dominated by a few giant hog production corporations where thousands of pigs are raised under one roof. Smaller, independent farmers have been forced out of business through loss of market access and unfair competition from huge, vertically integrated companies that own hog barns as well as packing plants and other related businesses. Hog production has doubled over the past 20 years, but in the 13 years between 1996 and 2009, the numbers of farms reporting hogs was cut by nearly two-thirds – from 21,105 to 7,675.

Intensive production has made Canada a major global supplier of hogs, but we can’t compete with other countries that have lower labour and feed costs. The result is that Canada’s hog producers have been forced to sell below their cost of production for many years and small producers have retired, sold out or gone bankrupt. Only the biggest producers and some contract producers are left, surviving almost exclusively on government subsidy programs and bailout packages. Adding a GM pig to this economically and environmentally unsustainable model will only deepen the crisis.
snip

Is Enviropig safe to eat?

Enviropig, like all GM foods in Canada, will be assessed for human safety by Health Canada and classified as a "novel food." Health Canada, however, has not yet developed specific guidelines for evaluating the safety of GM animals for human consumption. Instead, Canada will rely on the United Nations Codex guidelines and refer to the US Food and Drug Administration. Health Canada does not conduct any of its own safety tests of GM foods, but relies on data submitted directly from the product developer, in this case the University of Guelph. The data is classified as "Confidential Business Information" and is not accessible to the public or to independent scientists. Of course, there is no mandatory labelling of GM foods in Canada or the US so approval of GM pork is likely to spark an unprecedented crisis of consumer confidence in the food system.

continued