Abram Umbras FES 435 - Fall 2017 Making Rainbows: Impacts of Virus Resistant Papaya Research and Developement For roughly 30 years the Puna District of Hawaii had been a safe haven from the devastating effects of the papaya ringspot virus (PRSV). Suddenly, in the early nineties, 95% of Hawaii's second largest crop became threatened when PRSV arrived in the Puna District (Gonsalves et al. 1998). Researchers at the University of Hawaii and Cornell University had anticipated that this day would come, so in preparation they began developing a PRSV resistant papaya using newly developed genetic engineering techniques. The initial fruit of their labors was "SunUp", a transgenic papaya created using biolistics to insert the coat protein genes from PRSV into a non-transgenic variety of papaya known as "Sunset". As a result of the insertion, SunUp has resistance to PRSV. The next step was "Rainbow", an F1-hybrid derived by crossing the transgenic SunUp papaya with the non-transgenic "Kapoho" papaya. Rainbow combines the PRSV resistance of its transgenic parent with the yellow flesh, preferred by consumers, of its non-transgenic parent. Impact …show more content…
1998). From 1992 to 1998 5 of the 8 packing houses in hawaii ceased operations(Gonsalves 2006). The process of deregulation and commercialization of Rainbow and SunUp began in 1995. However, farmers would have to wait another three years for this process to complete before they could start planting transgenic seed. The new seeds were often planted near or within infected fields but the resistance held up (Gonsalves 2006). By 1999, healthy fields of rainbow largely supplanted the common scenes of dead and sickly fields of Kapoho that characterized the period between 1994-1998 in
When the outbreak of the Panama disease began the United Fruit ordered their field workers to put disinfectant on their tools and clothing in order to decrease the spread of disease. They burned the diseased plants, which took care of the infected bananas, but companies still had problems with workers transferring diseases. Spreading the disease was not intentional but it happened. This lead the United Fruit to begin research programs to fight the disease in 1923 so that it did not worsen. The US department of agriculture had argued the cultivation a disease resistan species would have a higher success rate, for example, the “Chinese banana.” This fruit has a short shelf life though and was not very marketable to be purchased. So the US and British research program both began breeding programs to develop disease resistant varieties, but sadly this was not successful either. It was difficult to find a product that would work, biology did not work, farms kept moving to healthier land, and this created schisms among companies and the government. The diseases were driving the production costs and soil exploitation up, fruit companies were already under public scrutiny for their land grabs and extensive holdings. They all needed a solution; the solution was when the Cavendish bananas began to be boxed in production, which then opened jobs for women. All of the bananas traveling to the
Modern biotechnology was born at the hands of American scientists Herb Boyer and Stain Cohen, when they developed “recombinant deoxyribonucleotide, (rDNA), [1] for medicinal purposes. Subsequently, biotechnologists started genetically engineering agricultural plants using this technology. A single gene responsible for a certain trait, from one organism (usually a bacterium) is selected altered and then ‘spliced” into the DNA of a plant to create an agricultural crop consisting of that...
John Soluri 's Banana Cultures Agriculture, Consumption and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, (Which for spatial and repetitive purposes, I will refer to as Banana Cultures for the remainder of the paper), introduces the reader to a world of corporate greed, consumption, and environmental change using the history of the common, everyday, fruit, the banana. He explores the various political occurrences, health problems, and changes in mass media through the rise of the consumption of the banana in the United States, and around the globe.
The text is the main engine of “Strange Fruit”. The music may be thought of as the wheels, the way in which the idea spread and the manner in which it was presented. However, the text is what stands out to me; it is what makes it come to life, the hand in the glove. The text utilizes the tree and fruit motif as the literal setting of lynching as well as a metaphor for something bigger than each individual event. Abel Meeropol’s poignant words nail the atrocities to the people responsible for committing them. He doesn’t haphazardly mention trees in a general sense, but “Southern trees”. It is not simply in the air, but the “southern breeze” that black bodies swing in. In case the reader is tempted to forget, he reiterates that these things are taking place in the “gallant south”. The implication is quite powerful; this is the South’s problem, it is happening, and he forces them to own it and take responsibility for it rather than slough it off. Neutral bystanders in the South are forced to face the reality of these things taking place under their nose. “Strange Fruit” certainly would not have exposed the South to lynching; they knew it was happening. However, the text has a way of burrowing into one’s heart and forcing people to face inconvenient realities that are all too easy to forget about otherwise.
...o grow for the next nine months? It is unlikely that society would consent to people seeds growing in their homes.
In “Springing Forward”, Barbara Kingsolver says, "whiz-kid hybrid seeds have slowly colonized and then dominated our catalogs and our croplands" (46). Her main point within the article states that today there are few heirloom vegetables because of the increase in genetically modified vegetables. Heirloom seeds are defined as seeds that are saved from the previous generation so that new crops can be grown and Kingsolver states that, "GM is a newer process
...ed. Thus, the problem of food shortages in third world countries can be solved by modifying plant genes that positively affect the quality of life of many people.
Genetically engineered crops could spur economic growth in developing countries through a combination of eco-friendly practices such as organic farming with genetic modification to create, “a system that slashes pesticide use, insulates crops against floods and drought, and protects the livelihoods of poor farmers in the developing world” (Vance). In addition to providing a means of steady income for such farmers, these crops could be altered to exhibit qualities of environmental resilience to account for greater production of food- enough to feed the world. An example of such produce is flood- proof rice, developed by Pam Ronald and her team to compensate for the predicted increase in frequency and duration of flooding in Southeast Asia as global warming occurs (Vance). This flood- proof rice was created with consideration of accessibility to poor farmers, using marker-assisted breeding to perform the genetic transfer, a cost-friendly and money-saving method, and through Ronald and her team developing a rice crop able to survive two weeks underwater (Vance). As such research and projects continue, through hundreds of more teams such as Pam Ronald’s, a positive outlook emerges on the horizon in terms of supplying the global population’s nutritional needs without increasing
The term GM foods or GMO (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques (Whitman, 2000). These plants have been modified in the laboratory to offer desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content. Also, genetic engineering techniques have been applied to create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and accurately. For example, this is done by the geneticist isolating the gene responsible for drought tolerance and inserts it into another plant. The new genetically-modified plant will now have gained drought tolerance as well.
It is estimated that over one-half of the antibiotics in the U.S. are used in food animal production. The overuse of antimicrobials in food animal production is an under-appreciated problem. In both human and veterinary medicine, the risk of developing resistance rises each time bacteria are exposed to antimicrobials. Resistance opens the door to treatment failure for even the most common pathogens and leads to an increasing number of infections. The mounting evidence of the relationship between antimicrobial use in animal husbandry and the increase in bacterial resistance in humans has prompted several reviews of agricultural practices by scientific authorities in a number of countries, including the US.
The Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Program is an essential force maximizing quality, patient centered care, and safety throughout the Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System (VANTHCS). The VANTHCS “... is a progressive health care provider in the heart of Texas ... we serve more than 117,000 Veterans and deliver 1.4 million outpatient episodes of care each year to Veterans in 38 Texas counties and two counties in southern Oklahoma” (“VA North Texas,” 2016, para. 1). The purpose of the IPC Program is to guide a facility-wide approach toward identifying, preventing, controlling, and eliminating healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). This approach is facilitated through infection control (IC) practitioner’s role-modeling behaviors of assessing, supporting, guiding, and/or directing healthcare providers (HCPs) in the application of evidence-based practices (EBPs) to prevent HAIs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HAIs are often preventable adverse events that pose a major threat to patient safety (“Centers for Disease,” 2016). As a result, IC practitioners recognize the importance of preparing nurse faculty to engage clinical staff in the application of EBPs to prevent infections.
Transgenic technology is majorly used for growing petter plants that can inhabit cruel and unnatural habitats. But the thing is that if there Genes are rewritten, there is a big possibility of genetic mutation and might end up creating plants can carry disease that are incurable for man kind and might end up eliminating a variety of
Since the plant’s domestication the sunflower has been one of the most important crops in production that is native to North America, comparable to maize and wheat. The sunflower, what was once a plant utilized only in the Americas is now one of the most widely and diversely recognized used plant species in the world.
Lemaux, P.G. (2006). Introduction to genetic modification. Agricultural Biotechnology in California Series, 8178. Retrieved from http://ucanr.org/freepubs/docs/8178.pdf
Wheat is grown around the world more than any other crop, and the production of wheat is second to corn. Even though the wheat technology has not been up to other crops’ research and development, wheat has still been a main contender of world production of grain(Spiegel, 2013). In the 1930 the US started a hybrid wheat program that made no progress in 30 years. But in 1962, the program started to make some progress by creating the first cytoplasmic male sterility. Cytoplasmic male sterility is the failure of plants to produce functional anthers, pollen, or male gametes. Then in 1973 the first Chemical Hybridization Agent was produced by Rohm and Haas, and American chemical firm. This agent creates a sterilized male plant, and the pollination from another plant makes it a hybrid. In 1981 hybrid wheat was first marketed in the United States and in Australia. In 1982 Monsanto launched a wheat program off of the Agent GENISIS. GENESIS is important because its the first effective wheat hybrid on the market. In 1993 the first commercial hybrids were introduced to the US and France. They were known as CROISOR and GENESIS which came out again in the commercial market. Even though the wheat hybrids were commercialized, they were not popular among the farmers of this age.