In the heart of the picturesque Alsace wine region, researchers have planted France’s only genetically modified vines in the hope of battling the fan-leaf virus, which kills flowers before they can fruit. “We have taken all safety measures,” said local head of the INRA Jean Masson in The New Zealand Herald. “The environmental risk is nil”.
The modified plants will not grow grapes or yield any wine, as the experiment focuses on the lower part of the vine called the rootstock. Scientists at the state-financed National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), who is conducting the experiment, say it is safe from possible contamination of nearby vineyards.
In France, resistance against genetically modified food is fierce. Many local winemakers fear the plants will contaminate their vineyards and ruin the reputation of France’s wine sector.
“It makes me angry because this is imposed on everyone without us being informed about the risk,” said Pierre-Paul Humbrecht, who owns a vineyard just a mile away from the open-air experiment, in the International Herald Tribune. “If there’s a problem, it concerns us all. We fear for our vines.”
The INRA attempted a similar experiment in the Champagne region in 1999; however, massive protests forced them to abandon the mission. After years of talks with locals and winemakers, Masson said that his researchers had now set up enough safety measures to satisfy critics.
Researchers dug a hole the size of a basketball court, put in a cover to shield the natural ground, and planted the modified vines on soil from outside. The plants are also surrounded by about 1500 normal vines.
“We want to answer the scientific question of whether this transgenic [genetically modified] root can lead to the plant developing durable resistance to this virus,” said INRA’s Olivier Lemaire.
Many in France consider winemaking a sacred art, and the idea of genetic modification is taboo.
“We feel that we don’t have the right to alter nature,” said Ren Mur in The New York Times, whose family has run a nearby winery since 1648. “I believe that wine should be an expression of the land and that the tiny worms that carry the virus, and even the virus itself, are part of the complex and wondrous biology that makes for great wine.”
Gene splicers argue that a transgenic answer is the only effective way to stop the virus, short of saturating the soil with pesticides to kill the worms that carry it, or tearing out infected vineyards and leaving the land fallow for 10 years.
“In the long run it is a very dangerous virus,” said 80-year-old winemaker Jean Hugel to The New Zealand Herald. “The end result is that the blossoming doesn’t go well and you don’t have any crop.”
It will take at least two years for results to show, and the test is scheduled to run through 2009, when the results will be evaluated and the plants destroyed.
“I don’t believe that they should try this open air experiment, especially if anything goes wrong, then all the surrounding plants could be affected,” said sophomore Geology and Earth Sciences major Neil Meguid. “Plants should not be cloned anymore than humans should.”