2001 AACC Annual Meeting Charlotte, North Carolina October 14-18, 2001 Charlotte Convention Center

Modern agriculture is the result of 10,000 years of co-evolution between humans and domesticated plants and animals. In the past 20 years, genetic engineering accelerated this process by conferring the ability to transfer genes to recipient species from outside of traditional gene pools. Potential environmental impacts of GMO plants might occur through movement of transgenes to related wild or domesticated species, or through unintended consequences on non-related organisms sharing the same environments. Unintended consequences might include the exposure of human populations to new allergens, or the exposure of non-target insects to insecticidal proteins. In North America, the probability of transgenes moving from wheat to wild relatives is low, but hybridization experiments have demonstrated there still is some slight risk of transfer to introduced goatgrasses. Whether GMO wheat will have unintended consequences on other wild and domesticated species, or on human populations, largely is a function of the nature of the introduced traits, and is not a function of the method of their introduction. Rigorous selection of traits for genetic modification, assay of introduced proteins for their digestibility in in vitro systems before their expression in GMO wheat, and clear assessment of any potential effects on co-inhabitants of wheat production environments, should minimize potential environmental impacts, and allow the process of co-evolution to continue.