FROM REUTERS
Special Report: A day without genetically altered orange juice
(Reuters) - For many Americans, few things seem more wholesome than a glass of fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice, the original "natural food." As former beauty queen Anita Bryant chirped more than four decades ago, in what remains a fondly remembered tagline: "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."
She wasn't talking about green oranges or genetically altered ones, but that was then.
We live in a "world of nasty bacteria now," says Calvin Arnold, a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An insect-borne bacterial disease that is ravaging Florida's citrus crop means the juice squeezed from the Sunshine State's fruit may soon come from trees that have had their genetic makeup modified.
The blight, commonly known as "greening," is the world's most destructive citrus disease.
GMO juice would likely be reviled by critics of the biotech industry as "Frankenfood." But Arnold and other experts say there simply may be no other choice in the battle against greening.
"It's the most serious disease threat that the Florida citrus industry has ever faced," said Arnold, a 67-year-old official with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
As the director of the U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, in the prime Indian River region of Florida's citrus belt, Arnold is on the frontlines of what he and others describe as an all-out push by the biotech industry, and geneticists in particular, to develop an effective weapon against greening.
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Special Report: A day without genetically altered orange juice
(Reuters) - For many Americans, few things seem more wholesome than a glass of fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice, the original "natural food." As former beauty queen Anita Bryant chirped more than four decades ago, in what remains a fondly remembered tagline: "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."
She wasn't talking about green oranges or genetically altered ones, but that was then.
We live in a "world of nasty bacteria now," says Calvin Arnold, a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An insect-borne bacterial disease that is ravaging Florida's citrus crop means the juice squeezed from the Sunshine State's fruit may soon come from trees that have had their genetic makeup modified.
The blight, commonly known as "greening," is the world's most destructive citrus disease.
GMO juice would likely be reviled by critics of the biotech industry as "Frankenfood." But Arnold and other experts say there simply may be no other choice in the battle against greening.
"It's the most serious disease threat that the Florida citrus industry has ever faced," said Arnold, a 67-year-old official with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
As the director of the U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, in the prime Indian River region of Florida's citrus belt, Arnold is on the frontlines of what he and others describe as an all-out push by the biotech industry, and geneticists in particular, to develop an effective weapon against greening.
READ MORE
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