Dr Graham Phillips
St Louis is famous for its giant arch. It symbolises the fact that this place was a gateway to the west of America from the east of America back in the 1800s. But in scientific circles these days St Louis is famous for being one of the world centres for genetically modified food.

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This is the home of Monsanto - the biggest GM - and conventional - seed supplier in the world.

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They've genetically engineered grains like canola and soy to be tolerant to their proprietary herbicide Roundup.

Bob Phelps
The sale of the seed and chemical package to farmers with the attendant cost is really the way that Monsanto has run its business.

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There has been plenty of outcry over Roundup-ready crops.

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But now there's a new direction in GM - enhancing nutrition. Monsanto's genetically engineered soybeans to make a healthier oil.

Dr Graham Phillips
This is the standard vegetable oil you buy at the supermarket. Would you be willing to, rather than put this on your salad, go with this product? This is a soy oil. Now the standard oil has about 10% of those heart-healthy omega three fatty acids in it. This one has 25 per cent. And the omega three in here is in a much healthier form.

Dr David Stark
The healthier Omega-3s that we get come from fish and they actually get it from algae because they eat the algae. Vegetables like soybeans and canola also make Omega-3s but they don't have the same health benefit as what we get from fish.

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Fish oil is particularly good for heart health.

Dr David Stark
It helps prevent the arrhythmia in the ventricle part of the heart and that's what kills you from a heart attack it's not the clogged artery it's the arrhythmia.

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The genes to make Omega-3 were from surprising sources.

Dr David Stark
The genes actually come from a mushroom and a petunia so we tried algae because everything we do in GM we learn how nature does it and then we take it into the plant that we want to grow and consume. The algae genes didn't work as well in soybean but we found that the mushroom and petunia versions did so that's where we went for our gene sources.

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But of course the people who could really benefit from more nutritious food live in the third world.

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One of the staple crops in Africa is cassava.

Dr Martin Fregene
It came to Africa with the Portuguese traders 500 years ago and it displaced every other staple crop, it displaced yams, it displaced yam, it displaced everything and today if you look at Cassava's production figures in Africa is going like that (points upwards) almost vertical.

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Cassava's one of the few crops that grows well in drought conditions, and in poor soil - and it can handle Africa's fluctuating markets.

Dr Martin Fregene
You can keep cassava in the ground for two years and not harvest it and go back and harvest it when the market is right so this is one crop that's it's almost a miracle crop.

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But it's no miracle when it comes to nutrition.

Dr Nigel Taylor
This is an excellent source of calories full of starch, but the roots here are devoid of protein, almost no protein whatsoever in here, there's no vitamin A, very little vitamin E, no iron or zinc, so it means that if you rely on this crop as your staple foods you'll suffer from malnutrition.

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So, at Saint Louis's Danforth Center, researchers are genetically modifying cassava. They're inserting genes to increase protein, vitamin A and iron.

Dr Nigel Taylor
So that if you eat cassava for your breakfast then you'll be receiving all of these nutrients that you require for the whole day in one meal.

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After the new genes are inserted, the plants are grown in some very sophisticated greenhouses.

Dr Graham Phillips
They have incredible control over the conditions in these greenhouses. In fact they can recreate virtually any environment on Earth. You can have a nice balmy 30 degrees Celsius and very high, almost 100 per cent humidity. Or you can turn it right down and have it just four degrees Celsius and very low humidity.

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For GM cassava, the conditions in sub-Saharan Africa are dialled in.

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Success here could have an enormous impact on the Third World.

Dr Paul Anderson
This really isn't all about just making a couple of new lines this is about improving the nutritional value of a crop for ever worldwide so that its always going to have a better nutrient content and a person eating that is always going to have the benefits of that regardless of where they are or when they're eating it.

Dr Martin Fregene
In Nigeria for example you save 39 thousand children from dying you know every year from provitamin A deficiency.

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But there's no need to head down the GM route even in Africa according to critics.

Bob Phelps
Well the Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that there's enough food currently produced in the world to feed 12 billion people, and we have a population of six billion so we could feed everyone well twice.

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Such debate doesn't impress Martin.

Dr Martin Fregene
If you've never been hungry then you can get involved in all those kind of debates but if you've really been hungry then it's not an argument you know it's so clear it's so obvious.

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The GM Cassava will leave the lab for test fields in about four years. And if all works out, it'll be available to farmers a couple of years after that.

Related Info

Monsanto

The Danforth Center

Story Contacts

Bob Phelps
Executive Director
Gene Ethics

Dr David Stark
Vice President
Consumer Benefits Platform
Monsanto.

Dr. Martin Fregene
Director
Bio Cassava Plus Program
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Dr Nigel Taylor
Core Team Member, BioCassava Plus Program
ILTAB/Donald Danforth Plant Science Center