Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, said that one of those products is from Minnesota-based startup Calyxt, Inc, which in 2019 is set to release a potato that stores better in the cold and has low levels of acrylamid, a potentially unhealthy chemical formed during the frying process, according to its website.
“It has a ways to go, certainly,” Flannery said Oct. 7. “And I think that consumers will certainly be hesitant to try such a [genetically engineered] product. But I think that growers also are interested in these new crops that are more resistant to diseases and damage during the storing process.”
Calyxt is an agbiotech company focused on using partnerships and technology to develop food products with more health benefit for consumers, according to its website. The improved potatoes are gene edited, as the company inactivated a single endogenous gene responsible for sugar accumulation when stored at cold temperatures, the company states.
Along with the improved quality potato, the company is working to develop a gluten reduced wheat, reduced trans fat soybean oil and lower saturated fat canola oil.
In a related matter, a second generation genetically engineered potato made by the Boise, Idaho, based J.R. Simplot Company under the brand name Innate has been ruled safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and has been deregulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to information provided by the company, the second generation potatoes contain four beneficial traits of relevance to potato growers, processors and consumers: They are less susceptible to bruising and black spots, more resistant to late blight pathogens, keep better in cold storage and contain reduced asparagine, which lessens the potential for the formation of acrylamide.
Company officials flew to Maine to make a presentation to the Maine Potato Board in March and board members were receptive to the idea of the second generation potato.
Flannery said that Simplot has now released three different varieties of its crop, but none has grown in Maine “to his knowledge.”
Flannery said that despite some predicted consumer hesitation, he believes that growers will see more such products in the future.
Farmer Jim Gerritsen of Bridgewater, co-owner of Wood Prairie Farm and a longtime organic farming advocate who helped lead a lawsuit against Monsanto over genetically engineered corn seed practices, said he is “very skeptical” about news of the product from Calyxt.
He said he was familiar with the company and the gene editing process, but still disagreed with the process.
“I think if we keep having more of these genetically engineered potatoes out there, it will be the end of the industry,” he said. “I think that people will switch to rice and beans and pasta, because you can’t genetically engineer those. Most people want to know what they are putting in their bodies. They don’t like the idea of gene editing going on in food.”
He also touched on the idea of a food product not turning brown or becoming bruised or black.
“When I think of the idea of an apple being engineered so that it no longer turns brown or a potato so that it no longer becomes bruised, it just blows my mind,” he said. “To me, that signifies that the apple is rotten or that you might want to pick a different potato.”
Officials from Calyxt did not respond to several requests for comment via phone and email.
