The potato, called the Innate potato, was developed by the Boise, Idaho-based J.R. Simplot Company, which applied for the permit last year after three years of field trials. Simplot, one of the country’s largest privately held agribusinesses which virtually invented the frozen French fry, has been a major supplier of those French fries to McDonald’s since the late ’60s. It now supplies more than half the French fries the chain buys.
While the environmental benefits of reduced bruising leading to less crop waste are being touted, some environmental groups decried the decision. Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist and director of sustainable agriculture at the Center for Food Safety raised issues about the particular technology, which works not by introducing foreign organisms but by inserting other types of potato DNA to silence the host potato’s RNA-based control mechanisms, such as the one that produces browning.
“We simply don’t know enough about RNA interference technology to determine whether GE crops developed with it are safe for people and the environment,” said Gurian-Sherman. “If this is an attempt to give crop biotechnology a more benign face, all it has really done is expose the inadequacies of the U.S. regulation of GE crops. These approvals are riddled with holes and are extremely worrisome.”
