Stand by for genetically modified maggots in Europe’s fruit imports | Policy Review
Stand by for genetically modified maggots in Europe’s fruit imports | Policy Review:
Planned experiments with genetically modified fruit flies in Brazil could lead to genetically modified maggots in fruit being illegally imported to European countries, including Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France and Italy, writes Helen Wallace.
Experiments involving open releases of millions of genetically modified (GM) Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitis capitata) into fruit orchards in Brazil were approved by Brazil’s regulator CTNBio in April.
When released, the GM fruit flies are expected to mate with wild flies and produce female offspring which fail to reach adulthood, with many dying as maggots in the fruit. This is intended to reduce the wild population of Mediterranean fruit flies, which are a pest which feeds on many types of fruit. To reduce the wild population it must be outnumbered by a factor of at least ten to one, requiring many millions of GM fruit flies to be released.
