BIOTECH SPUDS SEEK APPROVAL IN THE USA

A dozen years after a customer revolt forced Monsanto to ditch its genetically engineered potato, an Idaho company aims to resurrect high-tech potatoes. 

In May, tuber processing giant J R Simplot asked the US government to approve five varieties of biotech potatoes. They have been engineered not to develop ugly black bruisesand to have less acrylamide.

Much has changed in 12 years, according to the Boise-based company. Unlike transgenic varieties Monsanto commercialised in the 1990s using genes from synthetic bacteria to kill insect pests, Simplot’s new Innate-brand potatoes use only potato genes.

Haven Baker, Simplot’s Yale- and Harvard University-trained vice-president of plant sciences, said his scientists journeyed inside the vegetable’s genome to ‘silence’ unwanted attributes, while making sure it remained 100 per cent potato.