Published on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 by Common Dreams
Nanotechnology Could Reduce Plant's Ability to Produce Food
'There could be
unintended consequences … if we’re not careful.'
- Common Dreams staff
Longterm use of
nanotechnology to affect everything from stain-resistant clothing to more
efficient fuel could reduce a plant's ability to produce food, according to a
study of soybeans at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Fresh soybeans. (Photo: John Dziekan/Chicago Tribune/MCT)Scientists planted soybeans in soil doused
with two kinds of metallic nanoparticles to determine whether the materials
would become part of the plants.Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/20/3928007/nanotechnology-breakthroughs-could.html#storylink=cpy
In
both cases, the substances became part of the plants. In ground spiked with
zinc oxide nanoparticles, soybeans seemed to fare slightly better than normal.
In soil treated with cerium oxide nanoparticles, the plants grew fewer leaves
and punier bean pods," Scott Canon of The Kansas City Star reports. "That
raises implications for the fields of Kansas, Missouri and the rest of the
Grain Belt where, scientists presume, manufactured nanoparticles have been
accumulating for a few decades now.
And nanotechnology
could wreak havoc elsewhere, including in sewage plants, after chemicals wash
off into local wastewater treatment facilities.
According to the
study, "The results provide a clear, but unfortunate, view of what could
arise over the long term (including that) plant growth and yield diminished ...
Juxtaposed against widespread land application of wastewater treatment
biosolids to food crops, these findings forewarn of agriculturally associated
human and environmental risks from the accelerating use of (manufactured
nanomaterial)."
“The
stuff is going to end up somewhere,” said Patricia
Holden, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of
California-Santa Barbara and a lead researcher in the soybean study, published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We’re only beginning to
learn what that might mean.”
Organizations
such as Food & Water Watch worry that the science will
become so ingrained in our way of life that it can't be undone.
And
while Todd Kuiken, a senior researcher at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project
on Emerging Nanotechnology, said the study "dosed the hell out
of a bunch of soil," he acknowledged that nanoparticles can be absorbed by
the plant and cut back its ability to produce food.
Ken
Klabunde, a Kansas State University distinguished professor of chemistry, told The Kansas City Star that nanotechnology should
use only safe substances such as zinc and cerium, rather than lead.
“There are many things
on the periodic table that we could make nano and would be highly toxic,” he
said. “There could be unintended consequences … if we’re not careful.”