Aust 'must' commit to GE livestock

Professor Murray was part of an international symposium on animal biotechnologies in Adelaide last week.

He has been studying transgenic livestock since the first animals were developed in 1985 - in the US, Adelaide, Melbourne and at the CSIRO, where Prof Murray worked at the time.

"I do not believe we can feed the world without using this technology," he said.

Prof Murray said food security - having enough food to eat - was the major issue.

"In 2050, my guess is Australia will have 50 to 55 million people; you'll be able to feed yourselves," he said.

"You will have the land, the capability and the capacity to produce enough food."

But Prof Murray said that was not Australia's problem.

Indonesia, 90 kilometres north of Darwin, also had a rapidly increasing population and little to no food security. "Where are they going to go?"

Prof Murray said Australia - and western society - had a dilemma.

"If we can't figure out how to help the developing parts of the world which are not controlling their population to feed themselves, they are going to come and try to get the food … because they have no choice."

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation had predicted that production of meat protein would need to double to feed the growing population - but with less water and land.

Prof Murray said Australia had to be more efficient, without damaging the environment for the next generation.

The potential for transgenic animals to improve efficiency and aid in disease and environmental sustainability had already been demonstrated, but regulation was preventing further research.

About 5 million children across the world suffered from debilitating diarrhoea each year, about half virus-related and half bacterial.

A transgenic goat developed by Prof Murray and his team expressed human lysozyme - an enzyme which controlled bacteria populations - in its milk.

"We like to think of milk as the perfect food and it is, for the baby of the species in which the milk is being produced," he said.

Prof Murray said that by feeding the goat's milk to pigs (as a model for humans because of their similar gastrointestinal tract), during a 15-year period, had shown the gastrointestinal tract of a pig could be made healthier and modulate the microbiology within it.

"When we started this work about 2.5m of those kids died annually, now it's down to about a million and, of the ones that don't die, a significant number (as a result of malnutrition) are either growth retarded or mentally retarded, or both," he said.

Prof Murray said the goal was to use this milk to help treat diarrhoea (as a supplement with antibiotics), and help combat bacterial infections. It would help to re-establish the "good" bacteria.

A pig developed by the University of Guelph in Canada expressed an enzyme, E. coli phytase, which allowed it to digest phytic acid. There had been about a 70 per cent reduction in the phosphorus emitted by the Enviropig™.

Prof Murray said the Enviropig™ could digest about 70pc of the phytic acid it ingested, aiding a reduction of phosphorus pollution.

"It's (E. coli phytase) expressed in the saliva and it works," he said.

"Here's a perfect example of using GE to solve an environmental problem and to allow food production to take place while preserving the environment."

* Full report in Stock Journal, February 20, 2014 issue.