UPDATED: Click here to read more about the Tayni Red Bean in Costa Rica.

James Marshall, PhD is an alert reader who recently pointed out the following:

“A story in several news publications today is about the new red bean (tayni) that will be grown here in Costa Rica. Conspicuously enough, nothing was mentioned about the origins of this new seed. Upon researching the creator of this new seed (Dr. Juan Carlos Rojas), I find that he is a geneticist.

[Is this] a big cover-up of the fact that although Monsanto was kicked out of the country, and that CR wants to have GM foods labeled as such? This new product is being hyped with no mention anywhere that it is a GMO.”

Hola Doctor Marshall, thank you so much for alerting The Costa Rica Star to the Tayni red bean. As you can see from our previous articles about Monsanto and the status of GMO crops in our country, we believe that taking time to discuss scientific news is a worthwhile endeavor.

You may have noticed that there is a certain level of interest in popular science among Ticos and expat residents; to wit: read our previous article about the filming of After Earth near the Arenal volcano. Director M. Night Shyamalan filmed an encounter with a jumping pit viper in which the Tico snake wrangler casually mentioned the scientific name: “it’s an Atropoides Mexicanus.” Many Ticos are drawn to science, and to that degree we appreciate your interest in the Tayni bean.

About the Tayni Red Bean

According to the official press release from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG in Spanish), Tayni has been around since 2001. The commercial application of Tayni was approved on Thursday, February 23^rd. On its press release, the MAG did not make any mention to the Tayni’s status as a GMO. The MAG’s description of the Tayni makes it seem as if it is some sort of magic bean: it yields a higher crop, it retains a pretty color, it cooks really fast on the stove, it flowers at 39 days, and it harvests between 73 and 75 days. The bean is named after the name given to the Valle de la Estrella in Limon by the Cabecar indigenous people.

The Tayni’s properties definitely point to a GMO, and just like Doctor Marshall pointed out, the bean is the work of Doctor Juan Carlos Rosas -a geneticist at the fine Zamorano University in Honduras and the United States. Zamorano is one of the finest agricultural institutions of higher learning, and Doctor Rosas is in charge of the Investigative Project on Beans (PIF in Spanish), a program that seeks to improve the nutritional conditions in Central America through the application of Traditional Genetic Improvement techniques on legumes. For thousands of year, beans and similar crops have been crucial food staples of the region’s indigenous tribes.

The PIF program has several objectives: to improve nutrition by means of fortifying important crops such as red beans with vitamins and minerals and to promote sustainable farming with organic principles such as the use of biomass fertilizers. One of the means to achieve these goals is through the production of GMO seeds like Tayni seems to be.

GMO Legumes in Costa Rica

Tayni is going to have some GMO company once it begins flowering in our land. Several projects conducted at the Experimental Agricultural Station Fabio Baudrit Moreno in Alajuela by our universities over the course of three decades have culminated in the commercial release of three GMO legumes: Bribri, Cabecar and Telire. You can read their factsheets here (in Spanish, of course).

Let’s take a closer look at the Bribri shiny red bean GMO. It’s pretty, it can be grown in altitudes ranging from 40 to 1000 meters, it adapts easily to soil that is initially low on nutrients, an it may be ready for harvest within 80 days. It is also resistant to some viral organisms that are known to attack bean crops, including the Bean Common and Golden Mosaic viruses.

The most important fact about the Bribri red bean and other GMOs in Costa Rica is that they have been created and released in compliance with our Law Number 7788, the Biodiversity Law of 1998 (PDF). This law prevents the introduction of GMOs that are potentially harmful to our ecosystems, such as the controversial transgenic corn strains from Monsanto, MON 810 and MON 863. One of the reasons why Monsanto does not have an office in Costa Rica is that our current laws and future amendments, coupled with our interest in sustainability, prevent many of the company’s contentious -yet profitable- GMO seeds from being grown in our land.

How much harm can one of our GMO legumes like Tayni and Bribri produce? An unfair analogy may be to consider what happens when humans fight harmful viral organisms like Influenza. When our children come down with the flu, should we let Nature run her wise course, or should we stop the viral infection with the resources we have? It’s a difficult question to answer, and when it comes to GMOs in Costa Rica, the best we can hope for is our allegiance to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and future legislation that will protect our land from Monsanto-like GMO seeds.