The increasingly widespread use of genetically modified (GM) crops on our farms and in our food creates a sense of urgency to resolve the many ethical, political, environmental, and scientific issues surrounding the implementation of this technology. The debate thus far has been polarized: on one side, the biotechnology industry, which is seeking to capitalize on markets and also sees the humanitarian necessity of increasing food production. On the other side lie consumer and environmental movements, who see the looming threat of GM-related ecological and medial catastrophes. The debate hinges on this question: will GM foods ultimately turn out to be beneficial or harmful to human beings and the planet? As citizens of the world, we are trying to deal responsibly with the vital issues involved, recognizing that the decisions we make about the seeds today will shape our and the earth’s future.
Unfortunately, the debate on GMOs seems to contain little room for a balanced perspective of compromise and conciliation. Viewed historically, we can see that biotechnology is just one of the many steps humans have taken over millennia to mix and control the genomes of crops, and it seems like the predictable next step considering our current technological advancement. However, the perceived desirability of this step depends on one’s perspective, self-interest, and values.
The class reading seemed to be squarely on only one of the polarized sides of this debate. If Karen Sue Tausig’s “Bovine Abominations: Genetic Culture and Politics in the Netherlands” and films like The Future of Food don’t convince you that genetic modification is something to be feared, if not the end of civilization as we know it, then very little will. They appeal to a certain “yuk” factor in all of us that sees a blatant culinary taboo in the idea of halibut genes in tomatoes, or human genes in beef. Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation does examine the lives of farmers who choose to plant Bt potatoes in order to reduce pesticide spraying, which is making them sick. However, ultimately the moral of the story seems to be that the farmers must reject GM food crops and embrace organic food, the only real solution. This literature also appeal to the suspicious and wary side of all of us, who see the obfuscation and opaque nature of companies promoting GM technology as a source of definite concern. The anti- side of the GM debate centers around some basic ideas, a few of which I list and explain below:
1. Genetically Engineered Food is Different – A tomato altered to be frost-resistant with a flounder gene, antibiotic resistanct with a bacterial gene, and containing a viral gene to “turn on” the other added genes is different from your original tomato. It is also different from all the cross-bred tomatoes of the past, who could only acquire and exchange genetic material with other tomatoes or close relatives. Because other foods that contain additives or that have been irradiated are labeled, these foods that are, in face “substantially different” from their non-GMO brethren should be labeled as well.
2. Genetically Engineered Food can cause Toxic Effects – GMO food and dietary supplements, like Showa Denko typtophan, have in the past caused toxic poisoning as a result of their use of genetically engineered organisms. Government regulatory agencies have been ineffective in montoring the safety of food produced here in the United States, much less abroad.
3. Genetically Engineered Food can cause Allergic Reactions – Many people have food allergies, caused by proteins found in food. Many gene transfers of crops result in a change in protein production. What is more concerning is that proteins will be coming into food crops not just from known sources of common allergens, like nuts or shellfish, but from plants of all kinds, bacteria, and viruses. In March of 1996, researchers from the University of Nebraska confirmed that an allergen from Brazil Nuts had been transferred into soybeans when the Pioneer Hi-Bred International seed company put a Brazil nut gene into soybeans to improve protein content (Marion Nestle, New England Journal of Medicine Editorial 1996: 726). In this case the problem was identified and the soybeans were pulled from the market. This may not always be the case.
4. Genetically Engineered Foods can create Environmental Risk – Genetically engineered crops are engineered for herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, and virus resistance. Herbicide resistant crops, which can be sprayed with herbicide to kill weeds without killing the crops themselves, may increase herbicide use. Herbicides may then filter into streams and lakes, killing many varieties of plants other than their intended target. Insect-resistant crops produce Bt, which initially may seem like a good thing because they reduce insecticide use. However, widespread use of these crops may increase Bt resistance. Also, if the genes for these herbicide tolerant or insect resistant crops “escape” into wild plants like weeds, this “gene pollution” may create superweeds or superpests.
5. Genetically Engineered Foods may be lower in nutritional value – An example of this is Round-up Ready soybeans, which contain less isoflavones, an important phytoestrogen present in soybeans.
There are, however, two sides to every story. Are we to assume that the scientists on the other side are either stupid (even with PhDs in biology and genetics) or all simply unethical? Clearly, there are reasons for the spread and use of GMOs, a few of which I list below.
1. Food Biotechnology Increases Yields – the yields of GM crops have usually been shown to be higher than their non-GM counterparts. While the world can produce enough today to feed the population of humans, in 50 or 100 years, at current growth rates, this may not be so.
2. Food Biotechnology has the potential to improve the health of those in developing countries – Development of strains like “golden rice”- fortified with Vitamin A, have the potential to end the diseases and disabilities, like blindness and measles, caused or contributed to by lack of this nutrient. Plants can be manufactured to contain other nutrients, like iron, or even to increase the bioavailability of the nutrients that already exist in the plants. Edible vaccines, delivered in locally grown crops, could be an accessible way to eliminate diseases.
3. Food Biotechnology has the potential to decrease chemical use – Pest-resistant crops allow farmers to apply fewer pesticides to the fields, increasing the overall health of the ecosystem as well as lowering the exposure of average consumers to these risks.
4. Biotechnology crops are tested – Obviously the companies that produce genetically modified crops have a vested interest in keeping their customers alive. Producing crops with the potential to kill is in no one’s interest, but especially not theirs. Considering the large amounts of GM crops available on the world market, the lack of any current of historical health emergency speaks to their relative safety, rather than their apparent danger.
In spite of, and perhaps because of, my research into the world of GMOs, I feel no more ready now to weigh in my opinion on this debate than when I started. There are some modest proposals, however, that I believe warrant a closer look:
- There is no relationship between the prevalence of hunger in a given country and its population. For every densely populated hungry nation like Bangladesh or Haiti, there is a sparsely populated and hungry nation like Brazil. Even without GM crops, the world has the capacity to produce enough food per inhabitant. The real causes of hunger are poverty, inequality, and lack of access to land. Too many people are too poor to buy the (poorly distributed) food that is available, or lack the land and resources to grow it themselves. Large corporations like Monsanto are out to make a profit- forcing already impoverished farmers to buy the seeds for their crops every year, the herbicides to spray on them, and the fertilizers to make them grow creates a cycle of dependence in which the farmer is always faced with lower returns. The solution may not lie in technology, but in simple ideas like increasing access to water supplies, education, and land.
- Considering the urgency of the need to produce more food for a larger population under changing climate conditions, governments and extra-governmental institutions should invest more time and resources in conventional agricultural research. GMOs may be the wave of the future, but they also may not, and we risk losing what agricultural knowledge we already have or could hope to gain by assuming that conventional agriculture is a thing of the past.
- Going along those lines of thinking, yield increases are being achieved by using agroecological technologies that emphasize diversity, synergy, recycling, and integration, and social processes that emphasis community participation and empowerment. The Cuba Diet is an excellent example of how yield enhancement and stability of production can be achieved using some traditional agricultural approaches, as well as a series of other iconological benefits such as conservation of biodiversity, soil and water restoration and conservation, improved natural pest regulation mechanisms, and lower chemical use.
- A collaborative and comparative testing program on health and environmental issues of GM technologies, involving farmers, scientists, consumers, environmental advocacy groups, as well as GM companies, should be put into place.
Where GM foods will take us is unsure. What I am sure of is that the solution to most debates lay somewhere in the middle ground between technological benefits and environmental/human risks. Unfortunately, ideologically positioning ourselves on one side without examining the other only diminishes the amount of knowledge we are gaining. I believe that diversity of opinion is one of the greatest human resources, a resource that has kept our civilization thriving for so long and hopefully well into the future, if we allow ourselves to listen and think.
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