August 11, 2016
And you thought you’d be safe from politics for a bit. We have to tackle the question of genetically modified organisms, though, when we think about our agrarian food supply, don’t we? There are so many myths floating around and, admittedly, it is such a complex topic that it is hard to figure out what to think.
The most informative, reasoned, understandable treatment of the issue that I have found can be read here:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gmo-controversy/
It does not touch the question of whether or not GMO foods should be labeled. I am all in favor of that since I think it is important to make informed decisions – even if the organic food folks are now a bit worried that people who read “NO GMO” labels of non-organic food will feel they are making a healthy decision and need not spend more to buy organic. I don’t care if the GMO industry wants no labels because an ignorant public has bought into fear mongering – that’s their problem.
There seems to be no evidence whatsoever at this point that GMO engineered food is bad for you or for the animals fed with it. People have crossbred for centuries, and now they are doing it more efficiently and with required hoops of testing. What is the net environmental impact, you might ask? Do herbicide resistant crops increase the use of herbicides? Yes they do, but they also reduce the need for tilling the soil, which is bad for it and releases CO2 into the environment. It becomes a question of agricultural diversification – if you plant a mix of GMO and non-GMO crops you are ahead in terms of producing more food and doing so economically, without hurting the environment. The same is true for insecticide engineered crops: they reduce the need to spray those poisons, but they might increase the number of resistant bugs. Note that BT, the insecticide from a bacterium that has been added, is widely used by organic farmers in its original form since it is deemed environmentally safe. Again, sustainable strategies would call for a mix of both kinds of crops.
In addition to increasing our chances of feeding a starving population in the future, GMO crops could already have a major impact. Take Golden Rice, for example, rice with inserted beta-carotene. It would solve the Vitamin A deficiency problem for millions of children, who go blind or die from not having enough of it. Nitrogen fixation is another plus of the GM technology – plants get it from the soil, depleting it and requiring expensive and environmentally burdening fertilization. If corn and wheat could fix their own nitrogen there could be a huge increase in staple foods for a hungry world. Why, then, are we so very much opposed?
And here a beauty from van Gogh’s wheat field series:
Martha Ullman West
Thank you. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is simple. The pictures are gorgeous and the text supports the American, very American, tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to look at everything in terms of either/or, (with apologies to Kierkegaard), black and while, right and wrong, and I won’t go on because it makes me furious.
Philip Bowser
Best debate on the matter I’ve seen yet. However, I’ve lived long enough to see the effects of the profit motive on scientific research, that I’m still confused about what level of accuracy is reasonable. In the lab, the old joke was “any study worth doing is worth faking the data.” Ha. Ha. Ha. And I think we have put too much reliance on the phrase “no negative effects were observed.” Sometimes it takes decades of observing the effects of heavily tested and approved medications to find out there are sneaky negative side effects that cause the once heralded drug to be removed from the market. A widely quoted study on the safety of bovine hormones in milk used only 30 mice, 6 of each sex in each treatment group. The psychology department I trained in would have called that a “pilot study”! With so much intentional and irrational misinformation available, how can I decide without spending all day reading research?
friderikeheuer@gmail.com
I think we now have enough data for meta analyses – looking at the aggregates, individual study problems likely canceled out. I agree, and I think flagged, Philip, that it is hard to make decisions about what to believe. But I also think there is such a tendency to go for ideologically determined reactions without taking the time and effort to digest information. I actually hesitated before I wrote on this because I know how many of my friends and acquaintances are inclined – but I think it is important to keep the topic open for thought.
Bob Hicks
“The real issue … is that the bottom line does not rest with GMO vs no-GMO, but how GMO crops are used as part of the overall farming practice.”
Thanks for the link, Friderike – a really good overview of a complex topic. The objections to GMO have taken on a fundamentalist, religious-style fervor, which cuts off rational discussion. I think of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution and the millions and millions of people in the poorer parts of the world who would have starved in the 20th century without them. I’m not real fond of the way the word “privilege” seems to be taking on religious overtones, either, but in this case I think the “pure foods” movement is mostly practiced by people who (like me) can afford to buy organic everything. Organics seem to me to be part of the answer to the problem of feeding a crowded world, but by no means the sole answer.
Carl Wolfsohn
I have come to agree with your analysis.