I went to the Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak lecture on “Organically Grown and Genetically Engineered: The Food of the Future” hosted by the Long Now Foundation. They wrote a book called Tomorrow’s Table, and the lecture spoke about the topic of their book. It was pretty interesting! I’m having trouble finding a bookstore that has the book, so I guess I’ll be amazoning it (new word?).
If you remember from a previous post, I shared some pros and cons of genetically modified food or organisms (GMOs) that came immediately to mind. I was curious about how GMOs fit into the schema of sustainable and organic farming. That question was answered; GMOs don’t qualify as organically farmed food, but GMOs can be sustainably farmed.
The lecturers indicated that the only way to feed the world is to use sustainable farming practices along with GMOs. Genetic modification can alter the plant variety, helping it resist pests and survive drought. However, there are conditions that genetic modification cannot help, such as fields suffering from soil erosion due to unsustainable practices. The authors/lecturers stated that there have so far been no adverse health effects due to GMOs and that people are worrying because they are misinformed. They concluded that GMOs could (and should) be used responsibly in conjunction with sustainable farming.
The Organic Consumers Organization is strongly against GMOs. Their argument to boycott Kellog’s® states that “Present knowledge is not sufficient to safely and predictably modify the plant genome, and the risks of serious side-effects far outweigh the benefits.”
My own concern is that I don’t think we take the time to fully assess the risks of technology and that sometimes published science is biased (who pays for the research?). This may be an instance where backpedaling or issuing a recall might not work for us.
It also seems like a second green revolution. While the first mashup of science and agriculture was intended to alleviate poverty by increasing crop yields, it also made those countries reliant on monocultures, pesticides, and herbicides. The green revolution did increase crop yields, but it didn’t seem to address the primary issues of poverty very well. As a Bryan Newman states in his article Indian Farmer Suicides – A Lesson for Africa’s Farmers on the Food First website, “Surplus is of little use without the infrastructure and political will to distribute it.” It’s the difference between food being available and food being affordable. The green revolution also appears to have been an ecologically unsustainable solution.
What do you think? Leave a comment or take this anonymous poll (you can write in your own comment in the blank after “Other:”).
There is a link on my blog about “dangerous soybeans”, a link to another blog, and a video about the dangerous of genetically engineered foods. The video is an eye opener for sure. It is dangerous to allow a chemical company to allow control of all the seeds on the planet, especially when such crops are dependent upon liberal applications of pesticides.
Ah right. Let this be a lesson to us all: It’s a good idea to remember that most corn and soybean products sold in the United States are bioengineered. So, if it doesn’t say specifically that it’s not genetically modified (or bioengineered), then assume that it is.
The other thing to remember is that plants, especially those used for food, are bioengineered for different things. Your example of Roundup Ready soybeans are soybeans that resist the herbicide, Roundup. Farmers can spray that stuff all over the place and not worry that it harms their soybeans, while the weeds are poisoned. Other examples of plant bioengineering are for pest-resistance (thereby requiring fewer pesticides) or drought-resistance (to respond to decreasing water supplies in some areas).