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My wife has always been far more vigilant about what we eat than I. And with one toddler in the house and another baby on the way, she is moreso than ever. Her latest area of concern is GMOs. She recognizes that GMOs are everywhere in the foods we eat . . . and she isn't on some crazy rampage about it. But her point is that there is legitimate debate about the long-term health implications of GMOs - and some areas, like the EU, have heavily regulated GMOs - and that we should avoid feeding them to our children when it is reasonably possible to control (i.e. when we're eating at home). We have seen, however, that it is difficult to make an informed choice at the store because any GMO labeling is purely voluntary.
Her prerogative is fair enough, I go with it. But I like to make evidence-based decisions in my life and I have done a fair amount of research, looking for objective analysis. This is very difficult because information on the issue is heavily influenced by the special interests. You have to be very careful about the sources you find persuasive - who wrote it and what is their interest?
I think the greater evidence is that GMOs are typically safe - especially the most common (which incorporate genetic material from certain bacteria into agricultural crops to make them produce their own toxins that make them resistant to common pests). Another common method (heavily backed by Monsanto) uses genetic material to make the crops survive application of pesticides - when the unmodified crop would die from the poison. While this method may have yet to prove harmful in studies, I definitely don't like the idea that the process is "good" because allows application of poison to the food to kill pests.
But in such a partisan environment, it's hard for the consumer to really know. And the reality is that most consumers aren't going to investigate on their own, they're going to go with their gut - or remain happily ignorant about it all. For me, though, I would like to know whether the food I'm buying has GMOs (and specifically what kind of process the food actually has undergone). Seems fair, right?
So it makes me very distrusting of the GMO advocate community when they fight so hard against labeling. Their principal argument is that the consumer presumes that GMOs are bad when there is little empirical evidence to support that conclusion - and, thus, GMO products would suffer from this stigma in the marketplace. So, as the argument goes, because the consumer's ignorance (i.e. prejudice) would significantly harm these products in the marketplace, the consumer should not be given that information to start with. That sort of "we know better than you so you don't get to know" approach always ends up on the wrong side of history - for better or for worse, IMO. After all, what about the consumers that do educate themselves and make an informed decision to avoid GMOs . . . should they not be given that information?
And while that's the argument at the consumer level, there's an equally interesting argument at the macro food infrastructure level. My uncle is a GS-15, top tier agriculture scientist at the USDA, and he argues that GMOs provide strength and reliability to our food production infrastructure that will only get more important as the world population continues to explode. Being able to engineer against crop failure is truly important, in his view, and he believes that unless some truly compelling research demonstrates harm, we should fully employ GMOs in crop production. This is persuasive, but longterm crop yield research has not demonstrated that GMO crops outpeform their natural brothers. What this means is that the GMOs don't tend to help in typical years - where the crops face typical threats. But particularly bad years or a particularly bad threat could benefit from GMO. Value of modified corn is more in reducing losses than boosting yields
My uncle recognizes the interest of an informed consumer through labeling, but he also agrees that there is likely an unsupported stigma that could work to undermine GMO development as commercial producers turn away from it due to market concerns . . . and that could hurt the nation's food production infrastructure, particularly if some bad new threat emerged.
So what do you think? Do you think the consumer should at least be informed? Do you think GMOs could help save us from starvation in the future? Is it something you think about at all when buying food?
Here's a fairly objective article on the current state of the GMO debate.
Excerpt:
GMOs: Facts About Genetically Modified Food
Her prerogative is fair enough, I go with it. But I like to make evidence-based decisions in my life and I have done a fair amount of research, looking for objective analysis. This is very difficult because information on the issue is heavily influenced by the special interests. You have to be very careful about the sources you find persuasive - who wrote it and what is their interest?
I think the greater evidence is that GMOs are typically safe - especially the most common (which incorporate genetic material from certain bacteria into agricultural crops to make them produce their own toxins that make them resistant to common pests). Another common method (heavily backed by Monsanto) uses genetic material to make the crops survive application of pesticides - when the unmodified crop would die from the poison. While this method may have yet to prove harmful in studies, I definitely don't like the idea that the process is "good" because allows application of poison to the food to kill pests.
But in such a partisan environment, it's hard for the consumer to really know. And the reality is that most consumers aren't going to investigate on their own, they're going to go with their gut - or remain happily ignorant about it all. For me, though, I would like to know whether the food I'm buying has GMOs (and specifically what kind of process the food actually has undergone). Seems fair, right?
So it makes me very distrusting of the GMO advocate community when they fight so hard against labeling. Their principal argument is that the consumer presumes that GMOs are bad when there is little empirical evidence to support that conclusion - and, thus, GMO products would suffer from this stigma in the marketplace. So, as the argument goes, because the consumer's ignorance (i.e. prejudice) would significantly harm these products in the marketplace, the consumer should not be given that information to start with. That sort of "we know better than you so you don't get to know" approach always ends up on the wrong side of history - for better or for worse, IMO. After all, what about the consumers that do educate themselves and make an informed decision to avoid GMOs . . . should they not be given that information?
And while that's the argument at the consumer level, there's an equally interesting argument at the macro food infrastructure level. My uncle is a GS-15, top tier agriculture scientist at the USDA, and he argues that GMOs provide strength and reliability to our food production infrastructure that will only get more important as the world population continues to explode. Being able to engineer against crop failure is truly important, in his view, and he believes that unless some truly compelling research demonstrates harm, we should fully employ GMOs in crop production. This is persuasive, but longterm crop yield research has not demonstrated that GMO crops outpeform their natural brothers. What this means is that the GMOs don't tend to help in typical years - where the crops face typical threats. But particularly bad years or a particularly bad threat could benefit from GMO. Value of modified corn is more in reducing losses than boosting yields
My uncle recognizes the interest of an informed consumer through labeling, but he also agrees that there is likely an unsupported stigma that could work to undermine GMO development as commercial producers turn away from it due to market concerns . . . and that could hurt the nation's food production infrastructure, particularly if some bad new threat emerged.
So what do you think? Do you think the consumer should at least be informed? Do you think GMOs could help save us from starvation in the future? Is it something you think about at all when buying food?
Here's a fairly objective article on the current state of the GMO debate.
Excerpt:
GMOs: Facts About Genetically Modified Food
