The start of a comment made in response to my last post—“Maybe it is undemocratic but in this case…”—still bothers me.
It also worries me when I hear plant molecular biologists say: “I would normally be in favor of labeling, but not when it comes to GMOs.”
Why should anyone suspend democracy, and the capitalist principle of letting the consumer/marketplace decide whether a new product will succeed or not, for the sake of food products of genetic engineering?
Are genetically engineered (GE) food crops such a great innovation that the United States should set aside basic American principles to ensure that they end up on American dinner plates?
GE food products and ingredients have now been commercially available—in the U.S. and elsewhere—for more than two decades. What are the results of this social experiment so far?
According to Colin Macilwain, in an opinion piece published in the scientific journal Nature recently:
“Five-sixths of [the world’s] GM acreage is in the Americas. The rest consists mostly of non-food crops (mainly cotton) grown in India and China. Little of the harvest is in nations that need improved yields to feed themselves. Twenty years in, the GM strains currently under cultivation are still best suited to the needs of large-scale industrial farmers who can afford the seeds and inputs that accompany them.”
That is my take as well…although I would add that much of the yellow GE corn grown in places like China and the Philippines is also fed primarily to animals as opposed to humans.
These “results” appear to indicate that the citizens of the United States, as opposed to those in developing countries with food shortages, comprise many (if not most) of the humans on the planet who are actually eating GE foods. And, as opposed to the citizens of the more than 60 other countries in the world that require foods containing GE ingredients to be labeled, citizens of the United States, one of the most democratic nations on Earth (arguably it seems), don’t have that right…despite the fact that in poll after poll 80-90% of American citizens have indicated they want these foods labeled.
There is something terribly wrong with this picture!
As an American consumer myself, just the fact that genetic engineering has been used primarily in support of unsustainable, industrialized agriculture, combined with the fact that its promoters—including academic scientists, corroborated recently by the New York Times—don’t want me to know whether the foods I buy in my grocery store contain GE ingredients…are reasons enough, in my mind, to vote against such foods with my pocketbook. That I was once a genetic engineer involved in bringing a GE food to market makes me that much more disappointed in the non-tranparent, unsustainable trajectory the ag biotech industry has taken since I left the industry in 1995.
In the United States that I grew up in, these types of reasons–or any others consumers conceived of–were among those that buying decisions were based on. If I didn’t like a product, its packaging, or…whatever, I was free to forego purchasing that product. Back in the day, it was up to the sellers to convince consumers to become their buyers.
And now, after having had two decades to demonstrate the great “potential” of this powerful technology, but without having to take consumer demand into account while doing so, the ag biotech industry has relatively little to show for it…except a public that—for lack of: assurance of long-term safety, GE products that consumers could get excited about, and/or transparency—has only become more and more wary of the whole biotech food endeavor.
It may now be time to pay the piper.
According to Macilwain, there are decisions pending in countries like “Scotland, Germany, France, Italy and others to stand up to corporate pressure and keep GM crop technology out of the European country-side.” And even in the U.S., “John Holdren, science adviser to US President Barack Obama, [has, as of July 2, 2015,] directed regulators to revisit the U.S. framework for regulating agricultural biotechnology.”
Two decades in, it’s time to reassess this technology…why and how it is used, and how it is regulated and marketed.
And at this juncture, the truly democratic nations of the Earth would do well to heed Macilwain’s reminder: “good risk management involves early communication with the public and the careful weighing of many factors, not just scientific risk assessment.”
As for the U.S., being transparent (via labeling, etc.), conducting the long-term studies necessary to reassure the public about GE crops (starting with NK603 GE corn) and having regulatory agencies require case-by-case assessment of new GE products will, in my opinion, all be necessary for there to be any chance of turning public concern around.
And unless public concern is turned around, who knows whether the “potential” of genetic engineering evidenced by projects like Golden Rice (which, if all goes well, may be ready for market in 3-5 more years) will ever be realized?
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