Brad Wall Stirs the Genetically Engineered Pot
Recently, the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, came out and asked federal leaders to explain their viewpoints on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Mr. Wall is obviously very concerned about their opinion, since Saskatchewan relies heavily on many of these crops, specifically GE canola, for their economy. As far as I know the candidates have yet to respond, and I can’t say that I blame them.
Also in recent news, the ever popular fast-food chain Chipotle has come under fire. After a recent decision to label their products GMO-free, a class action lawsuit was brought against in them in California, claiming that the labelling is inaccurate because the animals used in their meat products eat GMO feed.
There are few jurisdictions that require specific GMO-free labelling. In North America, three states in the US have enacted legislation that requires labelling, and only Vermont will see this come into effect in 2016. In Europe, all foods containing more than 0.9% of GMO products must be labelled.
I have been on the fence about GMOs ever since I heard about them. It doesn’t help that it seems almost impossible to find unbiased facts. Doing research for this article led me to a website which claimed to be unbiased, looking further I realized the website was created by a United States university known to be heavily funded by Monsanto. Instances like that are typical in this area. If there is one thing I can positively say, it is that both sides have distorted a lot of facts to back up their claims.
My initial reaction to the concept of GMOs was actually pretty positive. Not only because humans have been manipulating crops ever since we got our hands on some seeds, but because the undisputed facts of climate change lead me to believe that in the future we might need all the help we can get for food production. Biotechnology and genetic engineering, as scary as they sound, have the potential for huge, positive worldwide change. I’m clearly being an optimist here, but solving world hunger and malnutrition, saving rainforests, lowering emissions; if we could safely engineer plants (and even meat), we could possibly save the earth in the most literal sense of the term.
Of course, on the other hand, we are opening a door which many rightfully fear. Laboratory modified crops have only been around since the 1970s, and have only been eaten regularly since 1996. Most scientists seem to agree that there is no harm in eating the heavily tested and approved GMO crops as well as the animals which feed off of them, but forty years is a pretty short time to get any sense of the long term repercussions. The environmental concerns are certainly more worrying, and unlike the general scientific consensus about their edibility, no one really knows what introducing non-natural crops into the environment will do in the long run. There is also the fact that a lot of the companies involved in the creation of these crops come off as at best, somewhat shady, and at worse, completely evil.
The tale of golden rice is probably the best example of how GMOs can be spun to tell a story. And it’s an incredibly interesting story. Vitamin A deficiency is fairly common amongst children in certain parts of the world. Looking for a solution to this problem, humanitarian groups, combined with scientific think tanks, corporations, and universities, worked together to develop a rice rich in beta-carotene, the Vitamin A-rich orange pigment in carrots (carrots, I may add, are this colour specifically because of human intervention and selective breeding).
Golden rice has won a Patents for Humanity award from the US Patents and Trademarks office, and has been considered a huge success by some, delivering more vitamin A per bowl than a comparable amount of spinach. In places like China and India, where vitamin A deficiency is a massive concern, it would seem like a miracle. But opponents have seen the creation of this rice as a way for large scale corporations to control food production in impoverished nations, leading to further poverty in the countries where this rice is introduced, and potentially world-wide environmental catastrophe due to loss of biodiversity. Greenpeace and anti-GMO advocates have called for its ban.
So what should we believe? I have no idea. But I do know this: bioengineering isn’t going away anytime soon. I also refuse to believe that human progress has existed as a straight line with good and evil clearly defined. Yes, the humanitarian goals that were necessary in order to create the something like golden rice have clearly been co-opted by giant corporations to make a profit. But so was penicillin, and I don’t think that anyone wants to take that away from humanity any time soon. The motivations of corporations developing bioengineering technology and the problems with patent law that have led to serious concerns with Monsanto’s seed monopoly should not automatically mean that genetically engineered foods are inherently themselves evil.
There is also an underlying elitist argument that many of the opponents of GMO food fail to recognize. Because even without labelling, there is one easy way to avoid consuming these foods – eat organic. But I don’t think I need to lecture about how that may be impossible for some, if not most. Organic is a choice that only a certain bracket of society can make. Not to mention the fact that organic food and non-GMO labelling is big business in and of itself, and the motivations that drive these things forward aren’t completely innocent either.
GMOs surround me, from the Kraft Dinner stains on my tort law textbook, to the cotton blanket I pull over my eyes at sunrise. Personally, I’ve decided that I’m okay with them, partially due to being broke and lazy, but mostly due to my perhaps naive belief in their potential benefits. Maybe more importantly, I completely understand any hesitation by lawmakers to label products GMO, not only for economic reasons, but because of a possible backlash against products that may, in the long run, actually do more good than harm. I guess we shall see what the candidates say in the upcoming election, but with so many competing interests at stake, I wouldn’t be surprised if they say nothing at all.