Organic vs GMO: Which is better?

Imagine walking into the supermarket and being faced with a difficult decision: special organic apples or normal ones? This choice represents a global conversation since the 1990s about organic vs GMO foods and the processes required to get them from farm to table. This debate mainly considers environmental, ethical, and human health factors. Let’s explore if organic or GMO foods have an advantage over the other.

What is “Organic” and “GMO”

To begin, what do organic and GMO mean? Organic products refer to the way they are grown or processed. They do not use any synthetic chemicals, especially in reference to pesticides and fertilizers. They place heavy emphasis on soil health to stray away pests and culminate greater biodiversity. Lastly, they need to pass the USDA organic standards to get their organic certification. On the other hand, GMO products are those whose genetic material have been synthetically altered. They are used for several reasons, a few of them being to control production yield, nutritional content, and plant/animal life cycles.

Environmental Factors

Let’s start with environmental considerations. Organic products encourage better soil health and biodiversity. Indicators of soil health are fertility, erosion, nutrient retention, bulk density, soil structure, pH and microorganism activity (ISAAA). Organic consumption also pushes for water conservation since better soil health and organic matter use less water. They push for less fossil-fuel-based resources and effectively less greenhouse gas emissions. This is a huge bonus because it aids in mitigating climate change over time. GMO products allow for better farming practices. For example, they promote conservation tilling which reduces soil erosion and runoff. One study states that mechanical weeding for organic crops through tilling or plowing harms our soil, and over the last 150 years, over half of the world’s soil has been lost. Biotech such as herbicide tolerant crops don’t require tilling and are resistant to commonly used herbicides. This is an example of using GMOs to help preserve soil for environmental issues (ISAAA). On the other hand, a national geographic article argues the opposite. They refer to a National Academy of Sciences report that says GMOs didn’t increase certain crops’ potential yield and instead led to many expensive problems with herbicide-resistant weeds (Haspel).

Ethical Factors

Next, what are some ethical issues we should consider as consumers? Organic foods support local and small-scale farmers. According to National Geographic, small-scale farmers likely won’t benefit from GMO crops because of seed prices and lack of access to credit (Haspel). Unless it’s a big corporation like Whole Foods, many organic products are grown and sold locally on smaller farms, and they are just as valuable so it is important to support those smaller businesses. GMO foods yield bigger amounts of food and this helps feed more of the global population. It also helps scientists and farmers save crops that are going extinct, which increases food and nutrition diversity. It is the food market’s ethical responsibility to examine the amount of people harmed by GMOs. A study mentions that in 2012, the USA had 128,000 hospitalizations caused by food-borne illnesses, yet none of them were linked to GMOs (Zilberman).

Human Health Factors

Lastly, let’s consider human health factors. According to a Reddit discussion thread, organic products result in healthier work environments for workers, but there is not much of a difference from a nutritional standpoint. Users also mention that organic products use more pesticides, land, and water (Reddit). This forum suggests that the public is not well informed on the matter of GMOs and organic processes. Also, better environmental impacts mean that humans will have a better ecosystem to live in. Now, GMO products can be more nutritious and can help attack popular nutrition issues from region to region. GMOs can also increase the amount of crop yield. Therefore, food security will go up and food will generally become more accessible. Overall, there is not much of a human health risk difference found (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition). The FDA ensures that GMO foods meet the same safety standards as any other produced food, namely organic ones. They even have a voluntary program called the Plant Biotechnology Consultation Program which evaluates new GMO foods on the market and their safety by specific products. The FDA, EPA, and USDA work together to make sure GMOs on the market are safe for humans, plants, and animals. They also track the impact of GMOs on the environment. (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition)

In conclusion, GMOs were introduced into food markets around the early 1990s and are in most of the foods we eat worldwide today. So, they have only been studied for a couple of decades. For all three categories: environmental, ethical, and human health, if organic or GMO products seem to be better than the other, the other seems to catch up through advanced farming techniques. GMOs and organic products don’t seem to be much better than one another from all the sources we looked at, and only further research in the next coming decades will tell with time.

References

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “How Gmos Are Regulated.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/how-gmos-are-regulated-united-states. Accessed 10 Dec. 2023.

Haspel, Tamar. “Scientists Say GMO Foods Are Safe, Public Skepticism Remains.” Culture, National Geographic, 3 May 2021, www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/scientists-say-gmo-foods-are-safe-public-skepticism-remains-1.

“Impact of GM Crops on Soil Health.” ISAAA, www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/pocketk/57/default.asp. Accessed 10 Dec. 2023.

“Organic vs Not Organic Benefits.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/HealthyFood/comments/v5cppm/organic_vs_not_organic_benefits/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2023.

Zilberman, David, et al. “Agricultural Gmos-What We Know and Where Scientists Disagree.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 10 May 2018, www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/5/1514.