The Pros to GMOs

If they get all of this bad press, why are GM seeds ever used?

Genetically modified organisms (GMO), especially in relation to food agriculture, are banned in many countries. In countries where GMOs are not banned, such as the United States, there are widespread ‘Right to Know’ movements. All of this leads to a lot of bad press about GMOs. So why do they still exist at all?

GM food products first hit the market in the 1990s. The development of GMO technology continued because of the myriad of potential benefits that these seeds held. Between 1996 (the first plantings of GMOs) and 2014, the land area covered by GMO plantings has increased a hundredfold. Today, half of the world’s soybeans are GM products. Whether you want them to or not, GMOs have a strong presence in global agriculture.

Chelsey Fields, Vegetable Product Manager at Burpee & Co., says that GMOs are designed to optimize growth in today’s ruling large-scale agricultural operations. Because of this, and because GM seeds are so highly regulated, Fields says that GMOs are “not particularly useful to the home gardener.” Thus Burpee is a GMO-free company, since the company focuses on the home consumer. Its mission is solely to sell products that will “create a fulfilling home garden,” and GMOs are not necessary to complete that mission. This does not, however, discredit their benefits to industrial agriculture production.

Fields could not speak to the pro side of GMOs, but hinted that it existed. She passed along a story in USA Today that told the reaction of one farmer in Vermont after the GMO labeling law was passed. Bill Rowell, from the Green Mountain Dairy, is quoted saying that he sees a greater yield and that yield is both drought-tolerant and disease-resistant with the use of GMOs. Rowell owns and operates one of the relatively few large farming operations in Vermont. He is next quoted saying that he uses less fuel and less labor to grow his GMO crops.

Fields draws the conclusion that “GMOs are a polarizing topic with much incongruent scientific evidence that is often misquoted or taken out of context…but ultimately, much like a buying decision, you’ll be left with your own opinion…since there is no current law or policy governing a finite outlook on the science of GMOs.” Farmer Rowell fears that new policies that are starting to be enacted in the United States are coming from a place of emotions rather than science.

The ecological impacts of climate change, both predicted and those impacts that have already manifested, add an enormous amount of pressure to agriculture worldwide. As explained in the first blog in this series, GMOs can be specifically designed to be resistant against the effects of climate change, which is seen through the development of heat- and drought-resistant seeds. Furthermore, genetically modified (GM) seeds can decrease farmers’ needs to spray pesticides and fertilizers. Reduced pesticide and fertilizer use makes a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to causing less water pollution. Genetically modified products have often been advertised as the best way to slow the impact of climate change, produce greater yields, provide more nutrients in food, and feed the world’s poorest people.

With all of this potential, where is the hard evidence of achieving it? Why haven’t we seen GMOs providing more nutrients, doing a better job feeding the hungriest populations? A major roadblock to realizing the potential of GMOs is the general public’s inability to separate corporate from public GMO research. The all-encompassing obsession with Monsanto has made rational discussion of the risks and benefits of genetically modified products difficult. It also may cause twisting of the facts. An article in the Wall Street Journal explains that Ben & Jerry’s, a beloved ice cream brand, wanted to drop GMO ingredients because they felt they were part of an industrialized, chemical-intensive agricultural system. Industrialized, maybe. But the overwhelming majority of agriculture worldwide is industrialized. Chemical-intensive, probably not, since we have already read that GMOs actually decrease the need for spraying chemicals such as pesticides.

Yes, maybe the goal of Monsanto is to create a need and then to make a profit selling seeds, which farmers “need.” Yes, maybe they have questionable business practices, which are largely rumored and a description of does not fit within the scope of this blog post. But even Vandana Shiva, a famous global crusader against GMOs, acknowledges that the fight against agricultural biotechnology is a fight against the few giant seed companies, not the technology itself. And the fact of the matter is, the consumer is benefiting, no matter what went into creating that crop. Because GMOs help keep food production costs low, the end price for the consumer is also kept low. According to the same Wall Street Journal article, Ben & Jerry’s paid an average of 11% more for each ingredient that changed to a non-GMO version. With about the same percentage difference, in 2013, Mercaris, a market data service, found that non-GMO corn cost an averaged 51 cents more than regular, GMO corn (with the national average corn price being around $4).

To many farmers, GMOs decrease their need of consumption of water, pesticides, and even land. This means that biotechnology allows for both cheaper and more environmentally friendly agriculture, regardless of your opinion of the big seed companies that largely dominate the field.