Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a topic widely debated by scientists, scholars, politicians and even every-day concerned parents. GMOs have been blamed for childhood allergies, higher amounts of cancer and even the wide spread suicides of farmers in India; GMOs are also accredited with saving the soil and providing enough food for our exponentially increasing population. The article “A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops” by Amy Harmon was written for the New York Times, and while that is typically a reliable news source the article is fairly biased and does present a lot of information for only one side of the GMO argument, which seems unfair.
I do not, however, completely disagree with Harmon’s findings. The information begins in 2013 when there was a proposed bill to ban all growing of genetically modified in the state of Hawaii. The bill banning the GMOs on the islands gained more support than even the ever-popular bill to decriminalize marijuana, which is something very surprising. Often environmental concerns go unnoticed by the majority of people in the United States, but seeing people rallying around this one idea is very promising about the future of environmental causes. The unfortunate part of this rallying is a constant communication of misinformation.
When someone is looking up information on GMOs the only information they are likely to find is negative, because it seems the people that are most vocal on the subject are the most negative. People often refer to the study that showed a diet of genetically modified corn lead to cancer in lab rats, but as Harmom’s article points out that experiment was disputed by majority of scientists because it was conducted on too small a sample and used rats that commonly have tumors regardless of diet. Scientists with the University of Hawaii urged the council voting on the GMO ban read the Global Consensus, which upholds the idea that GMOs do no more harm than their non-modified counter parts and says there may even be more benefits to growing GMOs. Those benefits being less soil loss and more food per area allotted for growing.
I am not completely against the use of GMOs because nearly everything we consume has been altered in someway. The “natural” fruits, vegetables and grains we eat now have been cross bread or selectively bread for their positive qualities, much in the way new genetic modification happens. That may have been five years ago in a lab or three hundred years ago by the Native Americans while they were selecting which traits they preferred in corn. It is not likely that anything we may be eating is completely natural or the exact same way it was at its origination on the planet.
The reason I do not fully agree with Harmon’s article’s apparent support of GMOs is because of large agricultural corporations, like Monsanto, that fund and support most of GMO and production work. Monsanto is a company that is typically not in the publics view, but plays a significant role in global food production. Monsanto is a biotechnological food production giant, they are the largest seed company in the world and responsible for pesticides like Round-Up (a commonly used invasive plant killer); the issue with Round-Up is it leads to pesticide resistant weeds and promotes people to buy even more of Monsanto’s products to kill the now stronger plants. Monsanto also promotes an unsafe way of growing food, they encourage the growth of strictly cash crops (crops that are easily marketed and sold), and that promotion leads to monocultures; the problem with monocultures is they are unsustainable and ruin soil quality.
Some people who oppose GMO crops are not calling for a ban, they are calling for all GMO foods to be clearly labeled, in the same way that organic crops are packaged and labeled. Seed companies, like Monsanto, are afraid that labeling products as GMOs will limit sales, but as a consumer it is usually better to be aware of what is in your food or where your food is coming from; that way you can make an educated and conscious decision on what it is you would prefer to eat. It also alleviates blame for the farmers and companies, because if it is labeled as a GMO people have the option of whether or not they want to eat it and cannot claim they were unaware.
Harmon’s essay is well thought out and well researched; it is also easy to understand even with minimal knowledge of GMOs. She uses reliable sources and proves the unreasonable nature of some claims being made on GMOs. I find her work to be interesting and finding out about the disproved rat experiment thoroughly caught my attention, as did the rest of what she was saying on the topic.
Works Referred to-
Harmon, Amy. “A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Jan. 2014. Web. 9 Sept. 2015.
I completely agree with your findings because since the beginning of humankind, we have been technically “modifying” our food through natural selection. All that GMOs are doing is just speeding up the process and it making easier to make food much more accessible and easier to mass produce. But on the other hand it gives corporate giants an upper hand to make much more money from smaller farmers who are using the seeds. I find it hard to choose a side as both sides have their benefits and their flaws.
To be honest, I prefer organic food over genetically modified food. I’m not completely against it either like you said, because nearly everything we consume has been altered in someway. But i think it’s just better.