I’m an unbashed anti-GMO proponent (I’m against its use but not against doing research around it), but let me try to comment in a “healthy” way.
anti-GMO ≠ anti-science.
After writing two books on the science of climate change, I decided I could no longer continue taking a pro-science position on global warming and an anti-science position on G.M.O.s.
I read the NYT article, and then Lynas’ speech where he came out in support of GMO, and I’m disappointed that his dialogue wasn’t more level-headed. The debate on GMO is already highly polarized, and his vile tone with those who disagree with GMO is just a big turnoff. While I didn’t entirely agree with the GMO articles on Grist, at least, Nathanael Johnson tried to be a devil’s advocate, and provided some more digestible food for thought in the GMO debate.
Anyway, what really ticks me off in the quote is the amalgam that anti-GMOs equals anti-science.
That’s not true, anti-GMO proponents vouch for a different kind of agriculture, namely organic agriculture which actually does acknowledge the benefits of science in agriculture, albeit it does not endorse GM technology due to precautionary measures.
The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) believes that genetic engineering in agriculture causes, or may cause:
- Negative and irreversible environmental impacts
- Release of organisms which have never before existed in natureand which cannot be recalled
- Pollution of the gene-pool of cultivated crops, micro-organisms and animals
- Pollution off farm organisms
- Denial of free choice, both for farmers and consumers
- Violation of farmers’ fundamental property rights and endangerment of their economic independence
- Practices which are incompatible with the principles of sustainable agriculture
- Unacceptable threats to human health
Unlike WP.com where new features can be pushed but also easily retracted, Nature has no way to remove new foreign organism introduced into her, there’s no undo once it’s released out in the wild, so extra-precautionary measures are required.
To justify those precautionary measures, here are some science-based backing:
1) Genetic Engineering Benefits: Promise vs. Performance
The Union of Concerned Scientists brings up some negative side-effects of GMO seeds, and also explains how GMO aren’t as performant as promised over the long term.
overuse of engineered herbicide-resistant crops has driven a destructive epidemic of herbicide-resistant “superweeds,” which is reviving tillage.
Similarly, Bt corn has reduced the use of sprayed insecticides, but its adoption has coincided with sharp increases in the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments, which have been tied to declining populations of birds and beneficial insects such as honeybees. And as with herbicide-tolerant crops, the benefits of Bt corn are being eroded as pest insects develop Bt resistance, forcing farmers to look for other, potentially more toxic options.
The bottom line? It’s true that GE has provided some real benefits to farmers—but those benefits have fallen far short of making a convincing case that GE will be a key component of a sustainable long-term approach to agriculture in the United States.
And that’s why I’d take Lynas’ NYT article with a grain of salt, the new pest-resistant eggplant he mentions appears to be doing well for a first season, but what about in the long-term?
Also, it’d be good to keep in mind that anti-GMO proponents support alternatives that don’t get enough attention in this GMO debate.
the use of agroecological practices combined with crop breeding can deliver greater benefits without many of the undesired side effects of the GE alternative.
In a 300+ pages report presented at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), researchers from all over the world compiled findings from scientific studies making a case for a more holistic approach to agriculture, one that privileges the application of agroecological findings and works in accordance with the local environment and culture.
On the topic of GMO (starting at page 203), here’s what it says:
The predictable pattern and quantity of glyphosate herbicide use in GM agriculture has caused the evolution of resistance in weeds on a scale never experienced in the decades of glyphosate use prior to GM crops, leading to a return to tilling and the use of other herbicides for weed control.
Broadly speaking, countries making a substantial shift to GM crops are in a group where food security has either shown no improvement (e.g. United States), or where it is declining (e.g. Argentina).
Whatever the comparative benefits of GE may be, they are largely lost when GE/industrial agriculture is compared with alternative biotechnologies such as agroecological technologies.
In the end, isn’t thinking that we can invent how plants grow or how seeds are created, and do it better than Nature, similar to believing that we can build a robot smarter than human beings? Well, I guess we could but with the dangers that come with it.
Scientific research on GMO inherently on the side of GMO.
It’s important to break out Monsanto stuff and GMOs in general
the science says there’s nothing inherent to genetically modifying crops that make them dangerous.
I agree that GMO ought to be considered independently of Monsanto et al. but it’s rather difficult to do so when research labs and the industry are so intertwined in the first place, not to mention Washington’s shilling for the biotech industry.
What’s more, many of those scientific studies are locked inside lucrative academic journal databases, making it even harder for the public to access information and formulate an informed judgment on their own.
In a study – which happens to reside in one of those lucrative academic journal databases – titled “How agricultural research systems shape a technological regime that develops genetic engineering but locks out agroecological innovations” (hat tip to the above UNCTAD report), it explains how GM technology has an advantage due to the considerable public-private partnerships (PPPs) it benefits from.
Genetic engineering has benefited more from PPPs than agroecological engineering, because PPPs were only launched on technological trajectories in which private firms had an interest.
Moreover, PPPs have had an indirect but more profound impact: a change in the culture of science. A key finding of an external evaluation of one of these large PPPs – the
University of California-Novartis agreement – found that adminitrators and university scientists who participated in the partnership tended to define the public good as research that leads to the creation of commercialized products, narrowing the definition of the
public good towards private goods.This trend is favourable to transgenic plants but unfavourable to agroecological innovations with a public good characteristic.
Just like Lynas, Thierry Vrain, a former genetic engineer and soil biologist from Canada, also flipped side, only he went from pro-GMO to anti-GMO.
In the last 10 years I have changed my position. I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.
The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment are registered as insecticides. But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety? Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the U.S.
A different approach to agriculture: studying/observing Nature to better work with Her.
The Grist GMOs series slightly touched upon alternatives to a GMO-based agriculture, but I wish it would have gone further, if only to demystify the anti-science portrayal of the anti-GMO proponents.
For example, the Wired article “How plants secretly talk to each other” shows how more scientific effort could be spent to understand plants’ mechanisms, how they are actually able to fend off pests on their own by communicating with each other, and how this feature was lost with hybrid seeds of corn.
For a different approach to agriculture and also a peak into the Japanese Zen state of mind, I highly recommend “The One Straw Revolution” from Masanobu Fukuoka who pioneered what’s known as the Natural Farming or Do-Nothing method. Grist has featured an article about the book and this peculiar method of farming where with minimal stewardship from humans, Nature can regulate (deal with pests and weeds) herself and grow food without any external input.
Some people are quick to dismiss Fukuoka’s Natural farming because it is not backed by science, but then again, as he said:
The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is.
About Automattic/WordPress, organic agriculture and GMO.
Matt, not so long ago you penned an article titled “Advice and fallacies“. I loved it because it echoed some organic farming practices. Actually, I only need to replace a few words in the last paragraph to make it relevant in the context of organic farming.
If there’s an area
you’re weakplants fall ill or victim of pests, try to figure out the root causes of whyyou’re weakthey’re ill or are victim of pests, and where possible try to improve the environment that creates the problem before pinning the turnaround on a “Jesus hireMiracle biotech/GMO seed.” When you improve the environment it makes it much more likelya new external hire will dofor future plants to grow well.
I also recall a talk you gave – and correct me if I’m wrong – where you mentioned something about not being interested in bending the access/usage of WP.com in some countries like China which have censorship rules, because doing so would go against the DNA of the company.
However, it’s predictable, I think, that making this slight change of DNA would greatly increase usage of WP.com, just like GMO seeds promise higher yields. China and WP.com, the two could work together, there’d be benefits to it, but it’s not happening because it’d require compromising the company’s DNA in ways that would damage some of the principles Automattic/WordPress stands for, like openness.
Luckily for Automattic/WordPress, you are the benevolent dictator 😉 so you get to call the shots. In the case of Mother Nature, the best we can do is observe and study her to understand if she approves or disapproves what we do to her.
Also, in the same way that Lynas wishes for the end of the green movement, WordPress at one point also had its detractors foreseeing the death of blogging/WP. Organic agriculture is getting some misinformed flak for being too slow of a method or not producing enough, when actually it is focused on finding ways to foster a resilient and sustainable soil for farmers to cultivate on in the long-term. Working with Nature also means following her pace, which sometimes goes slower than what the food industry expects, and in this respect, WordPress is not so much different, it also prefers to go at its own pace, and look at now, it’s powering 23% of the web!
Matt, I don’t know if you’ll agree with my analogy (it’s not a perfect one, I know), and if you don’t, then just take this as a compliment for how well you’ve sheperd the growth of Automattic/WordPress. They both could make a beautiful case of organic farming practices applied to a tech company/product. 🙂
Some more personal thoughts related to this GMO debate and Science.
I’ve been following food issues for maybe ten years now, and when I checked back on the GMO debate (in the American context) a few months ago, I finally understood what the saying “science is a religion” meant. This especially became clear when I watched the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate, where during the Q&A someone pretty much lashed out at the anti-GMO proponents for even daring to question the scientific conscensus. When I later attempted to discuss GMO in some online forums, mostly with an American audience, I was just as violently reprimanded for showing a little scrutiny over the scientific consensus. So I do worry that in this GMO debate, science is sometimes turning into a religion.
And then, I’ve also been through graduate studies and realized that researchers can’t always research science for the beauty of science, fundings need to come in, papers need to be published (all of this stress even percolates down to students), and so I’ve learned to scrutinize research studies (What’s the background of the writer? Who funded the research? What are the limitations of this study? etc…), and even more so when it comes to GMO (for the reasons cited above, related to PPPs).
Though I remain against the use of GMO, reading the Grist articles, the NYT “A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops” article and researching additional information on my own to formulate this post/comment, have not left me indifferent, and given me more to think about. I’m always up to have my beliefs challenged, and the articles you’ve linked to have certainly achieved that. ⭐
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