GMOs- how evil are they?

Whenever I meet someone and they ask me what I do for a living, I tell them that I am a plant pathologist. 

They ask me if I said anthropologist. 

Then I explain that I work with diseases of plants, the green leafy things that fix food for most of us on the planet. 

Then, they ask me if I make evil GMOs. 

This page is dedicated to all those who have asked me if I make evil GMOs, or are going to ask me in the future.

It is difficult to keep making tomatoes, pineapples and bananas available in Canada as well as other parts of the world (tropical or not) for a growing population, with finite land and water resources. We are not ready to reduce our consumptions or give up these luxuries of eating a banana in Minnesota in the middle of a cold winter. There is no magic to improve and diversify our agricultural yields - except there is science.

So, are GM Crops a Boon or Bane?

GMOs: What are they?

GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms. Typically, these are living organisms, including plants, whose genomes or genetic materials have been altered by molecular methods and not by traditional breeding. In my opinion, there is no difference between the products of traditional breeding and those of molecular intervention. I hope that I will help you see my perspective by the end of this article.

One of the most common reasons to resist GMOs: They are not “Natural”.

To the proponents of "natural" food who claim that GMOs are not natural, let me say that AGRICULTURE itself is NOT NATURAL. If we are extremely worried about ecosystems, we should all go back to living in trees and caves and be hunters and gatherers to eat. When we began agriculture, we started favouring a few crops over many plants. When we began favouring a few crops instead of many, we also became partial to those insects and microbes that are beneficial to our favourite crops. Therefore, the argument that GM crops are the first and only bane to the Earth's ecological balance is baseless and meaningless. In fact, every single human advancement has been negatively impacting other organisms on this planet, whether we are cognizant of that or not. How many species went extinct because of humans? Hard to give an exact number since Humans do not know how many species were there just before we arrived on the scene.

Is there another angle to GMOs than the shaky “not natural” argument?

All ecological arguments, however theoretically valid, must also consider socio-political consequences. The world is almost 9 Billion people who do not live in caves and trees. There are so many mouths to feed (not just forage), bodies to clothe (no fig leaves) and families to house (no caves or trees).

There are countries that can produce copious food naturally and those that can't. Amongst those that cannot produce a variety of natural foods, most of them have enslaved those that can produce food for centuries and exploited them. Through the new world order, these not-haves who are also colonials tend to keep exploiting those who can produce food (but have no MONEY). The economically poor but biodiverse rich countries are being exploited for the benefit of the over-wasting and over-consuming richer economic markets.

I live in a Tundra where we cannot grow bananas. Yet, it is one of the cheapest products that I can get my hands on. However, I could only get one or two varieties of bananas whereas the place where these bananas are produced (Central America, Africa and South Asia) could produce at least a few more. Nevertheless, due to exploitation, they are left to grow more of the same variety in search of export gains, selecting for a few over diversity. Therefore, it is easy to talk theoretical ecology from the high perches of colonialism and economical classism while demonizing effective technology. However, different technologies are effortlessly adopted to effectively misinform people and feed them fictional science and fear.

It seems like this is a socio-economic-political issue and much less one of demon technologies.

Like any issue, there are many ways to approach this. I suggest a two-side approach, one for emerging/poor economies (low GDP per capita) and one for the exploiters/rich economies (high GDP per capita) in that order.

In India, there are famous non-scientists calling themselves eco gods, going around, demonising the technology. But here is my argument as to why they are wrong.

Hybrid seeds are expensive. Farmers get into a lot of debt and commit suicide. This is a vicious circle. Farmers cannot make their own seed from hybrids. All of these are very true and very sad. The current technologies of GMO when applied to farmers in India will lead to misery as the coupling of technology and its system was designed for western farmers. An average Indian farm is 3 acres in size while that of US is 470 acres. Small pieces of land were split amongst a large population at the end of British occupation in India. While 100s of acres of native American land was given to white Europeans immigrants to settle down in the US and exploit the American lands. Therefore, a family farm is not the same in both cases. Therefore, the same system/business model for the technology will not work in both the countries.

In a free market economy, it is still possible to protect one's own interests through proper negotiations aka lobbying. It is not entirely correct to demonise western companies for their tactful lobbying. From their perspective, India is a large market, and those companies would want to keep their unit price steady and push a larger volume for more profit. That makes sound business sense. But democratically elected governments have a responsibility to protect their people, their interest group. Therefore, democratically elected governments or any government is the de facto lobbyist for its own people.

Instead of regulating the price of seeds and empowering more indigenous companies to use GMO technologies to make crops for India (de-monopolise), Indian politicians have relied on western companies, their business models and their lobbies. The Indian government which is full of illiterate politicians are easily targeted by business lobbies, and the farmers are left without proper support. Huge royalties were permitted to be added to the seed prices by the government. Instead, farmers were incentivised to convert to Bt Cotton (GMO that is insect repellent without pesticide application) through limited time subsidies and promises by the government to directly buy the new Bt Cotton. This helped convert a lot of farmers to grow Bt Cotton. In the recent past, these subsidies and royalties are being rethought, angering the business owners, and not completely working for the poor farmers.

But when the government stopped the subsidies and the acquisition of Bt Cotton, nothing changed for the companies, but everything changed for the poor farmer. All the investments that these farmers made to convert their small farms for Bt Cotton were dead. Furthermore, there were no efforts to educate the farmers about the technology. Several fields started monoculture of Bt Cotton. Any genetic trait, whether it is in a GM crop or a "natural" crop, will break down in large monocultures over a period of time. Therefore, different kinds of bollworms started becoming a problem. The GM cotton is not as effective as it was before. A crop rotation also means use of different implements and machines for a different crop. It is too much to ask of small farmers (3 acres avg vs 470 acres in the US) to do such expensive changes. These technical problems were never publicly discussed while policies were being developed. I cannot stress more about the absence of any outreach education to farmers from the government on these aspects. Today, the government of India is making several sharp U-turns (again without much thought) on many of the policies in practice when it comes to GM crops and the business models associated with them.

Those pseudo scientists who claim to speak for the farmers are busy demonising GMO technologies and earning money by doing so - in terms of book royalties and foreign speech engagements. They could instead lobby for using the technology to benefit the Indian farmers. There is more personal gain from being the face of change than actually bringing about any. No money is being spent by these farmer-friendly lobbies to suggest alternative policies - they are only there to ban the haphazard policies promulgated by illiterate politicians. This also weakens the credibility of scientists. At the end of the day, one must think about how scientists are also humans and they would also be eating the same technology if it becomes mainstream, and therefore care about the safety of the same. Clearly, spraying a crop for bugs 5 times vs 2 times has its ecological benefits too! But more spraying is in the interest of companies that might be manufacturing pesticide sprays, but not GM seeds. Once again, everybody has the right to protect their interests through lobbying.

So, developing countries or poor economies need to either find a way to peacefully collectivise farming and make it profitable without changing the business model, or tightly regulate the prices of the seed technology and educate their farmers about it - rethink and renegotiate the business model. These countries should consult with actual scientists and accept their recommendations. People should also keep in mind that nothing is perfect or ideal and we are all human, trying to do the best for that time. It is easy to bad mouth green revolution when it has been the source for economic revival and has fueled such bad-mouthing activists to get ahead socio-economically. People should elect, in case of a democracy, representatives based on policies, regardless of their emotions based on religion/race/sex or any other such identities. Asking questions and having healthy dialogues must be encouraged, rather than discouraged.

How can the wealthy countries with poor agriculture potential help?

Europe has higher standards for food and is more anti-GMO and pro-organic than the US. However, they are also reducing their consumption and waste, and making themselves more self-sufficient. The idea of eating local and native produce is catching on. It is possible to produce organic food and non-GMO food if we first REDUCE, then REUSE instead of exploit.

Recycling is not that important - compared to REDUCTION and REUSE.

Will the rich countries stop exploiting? Well, that is in the hands of those being exploited to stand up to them and say NO! Rather, they must renegotiate so these trade relationships are mutually beneficial and relevant to context.

So, are GM crops boon or bane?

are concrete houses boon or bane to the environment?

are humans boon or bane to planet earth?

Remember, the same Nazis and their technology that made V2 bombers helped the US and USSR send people into space!!!

Balance the build-up of entropy :)

References