The truth about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is pretty ugly.
In Fred Hiatt's words ["Feast or famine: Science that is hard to swallow," Chicago Tribune, 2/10/2015, p. 13], pondering whether they should be identified on product labels, GMOs sound so benign.
A World Resources Institute paper indicates, he pointed out, that farmers will need to produce 69% more food in 2050 than they did in 2006, given expected population growth.
"Though far from the only solution to this challenge," he said, "genetic modification can provide seeds that are more resistant to pests, drought or disease and that produce greater yields with less water or in poorer soil. They could be, in other words, one significant component to avoiding mass hunger over the next generation."
So here's the problem with that. GMO food production has a built-in, costly, umbilical chord-like dependency on its developers for its sustenance. GMO seeds are patented, as are the toxic herbicides they are designed to withstand. Thus, not only are farmers who plant GMO crops under contract to re-buy new seed from the patent-holder every year, deviating from age-old (and money-saving) traditions of setting aside harvested seed for replanting, they are also on the hook for the patented herbicides besides — not to mention the costly farm equipment needed for application — none of which are likely affordable in emerging markets. And higher population growth is expected to occur mostly in the under-developed world.
Add to that the risk to human health of applying the herbicides, both for farmers and anyone downwind who might breathe its airborne residue — never mind the possibility of its pollen polluting neighboring organic crops — plus the fact the end product cannot be assured to be hazard-free, and the promise of GMOs to feed the world fades mighty fast.
And then there are the Super Weeds. Apparently Mother Nature has some modification tricks up her sleeve as well, for weeds that tolerate the patented herbicides have evolved right alongside the high-yield crops! Wherever this occurs, increasingly toxic substances must be developed to eradicate the newly modified Super Weeds.
Courtney White reminds us ["Agriculture Needs to Back Up," The Progressive Populist, 2/15/15, p. 6], that in the past all agriculture was what we associate today only with sustainable, organic food production.
She tells the story of Dorn Cox, a young New Hampshire farmer who said "Farming isn't rocket science — it's more complicated than that." He prefers no-till cultivation to the plow, sophisticated technology to measure and increase the carbon content of soil, has developed a biodiesel alternative to fossil fuels, and "co-founded Farm Hack, an open-source virtual café for ... beginning farmers."
The patented GMO farming model is demonstrably failing as even a partial answer to the needs of an increasingly poor, overcrowded and hungry world. Even if farmers in emerging markets were by some miracle able to afford its contractual and costly equipment requirements in order to participate in its promised "high yields", the safety of GMO food could never be assured. That is the main reason that all GMO ingredients should be labeled at once.
And rather than fooling with Mother Nature as GMO developers have done, farmers should flock to return once again, alongside Dorn Cox, "Back to the Future" of organic, sustainable food production methods.