by Dr. Jonathan Foley
globalecoguy.org, 17 Apr 2018

EDITED

* Some widespread notions about GMOs — especially that they are “needed to feed a growing world” — are wrong and simply refuse to die.

It never fails. Every few months, someone — usually a reporter — asking me to talk about GMOs*. And they almost always ask the same few questions.

Sadly, these questions are the usual “GMO Zombie Myths” — put into circulation by big agricultural interests and their allies — that just won’t die.

Industrial agriculture and biotech interests have built entire campaigns saying that we “need” genetically engineered organisms to “feed the world."

Yet most of the GMOs in use today aren’t even primary food crops that feed the world — like rice, wheat, roots and tubers, pulses, and fruits and vegetables. Instead, most of the world’s GMO farm fields are growing things like feed corn (not sweet corn that we eat, but feed corn that is used for making animal feed, high-fructose corn syrup, and corn ethanol), soybeans (mainly for animal feed), cotton, and canola. Very few of the GMO crops in use today are feeding the world’s poor; instead, they are crops used in the world’s wealthier countries, mainly to fatten animals, make unnecessary biofuels and food additives, or make cheap clothing.

There is the common claim that GMOs dramatically increase crop yields. That’s not really true either. 

If you really wanted to feed the world, you’d tackle bigger issues — namely food waste, wasteful diets (especially in the U.S. and Europe, where more red meat is eaten) and feedlot animal agriculture (where we turn food crops in animal feed).

Moreover, there are side effects to using these bundled GMO-pesticide systems at such large scales. The loss of native plants on the edges of farmers fields, and the subsequent impact on native insects, birds, and other wildlife. Plus, there are the potential effects of using any biocide too much in the environment, and the potential impacts on soil microorganisms and biodiversity — which are still poorly understood.

It’s like a giant treadmill, where we are in a race between GMO+pesticide development and nature’s ability to adapt to our chemicals, with new, resistant weeds and bugs. And nature typically wins.

We need whole-food-system solutions, from the farmers field to our plates and stomachs. That’s the way we can feed 9 billion, with true food security and nutrition, with far less environmental and social harm.

But, first, we need to dispel the myth that GMOs are “needed” to “feed the world”. Because that’s just not true, and is never going to be.

* Please don’t say, “Hey, all crops are genetically modified”. Yes, yes, we have been selectively breeding plants for thousands of years. We all know that. But the term “GMOs” refers to the recent development of “gene splicing” and the development of transgenic crops, creating forms of life that nature, or selective breeding, could never have created.