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Neil deGrasse Tyson gets to the bottom of GMOs

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The Gene Revolution, The Future of Agriculture: Dr. Thierry Vrain at TEDxComoxValley

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Scientists continue to find new ways to insert genes for specific traits into plant and animal DNA. A field of promise-and a subject of debate-genetic engineering is changing the food we eat and the world we live in.

In the brave new world of genetic engineering, Dean DellaPenna envisions this cornucopia: tomatoes and broccoli bursting with cancer-fighting chemicals and vitamin-enhanced crops of rice, sweet potatoes, and cassava to help nourish the poor. He sees wheat, soy, and peanuts free of allergens; bananas that deliver vaccines; and vegetable oils so loaded with therapeutic ingredients that doctors "prescribe" them for patients at risk for cancer and heart disease. A plant biochemist at Michigan State University, DellaPenna believes that genetically engineered foods are the key to the next wave of advances in agriculture and health.

While DellaPenna and many others see great potential in the products of this new biotechnology, some see uncertainty, even danger. Critics fear that genetically engineered products are being rushed to market before their effects are fully understood. Anxiety has been fueled by reports of taco shells contaminated with genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption; the potential spread of noxious "superweeds" spawned by genes picked up from engineered crops; and possible harmful effects of biotech corn pollen on monarch butterflies.

In North America and Europe the value and impact of genetically engineered food crops have become subjects of intense debate, provoking reactions from unbridled optimism to fervent political opposition.

Just what are genetically engineered foods, and who is eating them? What do we know about their benefits-and their risks? What effect might engineered plants have on the environment and on agricultural practices around the world? Can they help feed and preserve the health of the Earth's burgeoning population?

Most people in the United States don't realize that they've been eating genetically engineered foods since the mid-1990s. More than 60 percent of all processed foods on U.S. supermarket shelves-including pizza, chips, cookies, ice cream, salad dressing, corn syrup, and baking powder-contain ingredients from engineered soybeans, corn, or canola.

In the past decade or so, the biotech plants that go into these processed foods have leaped from hothouse oddities to crops planted on a massive scale-on 130 million acres (52.6 million hectares) in 13 countries, among them Argentina, Canada, China, South Africa, Australia, Germany, and Spain. On U.S. farmland, acreage planted with genetically engineered crops jumped nearly 25-fold from 3.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares) in 1996 to 88.2 million acres (35.7 million hectares) in 2001. More than 50 different "designer" crops have passed through a federal review process, and about a hundred more are undergoing field trials.

Genetic modification is not novel. Humans have been altering the genetic makeup of plants for millennia, keeping seeds from the best crops and planting them in following years, breeding and crossbreeding varieties to make them taste sweeter, grow bigger, last longer. In this way we've transformed the wild tomato, Lycopersicon, from a fruit the size of a marble to today's giant, juicy beefsteaks. From a weedy plant called teosinte with an "ear" barely an inch long has come our foot-long (0.3-meter-long) ears of sweet white and yellow corn. In just the past few decades plant breeders have used traditional techniques to produce varieties of wheat and rice plants with higher grain yields. They have also created hundreds of new crop variants using irradiation and mutagenic chemicals.

But the technique of genetic engineering is new, and quite different from conventional breeding. Traditional breeders cross related organisms whose genetic makeups are similar. In so doing, they transfer tens of thousands of genes. By contrast, today's genetic engineers can transfer just a few genes at a time between species that are distantly related or not related at all.

Genetic engineers can pull a desired gene from virtually any living organism and insert it into virtually any other organism. They can put a rat gene into lettuce to make a plant that produces vitamin C or splice genes from the cecropia moth into apple plants, offering protection from fire blight, a bacterial disease that damages apples and pears. The purpose is the same: to insert a gene or genes from a donor organism carrying a desired trait into an organism that does not have the trait.

The engineered organisms scientists produce by transferring genes between species are called transgenic. Several dozen transgenic food crops are currently on the market, among them varieties of corn, squash, canola, soybeans, and cotton, from which cottonseed oil is produced. Most of these crops are engineered to help farmers deal with age-old agriculture problems: weeds, insects, and disease.

Farmers spray herbicides to kill weeds. Biotech crops can carry special "tolerance" genes that help them withstand the spraying of chemicals that kill nearly every other kind of plant. Some biotech varieties make their own insecticide, thanks to a gene borrowed from a common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt for short.

Bt genes code for toxins considered to be harmless to humans but lethal to certain insects, including the European corn borer, an insect that tunnels into cornstalks and ears, making it a bane of corn farmers. So effective is Bt that organic farmers have used it as a natural insecticide for decades, albeit sparingly. Corn borer caterpillars bite into the leaves, stems, or kernels of a Bt corn plant, the toxin attacks their digestive tracts, and they die within a few days.

Other food plants-squash and papaya, for instance-have been genetically engineered to resist diseases. Lately scientists have been experimenting with potatoes, modifying them with genes of bees and moths to protect the crops from potato blight fungus, and grapevines with silkworm genes to make the vines resistant to Pierce's disease, spread by insects.

With the new tools of genetic engineering, scientists have also created transgenic animals. Atlantic salmon grow more slowly during the winter, but engineered salmon, "souped-up" with modified growth-hormone genes from other fish, reach market size in about half the normal time. Scientists are also using biotechnology to insert genes into cows and sheep so that the animals will produce pharmaceuticals in their milk. None of these transgenic animals have yet entered the market.

"Risks exist everywhere in our food supply," points out Dean DellaPenna. "About a hundred people die each year from peanut allergies. With genetically engineered foods we minimize risks by doing rigorous testing."

According to Eric Sachs, a spokesperson for Monsanto, a leading developer of biotech products: "Transgenic products go through more testing than any of the other foods we eat. We screen for potential toxins and allergens. We monitor the levels of nutrients, proteins, and other components to see that the transgenic plants are substantially equivalent to traditional plants."

Three federal agencies regulate genetically engineered crops and foods-the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA reviews data on allergens, toxicity, and nutrient levels voluntarily submitted by companies. If that information shows that the new foods are not substantially equivalent to conventional ones, the foods must undergo further testing. Last year the agency proposed tightening its scrutiny of engineered foods, making the safety assessments mandatory rather than voluntary.

"When it comes to addressing concerns about health issues, industry is being held to very high standards" says DellaPenna, "and it's doing its best to meet them in reasonable and rigorous fashion."

In the mid-1990s a biotech company launched a project to insert a gene from the Brazil nut into a soybean. The Brazil nut gene selected makes a protein rich in one essential amino acid. The aim was to create a more nutritious soybean for use in animal feed. Because the Brazil nut is known to contain an allergen, the company also tested the product for human reaction, with the thought that the transgenic soybean might accidentally enter the human food supply. When tests showed that humans would react to the modified soybeans, the project was abandoned.

For some people this was good evidence that the system of testing genetically engineered foods works. But for some scientists and consumer groups, it raised the specter of allergens or other hazards that might slip through the safety net. Scientists know that some proteins, such as the one in the Brazil nut, can cause allergic reactions in humans, and they know how to test for these allergenic proteins. But the possibility exists that a novel protein with allergenic properties might turn up in an engineered food-just as it might in a new food produced by conventional means-and go undetected. Furthermore, critics say, the technique of moving genes across dramatically different species increases the likelihood of something going awry-either in the function of the inserted gene or in the function of the host DNA-raising the possibility of unanticipated health effects.

An allergy scare in 2000 centered around StarLink, a variety of genetically engineered corn approved by the U.S. government only for animal use because it showed some suspicious qualities, among them a tendency to break down slowly during digestion, a known characteristic of allergens. When StarLink found its way into taco shells, corn chips, and other foods, massive and costly recalls were launched to try to remove the corn from the food supply.

No cases of allergic response have been pinned to StarLink. In fact, according to Steve L. Taylor, chair of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, "None of the current biotech products have been implicated in allergic reactions or any other healthcare problem in people." Nevertheless, all new foods may present new risks. Only rigorous testing can minimize those risks.

Often overlooked in the debate about the health effects of these foods is one possible health benefit: Under some conditions corn genetically engineered for insect resistance may enhance safety for human and animal consumption. Corn damaged by insects often contains high levels of fumonisins, toxins made by fungi that are carried on the backs of insects and that grow in the wounds of the damaged corn. Lab tests have linked fumonisins with cancer in animals, and they may be potentially cancer-causing to humans. Among people who consume a lot of corn-in certain parts of South Africa, China, and Italy, for instance-there are high rates of esophageal cancer, which scientists associate with fumonisins. Studies show that most Bt corn has lower levels of fumonisins than conventional corn damaged by insects.

Should genetically engineered foods be labeled? Surveys suggest that most Americans would say yes (although they wouldn't want to pay more for the labeling). Professor Marion Nestle, chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, favors labeling because she believes consumers want to know and have the right to choose. However, no engineered foods currently carry labels in the U.S. because the FDA has not found any of them to be substantially different from their conventional counterparts. Industry representatives argue that labeling engineered foods that are not substantially different would arouse unwarranted suspicion.

Most scientists agree: The main safety issues of genetically engineered crops involve not people but the environment. "We've let the cat out of the bag before we have real data, and there's no calling it back," says Allison Snow, a plant ecologist at Ohio State University.

Snow is known for her research on "gene flow," the movement of genes via pollen and seeds from one population of plants to another, and she and some other environmental scientists worry that genetically engineered crops are being developed too quickly and released on millions of acres of farmland before they've been adequately tested for their possible long-term ecological impact.

Advocates of genetically engineered crops argue that the plants offer an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides, which tend to pollute surface and groundwater and harm wildlife. The use of Bt varieties has dramatically reduced the amount of pesticide applied to cotton crops. But the effects of genetic engineering on pesticide use with more widely grown crops are less clear-cut.

What might be the effect of these engineered plants on so-called nontarget organisms, the creatures that visit them? Concerns that crops with built-in insecticides might damage wildlife were inflamed in 1999 by the report of a study suggesting that Bt corn pollen harmed monarch butterfly caterpillars.

Monarch caterpillars don't feed on corn pollen, but they do feed on the leaves of milkweed plants, which often grow in and around cornfields. Entomologists at Cornell University showed that in the laboratory Bt corn pollen dusted onto milkweed leaves stunted or killed some of the monarch caterpillars that ate the leaves. For some environmental activists this was confirmation that genetically engineered crops were dangerous to wildlife. But follow-up studies in the field, reported last fall, indicate that pollen densities from Bt corn rarely reach damaging levels on milkweed, even when monarchs are feeding on plants within a cornfield.

"The chances of a caterpillar finding Bt pollen doses as high as those in the Cornell study are negligible," says Rick Hellmich, an entomologist with the Agricultural Research Service and one author of the follow-up report. "Butterflies are safer in a Bt cornfield than they are in a conventional cornfield, when they're subjected to chemical pesticides that kill not just caterpillars but most insects in the field."

Perhaps a bigger concern has to do with insect evolution. Crops that continuously make Bt may hasten the evolution of insects impervious to the pesticide. Such a breed of insect, by becoming resistant to Bt, would rob many farmers of one of their safest, most environmentally friendly tools for fighting the pests.

To delay the evolution of resistant insects, U.S. government regulators, working with biotech companies, have devised special measures for farmers who grow Bt crops. Farmers must plant a moat or "refuge" of conventional crops near their engineered crops. The idea is to prevent two resistant bugs from mating. The few insects that emerge from Bt fields resistant to the insecticide would mate with their nonresistant neighbors living on conventional crops nearby; the result could be offspring susceptible to Bt. The theory is that if growers follow requirements, it will take longer for insects to develop resistance.

It was difficult initially to convince farmers who had struggled to keep European corn borers off their crops to let the insects live and eat part of their acreage to combat resistance. But a 2001 survey by major agricultural biotech companies found that almost 90 percent of U.S. farmers complied with the requirements.

Many ecologists believe that the most damaging environmental impact of biotech crops may be gene flow. Could transgenes that confer resistance to insects, disease, or harsh growing conditions give weeds a competitive advantage, allowing them to grow rampantly?

"Genes flow from crops to weeds all the time when pollen is transported by wind, bees, and other pollinators," says Allison Snow. "There's no doubt that transgenes will jump from engineered crops into nearby relatives." But since gene flow usually takes place only between closely related species, and since most major U.S. crops don't have close relatives growing nearby, it's extremely unlikely that gene flow will occur to create problem weeds.

Still, Snow says, "even a very low probability event could occur when you're talking about thousands of acres planted with food crops." And in developing countries, where staple crops are more frequently planted near wild relatives, the risk of transgenes escaping is higher. While no known superweeds have yet emerged, Snow thinks it may just be a matter of time.

Given the risks, many ecologists believe that industry should step up the extent and rigor of its testing and governments should strengthen their regulatory regimes to more fully address environmental effects. "Every transgenic organism brings with it a different set of potential risks and benefits," says Snow. "Each needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But right now only one percent of USDA biotech research money goes to risk assessment."

"Eight hundred million people on this planet are malnourished," says Channapatna Prakash, a native of India and an agricultural scientist at the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University, "and the number continues to grow."

Genetic engineering can help address the urgent problems of food shortage and hunger, say Prakash and many other scientists. It can increase crop yields, offer crop varieties that resist pests and disease, and provide ways to grow crops on land that would otherwise not support farming because of drought conditions, depleted soils, or soils plagued by excess salt or high levels of aluminum and iron. "This technology is extremely versatile," Prakash explains, "and it's easy for farmers to use because it's built into the seed. The farmers just plant the seeds, and the seeds bring new features in the plants."

Some critics of genetic engineering argue that the solution to hunger and malnutrition lies in redistributing existing food supplies. Others believe that the ownership by big multinational companies of key biotechnology methods and genetic information is crippling public-sector efforts to use this technology to address the needs of subsistence farmers. The large companies that dominate the industry, critics also note, are not devoting significant resources to developing seed technology for subsistence farmers because the investment offers minimal returns. And by patenting key methods and materials, these companies are stifling the free exchange of seeds and techniques vital to public agricultural research programs, which are already under severe financial constraints. All of this bodes ill, say critics, for farmers in the developing world.

Prakash agrees that there's enough food in the world. "But redistribution is just not going to happen," he says. "The protest against biotech on political grounds is a straw man for a larger frustration with globalization, a fear of the power of large multinational corporations. People say that this technology is just earning profit for big companies. This is true to some extent, but the knowledge that companies have developed in the production of profitable crops can easily be transferred and applied to help developing nations."

"Biotechnology is no panacea for world hunger," says Prakash, "but it's a vital tool in a toolbox, one that includes soil and water conservation, pest management, and other methods of sustainable agriculture, as well as new technologies."

The debate over the use of biotechnology in developing countries recently went from simmer to boil about rice, which is eaten by three billion people and grown on hundreds of millions of small farms.

"White rice," explains Dean DellaPenna, "is low in protein. It has very little iron, and virtually no vitamin A."However, in 1999 a team of scientists led by Ingo Potrykus, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Peter Beyer, of the University of Freiburg, Germany, announced a new breakthrough: They had introduced into rice plants two daffodil genes and one bacterial gene that enable the rice to produce in its grains beta-carotene, a building block of vitamin A. According to the World Health Organization, between 100 million and 140 million children in the world suffer from vitamin A deficiency, some 500,000 go blind every year because of that deficiency, and half of those children die within a year of losing their sight. "Golden rice," so named for the yellow color furnished by the beta-carotene, was hailed by some as a potential solution to the suffering and illness caused by vitamin A deficiency.

Skeptics consider golden rice little more than a public relations ploy by the biotechnology industry, which they say exaggerated its benefits. "Golden rice alone won't greatly diminish vitamin A deficiency," says Marion Nestle. "Beta-carotene, which is already widely available in fruit and vegetables, isn't converted to vitamin A when people are malnourished. Golden rice does not contain much beta-carotene, and whether it will improve vitamin A levels remains to be seen."

Potrykus and Beyer are now developing new versions of the rice that may be more effective in delivering beta-carotene for the body to convert to vitamin A. Their plan is to put the improved rices free of charge into the hands of poor farmers. According to Beyer, golden rice is still at least four years away from distribution. It could take much longer if opposing groups delay plans for field trials and safety studies.

Whether biotech foods will deliver on their promise of eliminating world hunger and bettering the lives of all remains to be seen. Their potential is enormous, yet they carry risks-and we may pay for accidents or errors in judgment in ways we cannot yet imagine. But the biggest mistake of all would be to blindly reject or endorse this new technology. If we analyze carefully how, where, and why we introduce genetically altered products, and if we test them thoroughly and judge them wisely, we can weigh their risks against their benefits to those who need them most.

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genetically altered food genetic engineering biotech goods agriculture health crops nutrition epa toxic organic

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Altered Food, GMOs, Genetically Modified Food - National Geographic

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Scientists continue to find new ways to insert genes for specific traits into plant and animal DNA. A field of promise-and a subject of debate-genetic engineering is changing the food we eat and the world we live in.

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When discussing and writing about GMOs, many arguments are put forth on why they are "bad" and should be avoided. However, many of these are not about GMOs, but rather, are issues that we're facing in modern agriculture and in our economy. In this post, I examine nine common reasons I've encountered for opposing GMOs that are much broader in scope.

Transgenesis, or the method used to make most GMOs, is a tool and it makes no sense to oppose a method with broad applications. It's like opposing electronics as a category because you don't like Microsoft or because Apple dominates the portable music electronics business. In fact in the comments section of an article just written in the NY Times about GMOs, you'll see the reasons below being listed time and time again.

9) GMOs are patented. Yes, many of them are patented, but so are many non-GMO crops. Pluots didn't just drop out of the sky: someone had to work for years to develop those tasty treats, so there are patented varieties. Not all GMOs are patented: there are open-source GMOs, and there are also GMOs where organizations have worked with private enterprises to give away seeds on humanitarian grounds, such as Golden Rice. So using the "GMOs are patented" excuse makes no more sense than saying that you don't like electronics because Windows is under a copyright.

8) GMOs cause superweeds. GMOs that carry traits for herbicide tolerance can lead to weeds that develop tolerance to the herbicide, known as "superweeds". Superweeds are far from being an issue unique to GMOs, and even pulling weeds by hand can lead to weeds that look like the crop itself (known as mimicry). The issue of superweeds is a serious one, and this database tracks herbicide resistant weeds as they develop across different nations. Reducing it to a "GMO-specific" problem and severely narrowing the scope of the issue, deters the efforts of finding genuine solutions to the problem. So using the "GMOs cause superweeds" excuse makes no more sense than saying that you don't like computers because they can lead to electric shocks, when the issue is much broader in scope.

7) GMOs are drenched in pesticides. Yes, pesticides (be they herbicides, insecticides, or fungicides) are used on GMOs, as well as any other form of modern agriculture unless the farm specifically states "pesticide-free". That includes the U-Pick farm I've gone to with my family for cherry picking and the organic peach farm next to it. That includes the fields of corn that we drove by to get there. It took me a while to come to the realization that no form of agriculture is perfect. If we insist on going pesticide-free, crops will be lost which will increase costs to consumers and we will have to dedicate more land to get the same output. Pesticides are expensive. Farmers don't just decide to spray their fields with pesticide because they feel like it, nor do they "drench" their fields in it. There are laws and regulations on how much can be applied, and why on earth would anyone use any more than necessary when its use can cut from your profits? Here's an excellent post written from a farmer's perspective on the topic of pesticides and why they're used. It must be stressed that some GMOs are specifically designed to reduce pesticide use, such as the Rainbow Papaya which resists the ring-spot virus and saved Hawaii's papaya industry.

6) GMOs are monocultures. Yes, there are vast fields of GMO corn in places across the US, but there are also vast fields of non-GMO spinach and giant orchards of fruit. When I lived in Venezuela, we lived across from a valley that was a giant sugarcane farm. It was enormous and it belonged to the local sugar refinery. Every year, they'd harvest sugarcane about 3 times. It never changed, there was no crop rotation, and it just went on for miles. This is an example of a monoculture, yet there's no GMO sugarcane. Monocultures can lead to crop resistant pests, and farmers are encouraged to rotate their crops from one year to the next so that this risk can be minimized. So, again, reducing the issue of monocultures to a GMO-specific one is highly disingenuous.

5) GMOs are being made by Big Ag to line their pockets. Unless your problem is with making money in general, then this doesn't make much sense. Of course agribusinesses want to make money. Why would any corporate enterprise embark on a project where they think they'd lose money? Again, the "Big Ag" argument doesn't apply to all GMOs. Arctic Apples were developed by a small company up in BC, Canada that only had seven employees. AquaBounty, which developed the transgenic salmon only had 12 employees on staff in 2012. And of course, many transgenic crops are being developed by public sector scientists, some of which address undernourishment such as biofortified bananas to address vitamin A deficiency. This reason for opposing GMOs is like saying that you oppose electronics because Apple makes too much money from the iPhone.

4) GMOs place restrictions on seed saving. This is tied to #9 on this list. Farmers who plant GMOs sign a contract where they state that they will not reuse seeds. There are non-GE crops where farmers have to sign agreements as well (this includes non-GE sunflowers, which Chipotle switched to when they decided to go non-GMO). In the same way that you're not supposed to copy and give away that Maroon 5 song that you just downloaded from iTunes because it's a copyright violation, farmers are supposed to respect the intellectual property rights of the companies with whom they have signed a contract. Many farmers have written about the plethora of choices they have when it comes to seeds (here's one of my favorite articles).

Basically, if farmers do not like the restricted seed use, they don't have to buy the seeds. It's as simple as that. The fact that they do and that they buy the seeds on a fairly regular basis suggests that there's something about GMO seeds that they prefer. So this has little to do with GMOs: it has to do with patents. If you can think of a better way that companies can recover the dollars they spend on making a product after the first year, by all means, make the suggestion. Farmers who do not use GMOs generally buy their seeds from one year to the next, too, because the seeds they plant are often hybrids. Recalling Mendel's pea experiments, this would mean that if farmers reused the seeds, only a portion of the following year's crop would have the traits they want. This video does a great job of explaining why farmers buy new seeds each year, even if the seeds are non-GMO.

3) GMOs use the carcinogenic glyphosate. Glyphosate use is not restricted to GMOs. That by itself is enough to earn it a place on my list. In fact, we just used it this week to get rid of a particularly thorny wild blackberry that we couldn't control and was right in my 3-year-old son's biking path along the driveway. Regarding the label "carcinogenic", I think that Dr. Andrew Kniss wrote one of the most balanced pieces I've read on this topic, and I'd like you all to head over there to take a look. The recent categorization of glyphosate by the IARC is very specific: they deemed it as "possibly carcinogenic" for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, mostly in agricultural workers. All those important details get lost when we simply state that glyphosate is a carcinogen. An important point to keep in mind is the time at which herbicides such as glyphosate are applied. Think about it: glyphosate is being applied so that corn/soy can grow heartily without getting choked out by weeds.

Does it make sense to apply glyphosate when corn is several feet tall? Here's Pioneer's recommendations for glyphosate application, and they recommend using glyphosate when the plants are just a few weeks old. Between that time and harvest, it might rain, the sun will have beaten down on the crops, and the crops will have been watered. So saying that the corn we eat is "drenched" in glyphosate doesn't make sense. Regarding the amount of glyphosate used, I love this graphic by Sarah Schultz where she explains that approximately one soda can-sized amount of glyphosate is applied across an entire acre of crop in one season. Yes, glyphosate will be absorbed by the plant, but the amount that is absorbed and survives food manufacturing is a far, far, far cry from being "drenched". More importantly, there are many GMOs that are not glyphosate resistant: the Arctic Apple or Innate Potato, for example, could be grown using organic practices (without the organic label), and again, all those GMOs that are being made for humanitarian purposes that have absolutely nothing to do with pesticides.

Monsanto. I give Monsanto two spots on this list, because there are different aspects to the "I hate GMOs because of Monsanto" reason.

2) GMOs promote a monopoly. Every time I see this, I think that someone over at Dow Agro is cackling. I work in a field in biotech where a single company has between 70-80 percent of the market. Google web searches are used almost 70 percent of the time. Android has 80 percent of the market in operating systems for smartphones. But strangely enough, I've never seen a "March against Google". I tried to find out how much of the seed market Monsanto owns, and the numbers are all over the place, because it's such an easy number to rig to portray your point. For example, Monsanto says that it has 5 percent of the world market in seeds. The Organic Consumers Association says that Monsanto has 80 percent of the U.S. GM market on corn. However, GMOanswers.com explains the latter by stating that they license the trait to other independent companies, so they're not sold by Monsanto. Regardless of Monsanto's market share, it's important to note that organic and non-GM farmers have to buy seeds from somewhere, and Monsanto does sell organic seeds. Unless you know what seeds your local farmers used, you have no guarantee that you're boycotting Monsanto if you boycott GMOs.

The problem with monopolies is a tough one and I don't know what the solution might be. Since it takes such a long time to get a GE product through the regulatory process, it's difficult for a small company to last very long. During that time employees need to be paid, logistics need to be taken care of, and the product pipeline needs to continue its development while no revenue is being generated. By no means is this a problem unique to the agricultural biotech sector. Small tech companies are gobbled up by larger behemoths every day. So the issue of monopolies is far from being a problem about GMOs.

1) Monsanto made (place your favorite scary chemical here). This is a topic that I'm struggling with myself. I know that Monsanto has a checkered past, particularly when it comes to Agent Orange. Very briefly, Agent Orange is an herbicide that was used by the U.S. during the Vietnam War to deprive the guerrillas on the ground of food and cover. Agent Orange production during the Vietnam War contained a contaminant which caused severe health problems in the local inhabitants. The U.S. government placed orders from many companies for Agent Orange, and Monsanto was one of them. I don't know how it came to be that Monsanto is exclusively blamed for Agent Orange. As I see it, there are multiple people to blame, primarily the U.S. government. I'm assuming that all the companies involved could have turned down the U.S. government contract, and I'd like to believe that in an ethical world, they would have. But to blame Monsanto for this issue makes no more sense than to blame Boeing for military airstrikes, and I have yet to see a "March against Boeing".

The Monsanto that exists today has gotten rid of its chemical division, however there's no denying that the company is built upon the revenue generated by the company that existed back when it made chemicals. There are many companies that exist today that were built decades or centuries ago under very shady circumstances (for example, Hugo Boss provided uniforms during Hitler's Germany, many companies benefited from slavery, and machines built by IBM were used in concentration camps). I believe that these companies should acknowledge their past and make amends. GMOanswers addresses the topic of Agent Orange and Monsanto, but they have a very PC statement basically pointing the finger elsewhere. Ultimately, this issue has very little to do with GMOs, but is a discussion that we need to have in our society.

In conclusion: There are many legitimate concerns about modern food production. There are many legitimate concerns about the corporate nature of our society and the undue strength corporations exert over the American political system. These are the things we should be opposing. But whether you realize it or not, when you yell "No GMO!" and list one of the reasons above, the crops that are designed for you and I as consumers, the crops that are designed for humanitarian efforts, all suffer as a consequence. I know it doesn't make for a catchy slogan, but why not try voice your concerns by stating "No to the patenting of all seeds, regardless of technology used for their development!!" or "Increase funding so that our public institutions have the resources to commercialize and license crops!!". I'd recommend focusing your efforts on the REAL reason why you oppose GMOs, and not on the technology as a whole.

This article was originally published under the title "I Got 99 Problems but a GMO Ain't One" in FrankenFoodFacts, a blog by Layla Katiraee, who holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of Toronto. All opinions and views expressed are her own. You can follow her on Twitter at @BiochicaGMO. Her LinkedIn profile is here.

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When discussing and writing about GMOs, many arguments are put forth on why they are "bad" and should be avoided. However, many of these are not about GMOs, but rather, are issues that we're facing in modern agriculture and in our economy.

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"Contrary to widespread consumer belief, organic farming is not the best way to farm from an environmental point of view. [T]here are now several cutting edge agricultural practices which are good for the environment, but difficult or impossible for organic farmers to implement within the constraints of their pre-scientific rules.

"Increasing the proportion of agriculture that uses sustainable, organic methods of farming is not a choice, it's a necessity. We simply can't continue to produce food far into the future without taking care of our soils, water and biodiversity.

At a Glance

Many people believe that organic food is safer, healthier, grown "without pesticides" and avoids "harmful" intensive farming practices commonly associated with conventional agriculture. But both organic and conventional farmers use pesticides-organic farmers use natural ones and some approved synthetics. The debate also has taken on ideological connotations with anti-GMO campaigners embracing organics as a symbol of 'agro-ecological' farming while conventional growers see intensive farming practices as more efficient, resulting in higher yields with lower ecological inputs and impact.

Among scientists, there are fierce differences of opinion over whether conventional or organic farming has a larger environmental footprint. Organic farmers generally use less toxic chemicals and pay closer attention to soil health-organic matter, nutrients and microbial activity. Conventional agricultural intensification has a historically notorious record of wasting water, overusing fertilizers and pesticides, and polluting habitats. That's changing as conventional farmers focus more on best practices. Multiple studies show that non-organic farming yields considerably more food with lower costs and in some cases lower inputs per acre. It often uses less water; and some GM crops, such as insect resistant Bt corn, soybean, cotton and eggplant, require less chemical pesticides than their organic counterparts.

Chemicals are only part of the sustainability equation. Eco-responsibility means different things to different experts. Greenhouse gas emissions? Productivity per acre? Land usage? Labor intensive vs. mechanized agriculture? There also are less measurable practices such as treatment of farm animals. These and other factors are part of a complex value-based computation of what constitutes agricultural sustainability.

The Belgian research institute VIB released a report in September 2016 attempting to quantify the impact of GMOs on the environment:

Overall, the cultivation of GM crops over the last 18 years has delivered substantial benefits for the environment. Insect-resistant crops have resulted in a 230 million kg decrease in the use of insecticides. Herbicide-tolerant crops have led to reductions in fuel use and CO2 emissions of 6.3 billion liters and 16.8 million metric tons respectively, by supporting no-till farming. Overall, GM crops have produced an environmental benefit of 37%.

Science and Politics

Many consumers spend more for organic food to avoid genetically modified products in part because they believe that "industrial agriculture" endangers the environment and produces less nutritious food. Many agroecology supporters also argue that a global move towards sustainable, organic agriculture is necessary to save the planet from the misuse of harmful chemicals and protect fragile soil ecosystems. Currently about 1 percent of the world food supply is grown using the kind of organic principles embraced in the United States and Europe.

When assessing sustainability, one should consider what organic farming is and is not. The official definition of what is organic, established by the US Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) in 1995, captured this naturalistic perspective:

Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain, or enhance ecological harmony. The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people.

The USDA additionally states that crop products that receive a certified organic label must be free from genetic modification; grown without conventional fertilizers and pesticides; and processed without food additives or ionizing radiation. In addition, animals must be raised without the use of artificial hormones and antibiotics.

When establishing the organic standards, both the USDA and the industry stressed that the organic seal should not convey food safety, quality or nutrition information. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman stated, "Let me be clear about one thing. The organic label is a marketing tool. It is not a statement about food safety. Nor is 'organic' a value judgment about nutrition or quality." Nonetheless, many customers willing to spend more for the seal or a non GMO label do so because they believe that their food will be "safer," "healthier" or more "environmentally friendly"-despite an absence of evidence to support that belief.

The guiding principal of organic-relying on 'natural' inputs-was forged early in the 20 th century before toxicology, environmental studies and climate science emerged. Although there is much wisdom in organic farming, some methods are dated and contradict what we know about modern ecological practices.

The issue of sustainability is complex and confounding. For example, the growing demand for organic and non-GMO products in the U.S. has prompted some manufacturers to switch to less sustainable sources. Chipotle abandoned the use of GMO soy oil, switching to what it claimed was 'more sustainable' sunflower because, it stated, soy products have been linked to the growth of herbicide-resistant so-called superweeds which have proliferated with the increased usage of glyphosate. Chipotle does not tell its customers that the sunflower oil that replaced the soy oil is derived from seeds developed using conventional breeding techniques to resist an herbicide called an ALS inhibitor. It's actually more resistant to herbicides than GMO soy-so Chipotle's decision to replace soy oil with sunflower oil results in the use of more chemical inputs, not less.

Pressured by anti-GMO groups such as GMOInside and wary consumers, many small firms and some large food companies- Hershey is the most prominent-are switching from so-called GMO sugar (sucrose made from herbicide tolerant sugar beets) to sucrose made from non-GMO sugar cane. Sucrose contains no DNA so there is no detectable difference between sugar from GMO or non-GMO sources.

GMO critics say non-GMO sugar is more sustainable, but scientists challenge that claim. Most non GMO sugar is imported, resulting in wasteful and carbon-creating transportation costs. And as NPR has pray their crop every 10 days or so with a 'witches brew' of five or six different weedkillers." Environmentalists have long reported, "Planting genetically modified sugar beets allows them to kill their weeds with fewer chemicals." GM sugar beets are sprayed a few times during the growing season while non-GMO varieties "s campaigned against sugar cane plantation farming, particularly the burning of the cane, which removes the majority of leaves, leaving the sugar-laden canes behind for harvest. Despite the clear environmental benefits of sugar made from GMO sugar beets, GMO Inside, a division of Green America, celebrated Hershey's decision to remove it from their products, calling it a "victory for consumers."

"Even after this much herbicide spraying, writes weed scientist Andrew Kniss, "around 40 to 60% of sugarbeet fields had to be hand-weeded because the herbicides rarely provided complete weed control. Compare that to the Roundup Ready (GMO) system, where 2 or 3 applications of glyphosate have replaced the many herbicide sprays that were used previously, while providing better weed control."

The improved weed control provided by Roundup Ready varieties led to rapid environmental gains. By 2009, only two years after widespread adoption of GMO sugarbeet, over 50,000 acres of land was converted to some form of reduced or conservation tillage practices in Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming. That number is probably much higher now. Conservation tillage practices improve soil health, reduce soil erosion, and preserve soil moisture. Conservation tillage simply wasn't possible in sugarbeet before the introduction of Roundup Ready varieties, because intensive tillage was needed to obtain adequate weed control in the crop.

Using glyphosate rather than a mix of more toxic chemicals, more frequently applied, has resulted in both a reduction in chemical usage and a sharp increase in yield.

Photos show two different fields on the same day during a 2002 weed study in Nebraska.

Sugar beet yields increased substantially after the introduction of Round-up Ready sugar beets. Source here.

The demand in the U.S. for organic feed for cows to serve customers who want to buy milk, eggs and meat sourced from cattle not fed GMO grain has also caused another sustainability problem. Eggs and meat sold at Whole Foods and other organic marketers are now being imported from Romania, Ukraine and India where ecological standards are much lower than in the U.S. Transportation import costs add to the greenhouse gas problem.

The key issue for scientists and farmers: How do we measure agricultural sustainability? Here are the three major areas that experts examine:
Herbicides and Insecticides
Claims by organic supporters that conventional agriculture and the use of GMOs in particular has caused a dramatic increase in chemical usage is commonplace, often repeated in media accounts. Those claims are based almost entirely on the research of Charles Benbrook, an organic industry consultant. Benbrook claimed in 2012 that the use of GMO crops has "backfired" and results in unsustainable increased use of pesticides (both insecticide and herbicide) of 7%, almost of it due to the increase in glyphosate tied to herbicide resistant GMO crops. Graham Brookes of PG Economics published a peer reviewed report earlier that year using the same data that reached a different conclusion: GM crops may actually have reduced worldwide pesticide use by 9.1%.

University of Wyoming weed scientist Andrew Kniss examined these conflicting studies, questioning: "How could .... one person .... conclude that herbicide use increased by 239 million kg, while another person concludes that herbicide use was reduced by 225 million kg?"

Both studies agreed on the total amount of herbicide applied to GMO crops between 1997-2011, according to Kniss. However, Benbrook concluded that herbicide use would have declined over this 14-year period had GMO crops never been introduced. Brookes, on the other hand, argued that use of these chemicals would have increased had herbicide-tolerant crops never been developed. Benbrook calculated his estimate by comparing total herbicide applied to GMO crops to total herbicide applied to conventional crops between 1997-2011. But Kniss argued that this methodology may have been inappropriate:

I'm not convinced Benbrook's methods accurately approximate what soybean growers (or cotton or corn growers) would be doing if GE technology never existed .... it is not reasonable to assume that the 10% of growers who did not adopt GE crops are representative of what the other 90% would be doing if [GMO] technology never existed.

In contrast to Benbrook, Brookes arrived at his very different estimate by assuming that all the farmers who adopted GMO crops in 1990s would have ended up using greater quantities of herbicides besides glyphosate had Roundup Ready crops never been introduced. Both researchers, then, reached their conclusions by extrapolating from incomplete data. Where does that leave us? Kniss:

I don't think it is possible to say for sure what the impact of [GMO] crops has been. My personal opinion - based on the data I've analyzed - is that we've probably seen a net benefit [eg, reduction] with respect to both toxicity and the evolution of 'superweeds.' And one could even make an argument that adoption of GE crops has slowed the increase in herbicide use.

Other recent studies support Kniss' conclusion. A meta-study crunching global data from 147 other studies published in 2014 in PLOS ONE concluded that "GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%,"

The US government has reviewed data for the United States. According to a USDA report of GMO adoption over its first 15 years, based on research from National Research Council, "GE crops lead to reduced pesticide use and/or to use of pesticides with lower toxicity compared to those used on conventional crops." The use of herbicides "declined slightly in the first years following the introduction of Ht [herbicide tolerant] seeds in 1996, but increased modestly in later years," the USDA reports, adding:

Despite the relatively minor effect HT crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks. Conventional farmers use synthetic chemicals and are more likely to use mono-cropping, which can reduce biological diversity. In conventional systems, farmers apply pesticides and herbicides to crops at a more efficient rate if they are made up of just one type of plant, but this practice has unintended consequences. Because the goal of conventional agriculture is to maximize yields, environmental health can be challenged if farmers are not sustainably minded.

The USDA statistics also show a 10-fold decrease in insecticide use since the introduction of Bt (insect resistant) corn and cotton. By 2010, only 9 percent of all US. corn farmers used insecticides, and the number has dropped to below 5% since then. "This is consistent with the steady decline in European corn borer populations over the last decade that has been shown to be a direct result of Bt adoption," the government reported. Even small reductions in insecticides leads to big increases in beneficial insects, increasing ecological diversity.
Biodiversity
According to an article in the Journal of Applied Ecology, "...farmland biodiversity is typically negatively related to crop yield; generally, organic farming per se does not have an effect other than via reducing yields and therefore increasing biodiversity."

Organic advocates cite numerous studies that suggest the environmental and economic impact of organic farming is less than conventional farming. In a study comparing 14 organic arable fields with 15 conventional ones in New Zealand, the total economic value of biological pest control, soil formation and the mineralization of plant nutrients in the organic fields was significantly greater. That said, organic farming is less efficient in certain soil conditions, such as high-alkaline or high-acidity environments.

While conventional farmers have an array of synthetic pesticides at their disposal, organic famers rely more on weeding, predatory insects and tillage. But that does not mean they are chemical free, as anti-GMO publications often imply. A list of approved chemicals and other substances can be found here. In 2015, Consumer Reports released, " From Crop to Table Report," with a section misleadingly headlined, "Organic: Farming Without Pesticides." Organic farmers, like their conventional counterparts, use chemicals, usually natural natural fungicides and pesticides-more than 20 are approved-to prevent critters from destroying crops. As is the case with some synthetic chemicals, natural pesticides and insecticides like rotenone-pyrethrin, borax, borates, pyrethrums, lime sulfur or Spinosad, are toxic and may be potentially harmful to humans, insects and fish. Scientist Christie Wilcox, writing for Scientific American, had this to say about the perceived safety benefits of natural chemicals:

Not only are organic pesticides not safe, they might actually be worse than the ones used by the conventional agriculture industry. Canadian scientists pitted 'reduced-risk' organic and synthetic pesticides against each other in controlling a problematic pest, the soybean aphid. They found that not only were the synthetic pesticides more effective means of control, the organic pesticides were more ecologically damaging, including causing higher mortality in other, non-target species like the aphid's predators.... Some natural chemicals don't work as well, requiring larger quantities, another sustainability problem.

Plant pathologist Steve Savage similarly has noted:

[C]opper-based fungicides are among the few options available to an organic grower for the control of fungal plant diseases. These are high-use rate products that require frequent re-application and which are quite toxic to aquatic invertebrates. There are much more effective, and far less toxic, synthetic fungicide options without environmental issues, and which, unlike copper, break down into completely innocuous materials. Organic growers can't use those fungicides. Similarly, there are many environmentally benign, synthetic insecticides and herbicides which cannot be used.

It's important to underscore that most organic practices and chemicals are both effective and safe. As to differences between the two categories, "You can't generalize that broadly," said Rob Wallbridge, a retired organic farmer in Quebec, Canada. "Every pesticide has a different profile, and there are many different ways to define safety." Wallbridge added that the Canadian study Wilcox cited was a laboratory experiment that didn't actually evaluate real-world organic pest control practices.

It's also important to note that conventional farmers are allowed to use organic-approved pesticides, and they often do so. For example, the most popular organic insecticide, Spinosad, is widely used by conventional farmers as well, according to data from the California Pesticide Information Portal, compiled by Savage. Dow Chemical sells the organic version as Entrust and the conventional version, which contains different adjuvants, as Success. Spinetoram, a synthetic derivative, is sold as Radiant.

The fact of the matter is that all pesticides, whether used in organic or conventional agriculture are subject to the same regulations, enforced by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state and local governments. And while it's true that some pesticides used in organic farming are more toxic than their synthetic counterparts, most pesticides in use today are classified by the EPA as Category IV "essentially non-toxic," Savage has pointed out.

There is, however, some loss of biodiversity related to the large-scale modern farming needed to feed the world's growing population. But it is the natural result of using chemicals and other farming methods aimed at controlling weeds that can sap yields, according to Peter Raven, a botanist and former president of Missouri Botanical Garden. Raven wrote in the journal New Biotechnology:

In short, the application of GE technology to the improvement of crops does not, in itself, limit the overall diversity of the crops, whereas the development of modern agriculture, in which certain genetically defined strains are grown over wide areas and other strains that were cultivated locally earlier may disappear, does. The preservation of genetic diversity in crops is important and of general interest, but the appearance of GE crops did not cause the problem or advance its spread.

Source: Forbes.com

Yield gaps and land usage
Per-acre yields of organic crops are significantly lower than those for conventional, with estimates ranging from 10-35%, and even higher among some grains and vegetables. These gaps have been established both by meta-analysis of published research and by USDA surveys. In 2012, a team of Canadian and US researchers published a report in Nature, detailing their meta analysis of crop data for conventional versus organic farming. Among their conclusions:

Our analysis of available data shows that, overall, organic yields are typically lower than conventional yields. But these yield differences are highly contextual, depending on system and site characteristics, and range from 5% lower organic yields (rain-fed legumes and perennials on weak-acidic to weak-alkaline soils), 13% lower yields (when best organic practices are used), to 34% lower yields (when the conventional and organic systems are most comparable).

For 2014 in the US, Steve Savage examined USDA data and found organic corn faced a 35% shortfall; soybeans 31%; and cotton 45%. It also costs more per acre to produce organic crops, which have substantially higher fuel, labor and capital costs.

Source: Forbes.com

Population growth and growing affluence in the developing world will require a sharp increase in necessary food calories, which can only occur by expanding farmable acreage. Relying on lower-yield organic agriculture, while offering mixed sustainability benefits, could threaten the world's remaining forests.

This dynamic already is seen in developing areas where smallhold farmers often pursue one or two crops out of economic necessity. A team led by a Lund University researcher published a study in October 2016, looking at the impact of monoculture cropping by small Indonesian farms, growing environmentally-unfriendly options - rubber and palm oil. The result, according to the study:

In smallholder-dominated landscapes of lowland Sumatra, forest cover has diminished drastically over the past 20 years and current land-use choices favour the adoption of the most profitable monocultures. These changes led to higher crop production and incomes among smallholders, but were accompanied with declines in multiple ecological functions directly related to biodiversity conservation, climate regulation and water quality.

Conservation tillage and greenhouse gasses
Growing concerns about climate change-and estimates that one third of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture-have helped fuel the market for organic foods, which is perceived as reducing environmental impacts. Media outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal, have encouraged the idea that manure composting, cover crops and crop rotation, which put carbon into the soil, could help alleviate global warming: "Organic practices could counteract the world's yearly carbon dioxide output while producing the same amount of food as conventional farming."

Many scientists contest those claims. One of the great early advances of organic farming was the use of compost to promote soil health. But there are sustainability trade-offs. During the process of composting methane is emitted, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane is also released in catastrophic amounts by flatulent cows, the primary generator of organic waste for use as fertilizer. Cattle livestock is already blamed for generating nearly 20% more greenhouse gases in terms of carbon equivalency as compared to driving automobiles.

The use of organic fertilizer often results in the release of nitrous oxide, a highly potent greenhouse gas. Organic farmers also rely on tillage far more than their conventional counterparts. Many conventional farmers have switched to no-till, ridge-till, and mulch oil (reduced plowing up of the soil) practices, facilitated by the use of GMO crops, because tillage contributes to soil erosion and the release of greenhouse gasses. According to a 2014 USDA analysis:

Conservation tillage (including no-till, ridge-till, and mulch-till) is known to provide environmental benefits and is facilitated by use of HT crops. ... By 2006, approximately 86 percent of HT soybean planted acres were under conservation tillage, compared to only 36 percent of conventional soybean acres. Differences in the use of no-till were just as pronounced. While approximately 45 percent of HT soybean acres were cultivated using no-till technologies in 2006, only 5 percent of the acres planted with conventional seeds were cultivated using no-till techniques, which are often considered the most effective of all conservation tillage systems.

There is an emerging science consensus that GMO crops and conventional agriculture in general are more sustainable when carbon emissions are factored into the equation. A 2016 study by Purdue University researchers found that agricultural greenhouse gas emissions would increase by nearly 14 percent if there were a ban on GMOs.

As GMO find wider and wider usage, there is a corresponding growth in the popular hysteria surrounding the technology. Environmental activists push for GMO bans, without adequately considering the impacts such bans might have. The losses associated with a global ban would be twofold: the losses actually realized and the potential losses when compared to an alternative adoption schema.

The fact that more land use leads to greater climate impact has not often been taken into account in earlier comparisons between organic and conventional food .... This is a big oversight, because, as our study shows, this effect can be many times bigger than the greenhouse gas effects, which are normally included.

The Takeaway

Global food output is expected to roughly double by 2050. Organic farming has much to offer but overall, conventional farming produces more food per acre, while costing less and requiring fewer inputs. While commendable on a small scale, organic farming remains a boutique option as part of a nationwide or global food system as it is not scalable as conventional agriculture. Organics does provide clear advantages in some local food growing regions.

Ramez Naam, author of Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet, has outlined the consequences of converting the world to an organic-focused farming system:

If we wanted to reduce pesticide use and nitrogen runoff by turning all of the world's farmland to organic farming, we'd need around 50% more farmland than we have today. ... Clearing that much land would produce around 500 billion tons of CO2, or almost as much as the total cumulative CO2 emissions of the world thus far. ... That's not a viable path.

Without substantial yield gains, it is difficult for organics to claim superiority on the sustainability front. Many non-GMO practices are also clearly inferior to conventional farming using GMOs. Sugar beets is a great example. Sugar beet farmer Andrew Beyer, from Kent, Minnesota, told NPR that he is reluctantly planning to switch away from GMO sugar crops because of consumer demand based on misperceptions about chemical usage:

The chemicals we used to put on the beets in [those] days were so much harsher for the guy applying them and for the environment. To me, it's insane to think that a non-GMO beet is going to be better for the environment, the world, or the consumer.

Organic farming advocates say that argument misses the point: Organic and non-GMO farming are necessary components to preventing the degradation of the soil that has occurred in some regions of the world as part of the Green Revolution, dependent on fertilizers and pesticides, which dramatically altered farming practices 60 years ago.

Mark Smallwood, Executive Director of the Rodale Institute, which has pioneered organic farming in the United States, maintains the principles of organic farming are both sustainable and practicable. He challenges "the incorrect notion that humans are smarter than Mother Nature, and we need man-made answers. We always rely on cultural practices, methodologies and products aimed at working with nature, and synthetics throw off that balance." He emphasizes that soil health is critical, and that building it is the way to "leave more resources for future generations."

Since genetic modification is a seed-breeding process, organic advocates could embrace the technology, sowing GM seeds while using advanced synthetic chemicals, while otherwise using organic growing practices-the best of both worlds, some say. But that proposal was rejected by the US organic community when certification regulations were formulated in the 1990s.

Nevertheless, many conventional farmers are adopting the best organic practices and some organic farmers are embracing what organic purists would call heretical beliefs.

Amy Hepworth, an organic farmer in New York's Hudson Valley, who believes in the importance of soil health and working with nature told the New York Times that science and technology, deployed judiciously, can help her with achieving her sustainability goals, sometimes with fewer adverse effects than natural substances. "Natural doesn't mean safe," she said.

Many shades of gray-The context-dependent performance of organic agriculture, Verena Seufert and Navin Ramankutty, March 10, 2017

Organic vs. conventional farming: Which has lower environmental impact? Iida Ruishalme, July 25, 2016

When it comes to sustainability and organic farming, does size matter? Andrew Porterfield, June 28, 2016

No-till agriculture offers vast sustainability benefits. So why do many organic farmers reject it? Nicholas Staropoli, June 2, 2016

The Case for GMOs and Sustainability, Jon Entine, June 1, 2015

Myth busting on pesticides: Despite demonization, organic farmers widely use them, Andrew Porterfield, December 7, 2015

Is organic farming sustainable? 5 carbon footprint challenges, David Despain, September 3, 2015

More than half of pesticides used by California farmers are active ingredients approved for organic, Steve Savage, September 28, 2015

Field-scale experiments reveal persistent yield gaps in low-input and organic cropping systems, Alexandra N. Kravchenkoa, Sieglinde S. Snappa, and G. Philip Robertsona, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 17, 2017

Human health implications of organic food and organic agriculture, European Parliamentary Research Service, December 2016

Land-use choices follow profitability at the expense of ecological functions in Indonesian smallholder landscapes, Yann Clough, et al., Nature.com, October 11, 2016

Effect of genetically modified crops on the environment, VIB, September 9, 2016

Evaluating the Economic and Environmental Impacts of a Global GMO Ban, Harry Mahaffey, Farzad Taheripour and Wallace E. Tyner, Purdue University. July, 2016

Is Organic Agriculture Really Better for the Environment, Tamar Haspel, Washington Post, May 14, 2016

The Environmentally Friendly Side of Genetically Modified Crops, Conservation Magazine, May 6, 2016

The Environmental Cost of Growing Food, Dan Charles, NPR, May 5, 2016

Exploring the biophysical option space for feeding the world without deforestation, Kal-Heinz Erb et al., Nature, April 19, 2016

New Green Challenge: How to Grow More Food on Less Land, Richard Conniff, Yale Environment 360, March 21, 2016

What does "organic" actually mean?, Nathanael Johnson, Grist, November 4, 2015

Response to Steve Savage's The Lower Productivity Of Organic Farming," The Organic Center, October 20, 2015

Facing food insecurity in Africa: Why, after 30 years of work in organic agriculture, I am promoting the use of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides in small-scale crop production," Don Lotter, Agriculture and Human Values, March 2015

Can organic crops compete with industrial agriculture? Sarah Yang, Berkeley News, December 9, 2014

Organic standards fight over synthetics shows there's room for a third system, Washington, Post, June 13, 2014

Organic Marketing Report, Academics Review, April, 2014

Six Reasons Why Organic is NOT The Most Environmentally Friendly Way to Farm, Steve Savage, April 23, 2013

The environmental footprint of organic vs. conventional food, Brian Palmer, Washington Post, September 17, 2012

Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture, Verena Seufert, et al., Nature, May 10, 2012

Does the use of transgenic plants diminish or promote biodiversity?, Peter Raven, New Biotechnology, November 30, 2010

Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, Pamela Ronald, Raoul Adamchak, Oxford University Press, 2010

Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, National Research Council, 2010

Top 10 Reasons to Support Organic in the 21st Century, Organic.org

Comparing Environmental Impacts of Organic and Conventional Agriculture , Farm and Food Discussion Lab Wiki

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Are organic and non-GMO farming more sustainable than farming using GMOs?

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"Contrary to widespread consumer belief, organic farming is not the best way to farm from an environmental point of view. [T]here are now several cutting edge agricultural practices which are good for the environment, but difficult or impossible for organic farmers to implement within the constraints of their pre-scientific rules.

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Personal Health

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Credit Credit Chiara Zarmati

It's human nature, it seems, to resist change and fear the unknown. So it is no surprise that genetic engineering of food and feed crops resulted in their resounding condemnation as "Frankenfoods" by many consumers, who seem as terrified of eating an apple with an added anti-browning gene or a pink pineapple genetically enriched with the antioxidant lycopene as I am of self-driving cars.

Trek down the grocery aisles of any large market and you'll find many products prominently labeled "No G.M.O.s." It's much harder to spot the small print on many other foods stating "Partially produced with genetic engineering," a result of a 2016 federal law that mandated uniform labeling of all food products containing genetically engineered ingredients.

The labeling requirement arose in response to public pressure and a confusing array of state rules. But while I endorse the public's right to know and honest labeling of all products, in an important way it is very misleading. Farmers and agricultural scientists have been genetically engineering the foods we eat for centuries through breeding programs that result in large and largely uncontrolled exchanges of genetic material. What many consumers may not realize: For many decades, in addition to traditional crossbreeding, agricultural scientists have used radiation and chemicals to induce gene mutations in edible crops in attempts to achieve desired characteristics.

Modern genetic engineering differs in two ways: Only one or a few new genes with a known function are introduced into a crop, and sometimes the new genes come from an unrelated species. Thus, a gene meant to instill frost tolerance into, say, spinach, might come from a fish that lives in icy waters.

In the decades since the first genetically modified foods reached the market, no adverse health effects among consumers have been found. This is not to say there are none, but as hard as opponents of the technology have looked, none have yet been definitely identified.

Although about 90 percent of scientists believe G.M.O.s are safe - a view endorsed by the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the World Health Organization - only slightly more than a third of consumers share this belief.

It is not possible to prove a food is safe, only to say that no hazard has been shown to exist. The fears of G.M.O.s are still theoretical, like the possibility that insertion of one or a few genes could have a negative impact on other desirable genes naturally present in the crop.

Among commonly expressed concerns - again, none of which have been clearly demonstrated - are unwanted changes in nutritional content, the creation of allergens and toxic effects on bodily organs. According to an interview in Scientific American with Robert Goldberg, a plant molecular biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, such fears have not yet been quelled despite "hundreds of millions of genetic experiments involving every type of organism on earth and people eating billions of meals without a problem."

Establishing long-term safety would require prohibitively expensive decades of study of hundreds of thousands of G.M.O. consumers and their non-G.M.O. counterparts.

Meanwhile, a number of impressive benefits have been well established. For example, an analysis of 76 studies published in February in Scientific Reports by researchers in Pisa, Italy, found that genetically engineered corn has a significantly higher yield than non-genetically modified varieties and contains lower amounts of toxins commonly produced by fungi.

Both effects most likely stem from the genetically engineered resistance to a major insect pest, the western corn rootworm, which damages ears of corn and allows fungi to flourish. The researchers said that the change has had little or no effect on other insects.

By engineering resistance to insect damage, farmers have been able to use fewer pesticides while increasing yields, which enhances safety for farmers and the environment while lowering the cost of food and increasing its availability. Yields of corn, cotton and soybeans are said to have risen by 20 percent to 30 percent through the use of genetic engineering.

Billions of edible animals are raised in this country each year on feed containing G.M.O.s, with no evidence of harm. In fact, animal health and growth efficiency actually improved on the genetically engineered feed, according to a 2014 review in the Journal of Animal Science.

Wider adoption of genetic engineering, especially in African and Asian countries that still spurn the technology, could greatly increase the food supply in areas where climate change will increasingly require that crops can grow in dry and salty soils and tolerate temperature extremes. I continue to be distressed by the resistance to Golden Rice, a crop genetically engineered to supply more vitamin A than spinach that could prevent irreversible blindness and more than a million deaths a year.

Nonetheless, gene modification scientists are focusing increasingly on building health benefits into widely used foods. In addition to pink pineapples containing the tomato-based antioxidant lycopene, tomatoes are being engineered to contain the antioxidant-rich purple pigment from blueberries.

And people in developing countries faced with famine and malnutrition are likely to benefit from attempts to improve the protein content of food crops, as well as the amount of vitamins and minerals they provide.

This is not to say that everything done in the name of genetic engineering has a clean bill of health. Controversy abounds over the use of genetically modified seeds that produce crops like soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton and sorghum that are resistant to a widely used herbicide, glyphosate, the health effects of which are still unclear.

In the latest development, resistance to a second weed killer, 2,4-D, has been combined with glyphosate resistance. Although the combination product, called Enlist Duo, was approved in 2014 by the Environmental Protection Agency, 2,4-D has been linked to an increase in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and a number of neurological disorders, researchers reported in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The bottom line: Consumers concerned about the growing use of G.M.O.s in the foods they depend on might consider taking a more nuanced approach than blanket opposition. Rather than wholesale rejection, take some time to learn about how genetic engineering works and the benefits it can offer now and in the future as climate change takes an ever greater toll on food supplies. Consider supporting efforts that result in safe products that represent improvements over the original and focusing opposition on those that are less desirable.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: The Debate Persists Over G.M.O. Foods. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Personal Health It's human nature, it seems, to resist change and fear the unknown. So it is no surprise that genetic engineering of food and feed crops resulted in their resounding condemnation as "Frankenfoods" by many consumers, who seem as terrified of eating an apple with an added anti-browning gene or a pink pineapple genetically enriched with the antioxidant lycopene as I am of self-driving cars.

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Australian states should not ban commercial production of genetically modified (GM) plants and food as the risks are alarmist and exaggerated, according to a new study.

The UQ PhD study found the benefits of GM plants and food outweighed the risks, finding no compelling evidence of harm to humans from GM plants.

GM plants have been trialled in most states with South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia the only states to ban GM plants. South Australia and Tasmania are reviewing their moratoriums.

The study author, ethicist Dr Lucy Carter, spent three-and-a-half years examining arguments and evidence for and against the development and use of GM plants and food in Australia and in the developing world.

Dr Carter said there was no evidence to justify continuing moratoriums on commercial GM planting so long as thorough risk assessments were done.

Opponents say GM products are unnatural, potentially harmful to humans and capable of environmental injury and creating 'superweeds'.

She said the risks of GM plants transferring allergenic proteins to novel foods or creating superweeds were very low.

"If you take a GM plant and a conventional plant, you can't easily create a hybrid that is both strong enough to withstand natural environmental conditions as well as survive all eradication attempts unless you're in the lab," Dr Carter said.

"It's just too difficult."

Asked if it was too early to tell if GM plants were safe, Dr Carter said research that included risk assessments showed no reason for alarm.

Food products that contain more than one percent of a GM ingredient must be labelled and most people have already eaten GM food in some supermarket junk food.

"I think the risks and benefits are overstated by both sides of the debate," she said.

"Opponents tend to inflate the risks while proponents at times overstate the benefits.

"My research has shown that there are enormous benefits to investment in GM plants.

"To proceed with care is the most prudent decision regulatory authorities can make at this stage."

She said GM plants were often made drought, pest and virus resistant and could theoretically produce enough food to feed Third World countries although some infrastructure obstacles remained.

GM golden rice had enough beta-carotene to help prevent blindness caused by Vitamin A deficiency in the developing world.

GM plants are different to conventionally-propagated plants from nurseries in that they have had new genes added from an unrelated plant or animal.

Dr Carter, 33, from Brighton, studied under a joint scholarship between UQ's School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics and UQ's Centre for Integrative Legume Research.

Dr Carter has previously studied the ethics of human gene therapy and stem cell research.
MEDIA: Dr Carter (0404 695 595, l.carter@uq.edu.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (3365 2619) *Hi-res photos available from Diana Lilley at UQ on (3365 2753, d.lilley@uq.edu.au)

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Benefits outweigh risks from genetically modified plants

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Australian states should not ban commercial production of genetically modified (GM) plants and food as the risks are alarmist and exaggerated, according to a new study. The UQ PhD study found the benefits of GM plants and food outweighed the risks, finding no compelling evidence of harm to humans from GM plants.

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Professor David Suzuki speaks out against GMO's

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Pamela Ronald: The case for engineering our food

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What are the benefits and concerns about GMOs?

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As the population increases, there is an ever-greater need for increases in crop yields on the same amount of land. In addition, an increase focus on food

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Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) became a hot topic in 2012 when the people of California had the chance to vote on Proposition 37 in November.

Proposition 37 would have required labels on food that contained such products.

Let's look at the facts about GMOs, whether they're good or bad, so you can decide for yourself.

GMO Food: Benefits

So what are the benefits of GMOs? According to the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy, one of the pros of genetically modified crops is a better taste, increased nutrients, resistance to disease and pests, and faster output of crops.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also says that farmers can grow more food on less land with genetically modified crops.

Genetically modified animals have certain genes inserted into their genomes so that they can produce 'better' milk, eggs, and meat. These animals also are expected to have a higher resistance to disease and overall better health, with better natural waste management. In theory, genetically modified crops and animals will also be more environmentally friendly because they conserve water, soil, and energy.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that one of the positives of GMOs is that farmers can produce more nutritious food. Many foods are in the works for bio-fortification for this reason. Rice, for example, feeds 50 percent of the world's population, so genetically modifying rice to have more vitamin A would reduce vitamin A deficiency in developing countries.

But what happens to these plants and animals that have been genetically modified? What happens when we eat these foods? Unfortunately, no one knows for sure what happens, though evidence is mounting that genetic modification may not be a good thing.

Genetically Modified Foods: Controversy

The Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy also lists some of the controversies associated with genetically modified foods. One of these controversies are the potential health risks, including allergies, antibiotic resistance, and unknown effects. Other negatives that stem from GMOs is that scientists are tampering with nature by mixing genes and no one knows what this is doing to the animals or the environment.

Phil Damery and colleagues at Iowa State University describe the risks of genetically modified foods to humans in their paper, " The Debate on Labeling Genetically Modified Foods. " Damery says that the agricultural food industry claims that GM foods are tested rigorously, but the food companies conduct all their own testing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration never reviews the studies, just the conclusions that agricultural food companies provide to the FDA. Damery states that, when studies were conducted by non-agricultural food organizations, they found serious health risks with GM foods and the way they tested for safety.
Click to Read Page Two: The Negative Side Effects of GMOs

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GMOs: Benefits and Negative Effects of Genetically Modified Food

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Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) became a hot topic in 2012 when the people of California had the chance to vote on Proposition 37 in November. Proposition 37 would have required labels on food that contained such products. Let's look at the facts about GMOs, whether they're good or bad, so you can decide for yourself.

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Statement on Benefits and Risks of Genetically Modified Foods for Human Health and Nutrition

Human health is not achievable unless adequate amounts of nutritious and safe foods are available and accessible during all life stages. An estimated one-third of the world's population, largely in the developing world, is currently food and nutrition insecure. The biologic imperatives for achieving nutrient and food security, as well as humanitarian concern, are the driving forces behind efforts to achieve equitable food distribution among today's global population. Food systems, therefore, are challenged to meet current global needs and those of the future in the light of mounting population pressures and rising quality-of-life expectations, while recognizing increasingly limited arable farm resources. A principle assumption is that the resolution of food and nutrition problems and challenges of today and tomorrow have technological dimensions. Transgenic modification (GM), traditional and modern, applied to plant and animal food sources (GMFs) hold potential for improving human nutrition and health provided that the capabilities for using GM crops are available in the developing as well as the developed world. Coexisting with potential benefits of genetic modifications of plants and animals are known and unknown risks, as is common to all technologies, old or new. Implicit in the latter assumption is that absolute safety is not an achievable standard.

Public discussions surrounding the development and use of applications of modern biotechnology for agriculture are widespread, particularly discussions about the development of GMFs and GMOs and the safety and efficacy of the new products. Public concerns about gene technology lie in four major areas, namely ethical concerns, socio-economic issues, effects on the environment and food safety and human health. Although acknowledging the importance and the interconnectivity of all these areas, the principal focus of this statement is the scientific basis for assessing the risks and benefits to human health of GMFs and GM crops.

Recognizing that the context in which choices are made varies significantly with differences in societies, environments and economies across the world, this statement endorsed by the noted Unions and Committees of ICSU takes no position on appropriate policies that societies should adopt relative to GM food crops based on a review of the scientific knowledge of benefits and risks currently available. The only assertion made is that the technological dimensions of GM crops merit consideration along with others, for example economic policies such as those that govern global trade and agricultural subsidies.

Traditional breeding techniques, which genetically modify plants and animals, have led to documented contributions to human nutrition and occasionally to unintended health risks. Transgenically modified plants and animals are projected to give rise to benefits and risks in two broad areas: health and the environment. Four categories of health benefits are recognized: enhancement of food security; enhancement of nutrient security; more targeted health benefits, such as immunization; and reduction of diet related, adult-onset chronic diseases (through the manipulation of specific food components, e.g. manipulation of fat composition). Health risks associated with the approaches that are reviewed generally also fall into four categories - allergies, toxicities, nutrient imbalances, and decreasing diet diversity.

Food quality and human nutrition. Most consumers in rich countries have access to a relatively inexpensive supply of safe and healthy food. In contrast, micronutrient malnutrition is widespread in poor countries, affecting more than one-half of the population in the developing world. The potential benefits of improving the nutritional quality of foods are higher for low‑income countries, where food budgets account for two-thirds or more of total expenditures. The sustainable solution to malnutrition in developing countries is provision of a sufficient quantity of high quality diet. Nutritional and quality traits of foods can be altered through transgenic methods; such biofortification is a low-cost strategy for improving food quality that complements other technological and social interventions. The nutritional efficacy and risks of unintended harmful effects of these products have yet to be tested and demonstrated.

Agricultural practice. Developments in agricultural biotechnology are being used to increase the productivity of crops, primarily by reducing the costs of production. These new crop varieties include insect resistance (cotton, maize), herbicide resistance (maize, soybean), delayed fruit ripening (tomato). The estimated global area of transgenic crops (predominantly with agricultural benefits) for 2001 is 52.6 million hectares grown by 5.5 million farmers in 13 countries. More than one quarter of the transgenic crop area in 2001 was grown in six developing countries. The number of farmers that planted GM crops increased from 3.5 million in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2001.

GMF crops could decrease the cost of production and have positive effects on the environment in both developed and developing countries. The development of crops resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses is critical for sustainable food production in the developing world. The use of GMF crops should go hand-in-hand with other technologies such as plant tissue culture, marker-assisted breeding and conventional plant breeding. It is, however, prudent that the outcomes and impacts of the use of GMF crops are scientifically monitored with respect to farming efficiency, food production and environmental impacts.

Industrial products and processes. Crops can be genetically modified to produce oils, starch, fibre, protein or other chemicals useful for industrial processes. For example, soybean oil, with high oleate content, and canola oil, rich in laurate, are both being produced commercially using these methods. A principal concern is how to use genetic modification technology in a way that gains the advantage of using renewable resources to replace products from petroleum and other non-renewable resources while maintaining a safe and adequate human food supply. It is also crucial to ensure that GM crops designed to produce industrial products do not inadvertently enter the human food chain or contaminate food crops with their transgenes, if these traits may pose a risk to the environment or to human health.

Fish. Many species of fin fish have been subjected to genetic modification. The present and projected increasing demand for fish suggests that GM fish may become important in future in both the developed and developing worlds. However this will only be possible if consumer acceptance is achieved. No GM fish is known to be produced commercially for food at present, although some are being considered for the food market, and for some regulatory approval is pending.

Livestock and poultry. Food products derived from GM livestock and poultry are far from commercial use. The methods involved are presently inefficient and expensive. Potential hazards to humans involved in production or when products become part of the food chain, will require careful assessment. There are serious public concerns about the ethics of manipulating domesticated animals and the possible welfare effects

Microorganisms. No genetically modified microorganism is currently used in foods although some are used to produce food ingredients. The safety evaluation of GMM-derived food additives and processing aids should place special emphasis on the detection of possible unintended effects.

Regulation and risk assessment. The process of the development of transgenic organisms presents no new categories of risk compared with conventional methods for improving plants, animals or microorganisms. However, specific traits introduced by either approach might pose unique risks, which need to be identified.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have published regulatory guidelines for GM foods.

Safety assessment of GM foods is carried out on a case-by-case basis, taking the specific modification features into account, and comparing the properties of the new food with those of the traditional counterpart. This comparative approach (substantial equivalence) is based on the assumption that conventional foods are generally considered as safe for consumption and is a starting point for a safety evaluation. Identified differences between the GM food and its counterpart are assessed with respect to their safety and nutritional implications for the consumer.

Present approaches to detecting changes in the composition of GM food crops are primarily based on measuring a limited selection of single compounds. A non-targeted approach using new gene expression technologies can be used.

Safety testing of whole GM foods needs improvement.

Socio-economic aspects relevant to sustainability. Currently available GMOs may have both positive and negative effects on three indicators of sustainable agriculture and rural development, namely stocks of natural resources and environmental capital, efficiency and equity. Three policy options are key to the sustainable development, use and control of GM foods, namely intellectual property protection, trade liberalisation and biosafety implementation. The effects of policy options that shape socio-economic conditions are intricate; a policy option that directs socio-economic conditions in one way may affect another policy option that leads in a different direction.

Societal issues and public attitudes. Public perceptions and attitudes about emerging biosciences and other new technologies are critical determinants of how likely it is that the implementation and development of such technologies will succeed. While it is important to develop best practice in science communication pertinent to the risks and benefits of GMFs, this alone will not increase public confidence in gene technology. Rather, it is also important to consider new ways to involve members of the public explicitly in the debate about technology innovation and commercialisation and to improve the relationship and dialogue between science and society.

This statement arises from an independent analysis of the scientific basis for assessing the benefits and risks of genetically modified (GM) crops and food for human health and nutrition led by IUNS and IUTOX in collaboration with a steering committee represented by IUBMB, IUFoST, IUPAC, IUSS, ACOGEB, SCGB, CSFS and invited developing and developed country experts.

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Statement on Benefits and Risks of Genetically Modified Foods for Human Health and Nutrition

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Human health is not achievable unless adequate amounts of nutritious and safe foods are available and accessible during all life stages. An estimated one-third of the world's population, largely in the developing world, is currently food and nutrition insecure.