In the debate about organic vs GMO grown foods, one of the common arguments I hear in favor of GMO’s is that they are necessary to support the world population of 6 billion people. For a while I bought into this thinking, because it sounds good - but ultimately I realized that there was no solid basis to that belief. That is not to say the end belief is wrong, but I realized I had no substantial reason to actually believe it to be true. As a result, I’ve lately started to re-examine my opinion on the issue.
So I’m curious as to whether there is any real evidence one way or the other on this.
If we had a perfect delivery system, such that surplus food could be instantly transported anywhere on Earth, we’d be fine with current sources.
And we’re on the cusp of 7 billion.
Farmers vote with their wallet, so it seems like GMO maize, soybeans and beets (as examples) outproduce non-GMO crops. Of course the tricky part is that it’s a vicious cycle. If you use industrial farming methods that pre-suppose certain herbicides, you’re going to plant crops engineered to resist those herbicides.
Still, the US corn yield story to date has been rather spectacular (the other question being whether or not we are consuming the earth to reach ever higher yields) so I’d say if you took away GMO crops tomorrow–overnite–we’d be in deep doo doo. Whether or not we could get to these yields without GMO crops is an interesting debate, although perhaps we could also learn to be a little less corn, soybean and sugar dependent.
If I look out a century, assuming we are still around, I’d be stunned if GMO crops are not the norm. As we unravel the plant (and animal) genome, it’s highly unlikely we won’t mess with it. We’ll make some mistakes along the way, and some of them might be doozies. But if science survives, nearly everything of use to man–including man–will be genetically modified in some way…
I do agree that a major issue with current food production is not necessarily one of supply, but of logistics and distribution. What I don’t know is whether non-GMO foods would be sufficient, even with the ability to instantly transport foods.
Also, it is one thing to say that our current food production is sufficient, but that partly misses the point - because a major constituent of current food production is GMO foods. What I’m wondering is whether we as humans have the ability to grow enough food to feed ourselves if the entire process were left to the farmers - they grow their own crops, select which to harvest seed from for next year, etc.
Regarding farmers voting with their wallet - not necessarily. I’ve come across multiple sources (Food, Inc documentary; ‘DNA: The secret of life’ book, etc) that indicate there is a massive monopoly on sourcing seed stocks (for corn), not to mention the requirements that livestock farmers must adhere to in order to maintain contracts with their buyers. In this system, many farmers rack up huge debts and barely make ends meet. Meanwhile, smaller independant farmers who are not beholden to such corporate food giants (a friend of mine is one) do fairly well for themselves.
I’d agree that if we took GMO crops away overnight, we’d be in trouble. But that is mostly because we’ve become dependant on them. It is one thing to have them removed instantly and forcibly - it’d be another if they were removed out of lack of demand in the scenario of people deciding to source their food locally, as opposed to produce shipped across the country to supermarket shelves.
And when I mean GMO foods, I’m not talking about the simple age-old concept of refining next years crop based on this years higher yielding crops - I’m talking about foods that have been half cooked up in labs for the goals of high yield and transportability, as opposed to real nutritive value.
Actually, the use of the term “GMO” is not generally applied to selective cross-breeding techniques where the organism is improved by artificially pairing two different parents in an otherwise natural reproductive cycle.
It’s reserved for recombinant DNA techniques that involve genetic engineering techniques where specific genes are spliced out of one organism and recombined into another. Sometimes genes are borrowed from completely different species. In the case of corn (maize) for example, GMO corn might have genes put in for drought resistance, herbicide resistance (so that commercial herbicides can be used without harming the crop) and pest resistance (a gene that produces Bt toxin, say). Many of these modifications are transgenic and would never occur with ordinary cross-breeding because the species producing those genes don’t naturally reproduce with one another.
It’s those sorts of recombinations in very artificially-engineered environments that create the designation of “GMO,” a term which means more than a simple dissection of its individual words would suggest.
For corn, soybeans and beets, something over 75% of US crops represent GMO products.
GM foods are one of the greatest things in the history of the world. The only reason they are opposed anywhere is out of ignorance and a desire to shelter certain farmers in certain countries from more efficient farming methods.
Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize due to his work with GM foods, because it was correctly seen that his innovations have potentially contributed to 2 billion persons not starving to death.
Of course people like to think there’s some big difference. But the transformation of a natural plant to a harvest-worthy crop is fundamentally the same develop process of mutation, selection, and production. Does it hoenstly matter whetehr we do it in a lab instead of the field?