Here’s an article I wrote for the Sherbrooke Record in response to a woman who was, obviously quite opposed to GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and resorted to ridiculous arguments. I thought I’d shed some light on the issue with a more objective look at what should actually be called genetically engineered (GE) crops (see article for why).

I know I might lock horns here with some people but I think that GE crops have so much potential upside that we need to be having this conversation. Let me say up front that I’m still extremely leery of how large corporations use the technology but there are also many non-profit companies developing GE crops for humanitarian and environmental purposes (which is what got me thinking about the positive side of GE crops in the first place).

Here’s the article. Would love to hear any reactions/opinions on the issue.

If you said the words genetically engineered food to me ten years ago you would have seen my brow furrow as I launched into a series of arguments about why they should be banned. I would have told you that, though not inherently unsafe, the potential risk was too big considering that large corporations seemed to be the ones who would benefit most.

Talk to me about genetically engineered food today and you’ll get a very different response. Yes, large, multinational corporations continue to rake in large profits from this technology and I am always leery of any entity whose bottom line is profit but, it turns out, this is only the beginning of the story of the GE crops. Over the past ten years much research has been done demonstrating that they have the potential to improve human health and standard of living in many parts of the world that struggle with inconsistent crops and poverty, but more importantly, they have developed a strong track record of safety in terms of both human and environmental health.

Even the use of GE crops sold by corporations that I so viciously criticized ten years ago has turned out to have positive aspects. In 1997, China began planting Bt cotton that contains a bacterial gene making is resistant to insects. By 2001, half of China’s cotton crops were Bt cotton and the use of herbicides had decreased by 156 million pounds—the amount used in California every year. I’m an advocate of organic farming and would like to find a way to not have to spray any herbicide at all but in the mean time less herbicide is better than more. Perhaps most important of all is the benefit to farm workers who apply the herbicides and constantly run a risk of exposure and illness. The decrease in herbicide application has translated into a 75% decrease in number of farm workers falling ill due to herbicide exposure.

But the most important benefits will no doubt come from not-for-profit organizations that are developing seeds with all sorts of qualities allowing them to be more flood or drought resistant, giving farmers in developing countries more consistent crops in a place where the difference between a good and bad yield is the difference between life and death. GE crops also have the potential to make existing crops more nutritious. “Golden rice” which has been in development for a while now and should be available in 2011, contains a gene from daffodils which produces beta-carotene which is a precursor to vitamin A. Developed entirely for humanitarian purposes, the daffodil gene will be introduced into local varieties of rice and subsequently distributed to farmers who want to use it at no cost.

All these benefits of GE crops are moot, however, if they are not safe to consume. It’s important to remember that no foods are entirely safe. Potatoes can contain potent toxins and even something as seemingly benign as celery contains chemicals that can cause severe rashes. But GE food differs from these conventional crops in two important ways which we should consider for potential health risks.

First, the process of inserting a gene into another species—the essence of genetic engineering—is very different from conventional breeding which is done by selection, cross pollination and mutation breeding (this last process uses chemicals or radiation to induce mutation in the DNA of a plant species). All of these breeding techniques are used in organic agriculture. According to the United States National Academy of Sciences and the United Kingdom Genetically Modified Science Review, the process of inserting a gene from one species into another is actually marginally safer than mutation breeding though both are considered extremely safe.

Second, GE crops contain at least one gene from an often unrelated plant or animal. For this reason each GE crop must and is considered on an individual basis. The most convincing fact about GE food is that after being on the market for decades, there is not one reported case of GE food harming anyone. Not one despite the strong opposition GE crops have faced. Each crop is put through a battery of tests designed to measure potential health risks. Even the smallest doubt about the safety of a crop will bar the crop from being marketed. This was the case when a variety of GE pea that contained a gene from a bean caused an immune response in mice and was pulled from development.

Another criticism of GE crops is that it takes the ownership of the seeds out of the hands of farmers and into the hands of corporations. This is certainly not ideal but is not a problem due or particular to GE crops. Hybrid vigour is a useful property of crops that occurs when crops that are inbred for a number of generations are cross-pollinated with other inbred lines. The result is a much more productive and more disease resistant crop but one whose seeds do not have the same qualities as its parent. Unfortunately, this means farmers often have to choose between buying their seeds every year (from the many of the same companies that produce GE crops) or breed these seeds themselves. Most of the time, due to the cost and time of doing the latter and the enormous benefit of hybrid vigour, farmers choose to buy seeds. And before you start thinking that it’s only industrial farms that use hybrid vigour, it is so beneficial that many organic farms also buy their seeds every year.

A final criticism is that genetic engineering simply isn’t natural. It is commonplace for people to think the species only breed with their own species and do not freely swap genes. In recent article in The New Scientist, both these ideas are laid to rest. According to James Mallet, an evolutionary biologist at the University College London, 10% of all animals hybridize regularly with other species and, historically, has played an important part of animal evolution. But, you may be tempted to ask, surely a snake gene, say, can’t just spontaneously end up in a cow? Well, you’d be right. It doesn’t happen spontaneously but with viruses that are constantly cutting and pasting pieces of DNA from one organism to another and it just so happened that a couple years ago scientists found snake DNA in a cow. Some estimates are that 40 to 50 percent of the human genome comes from this cutting and pasting of DNA. We are products of virus genetic engineering.

While I still remain—and so should everyone, in my opinion—suspicious of how big businesses use the technology of genetic engineering, we should be careful to not be so blinded by its potential negative aspects to not see the amazing possibilities this technology provides and will provide for human and well-being. Many environmentalists have taken up the cause of promoting GE crops for humanitarian and environmental uses and many scientists think that GE crops may help us adapt to a world with an increasingly changing climate. For those who looking for a good read on the subject, I suggest Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food written by a husband and wife team who own an organically run farm with GE crops. It includes many delicious recipes!