Food Safety Magazine - June/July 2013
Food Safety Magazine - June/July 2013
Food Safety Magazine - June/July 2013
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genetically modified foods<br />
technology and its application, is often<br />
lacking. Interestingly, food safety is not<br />
a particularly prominent concern and<br />
is somewhat lost in a range of issues.<br />
Perhaps the most common anti-GMO<br />
refrain is a visceral dislike for Monsanto,<br />
starting with the misconceived view that<br />
farmers are being forced to use their<br />
products in addition to such irrelevant<br />
facts as the company’s involvement<br />
with Agent Orange in Vietnam. Others<br />
cite hypothetical environmental<br />
concerns while ignoring<br />
the very real<br />
sustainability benefits.<br />
The ethics of asking<br />
farmers to purchase<br />
their seed every year is<br />
another cause, which<br />
ignores the fact that<br />
they are perfectly free<br />
to grow conventional<br />
crops but prefer GM<br />
technology. None of<br />
these factors has anything<br />
to do with the<br />
inherent safety of the<br />
product.<br />
The main thrust on food safety<br />
was captured with the “precautionary<br />
principle” or “release it only after it is<br />
proven to be safe” argument. This was<br />
a serious topic of peer-reviewed articles<br />
on GM foods a decade ago, but serious<br />
discussion appears to have fallen off, as<br />
no negative safety-related issues have<br />
emerged for the hundreds of millions<br />
of North Americans and others who<br />
have had a regular diet of GM foods for<br />
nearly two decades. A parallel might be<br />
tomatoes, which were considered a poisonous<br />
member of the nightshade family<br />
in the early 19th century, and while<br />
there has been no rigorous scientific<br />
initiative to demonstrate otherwise, this<br />
fruit seems to be no longer surrounded<br />
by negative controversy. Indeed, even<br />
GMO-skeptic Europeans recently completed<br />
a $425 million meta-analysis<br />
paid for by the European Commission<br />
entitled A Decade of EU Funded GMO<br />
Research and summarized their findings<br />
as follows: “The main conclusions to<br />
be drawn from the 130 research projects<br />
“...the global farming<br />
community has<br />
enthusiastically<br />
embraced genetically<br />
modified (GM)<br />
technologies...”<br />
and involving more than 500 independent<br />
research groups is that biotechnology<br />
and particularly GMOs are not, per<br />
se, more risky than e.g. conventional<br />
plant breeding.” Unfortunately, this major<br />
piece of research has been ignored<br />
by the popular media, and relatively few<br />
are aware of its existence and profound<br />
conclusions.<br />
The Industry-Consumer Interface<br />
While there is a GMO good news<br />
story to be told, the<br />
technology providers,<br />
the agriculture industry,<br />
government and<br />
food processors in the<br />
U.S. and elsewhere<br />
have been, understandably,<br />
relatively<br />
quiet on the subject.<br />
There is little to be<br />
gained by entering<br />
into a debate that not<br />
only would be difficult<br />
to win but also would<br />
draw more attention<br />
to the topic and further<br />
ratchet up the level of sensationalism<br />
in the media. Unfortunately, relative<br />
silence from those involved in the<br />
food chain plays into the hands of the<br />
opposition, which maintains that this<br />
perceived cloak of relative silence signifies<br />
some sort of coverup.<br />
However, despite the best efforts of<br />
the anti-GMO movement, it seems as<br />
if the majority of consumers do not<br />
actually care if they are eating food with<br />
such ingredients. Aside from the recent<br />
rejection by California voters of Proposition<br />
37 that would have required food<br />
products containing GMO ingredients<br />
to be labeled accordingly, a more telling<br />
indication of consumer apathy comes<br />
the same study quoted above. It concluded<br />
that “most people do not actively<br />
avoid GM food, suggesting that they<br />
are not concerned with the GM issue.”<br />
Thus, where GMO labeling has been in<br />
place for years, consumers appear content<br />
with the “right to know” but do not<br />
act on the information provided.<br />
If further evidence is needed regarding<br />
public apathy toward the consumption<br />
of GM foods, the organic movement<br />
already provides such a product,<br />
as engaged farmers must, to gain certification,<br />
grow crops without any genetic<br />
modification. Yet according to USDA,<br />
only about 1 percent of all farmers and<br />
the same for total farmland in the U.S.<br />
are certified organic. Despite lower<br />
yields for organically grown crops, there<br />
seem to be ample supplies in most food<br />
outlets. This supposedly well-known,<br />
readily available avenue to non-GMO<br />
foods seems to be a path infrequently<br />
traveled by the bulk of consumers.<br />
At the commodity level, wheat<br />
makes an interesting case study that the<br />
processed food industry might draw<br />
upon. In 2002, Monsanto applied for<br />
certification of GM wheat for Canada<br />
and the U.S., only to find that the<br />
wheat industry in both countries did<br />
not want it introduced for fear of market<br />
loss in Europe and Asia. A decade<br />
later, while no GM wheat is grown commercially<br />
anywhere in the world, North<br />
American wheat farmers observed the<br />
financial and agronomic benefits of<br />
sister GM crops and realized that the<br />
noise from those against the technology<br />
actually had little impact on consumers<br />
and thus its advantages would outweigh<br />
any resistance in the marketplace. The<br />
earlier GMO-avoidance position has<br />
been reversed by the wheat industry,<br />
and now they urge technology providers<br />
and regulatory agencies to deliver for<br />
them as well.<br />
GMO Regulations<br />
I predicted that had Proposition 37<br />
passed in California, it would not have<br />
made a lot of difference. Assuming that<br />
the GMO labeling requirements would<br />
be yet another modestly presented<br />
piece of consumer information like<br />
that on hormone-free milk containers,<br />
most consumers would still probably<br />
be guided by brand recognition, price,<br />
quality or whatever else leads them to<br />
place an item in the grocery cart. The<br />
above-mentioned European experience<br />
supports this hypothesis.<br />
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