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GMO. It’s a term shrouded in mystery. A scapegoat for real and perceived agricultural and food system ills, the acronym conjures visions of monoculture, pesticides, chemicals, junk food, obesity, and the transformation of life forms into intellectual property. Perhaps the most common menace summoned when “GMO” is uttered: Monsanto. Mentions of genetic engineering (GE) technology, seemingly without fail, result in “but Monsanto” protests, along with amalgamated concerns about food.
But scapegoats do the truth no favors; fighting bogeymen solves no problems. A scientifically irrelevant term, “GMO” or Genetically Modified Organism is used to describe crops created with modern molecular genetic engineering. Though some scientists dislike the term GMO because of how arbitrary, meaningless and misleading it is, it’s here to stay.
Injecting big bad Monsanto fears into public perception of GMO has been a brilliant tactic--the phenomenon is hardly a fluke. With non-GMO and organic industry bigwigs pushing the myth that GMO equals big corporations and bad food trends, it’s no accident that these memes are pervasive, from the blogosphere to mommy groups, and mainstream media to street protests. Take the Organic Consumers Association, an anti-GMO lobby group largely funded by the “natural food” and organic industries. With objectives that include increasing organic market share and achieving a “global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops," it founded the “Millions Against Monsanto” campaign “to fight back against Monsanto and the other Biotech Bullies.”
As a result of such campaigns, speaking out in favor of genetic engineering automatically gets one labeled a Monsanto defender, even though any party can wield the technology. It’s an effective tactic for anti-GMO organizations to paint their opposition as corporate apologists rather than people who want the best technology used to meet challenges.
A plant’s flavor profile, pest resistance, tolerance to drought, nutritional content and other traits are encoded in genes in a plant’s DNA, and genetic engineering is part of a continuum of ways in which humans have altered crops. Nearly all foods (with the exception of some wild herbs and game), including those labeled natural, organic, or even heirloom have had their genomes altered. This happens in wholly unnatural ways, in the field or in a lab, using methods that wouldn’t occur in nature as I’ve discussed several times, including here and here.
Scientists use myriad methods to create new plant varieties. With radiation mutagenesis, for example, plants are bombarded with radiation in hopes that a desirable trait will result from random changes in the plant’s DNA. The technique has been used for decades, giving us common plant varieties like wheat used in breads and pastas, peppermint, and some kinds of pears and grapefruit. These plants can be grown and sold as organic, and are not considered GMOs. Other plant breeding tools include wide hybridization (which forces unrelated species or genera to breed), chemical mutagenesis and chromosome doubling. The results of all of these are considered non-GMO. If that sounds arbitrary, that’s because it is.
Genetic engineering is one of many plant breeding tools, resulting in targeted genetic changes or adding one or a few carefully chosen genes. Sometimes GE is the most desirable method because certain plants have long breeding cycles, some plants are sterile, or certain traits are otherwise difficult to achieve in other ways. Other times, it’s not the most desirable or efficient method. These are tools in an agricultural toolbox, and it makes sense to pick the best tool for a job.
In the public psyche, the term GMO has become synonymous with Monsanto and the evils the agricultural company symbolizes. While business practices of massive corporations can and should be questioned, much of why Monsanto is hated is based in myth (for example, the company doesn’t sue farmers for unintentional contamination). I will not defend Monsanto here, but it’s interesting to note that Whole Foods, leading seller of “non-GMO” fare, outdid Monsanto’s revenue in 2015 at just over $15 billion.
As for some of the earlier-mentioned agricultural and food system ills:
Monoculture isn’t as simple or awful as it seems. As cell biologist Iida Ruishalme writes on the Thoughtscapism blog in a post about monoculture:
“Practicing monoculture means you grow (culture) only one (mono) crop. Monoculture can be defined in two aspects: time and space. That is, one crop is grown in a certain area for a certain amount of time. How big an area or for how long, however, are actually important details which the word tells us nothing about, nor does it give us any information on what would be optimal for the environment, the crop, or the farmer in each situation. That all depends.”
A necessary way to recoup research and development costs, the patenting of plants is common and not unique to GMOs nor to Monsanto. There are thousands of patented plants, many of which can be sold as non-GMO or organic. Like patents on drugs, machines, designs, and more, patents on GE products don’t last forever.
Pesticide use isn’t unique, nor are they used solely on GMOs. Most people don’t realize that non-GMO and organic agriculture uses pesticides too, albeit different, and often naturally-derived ones. Whether a substance is naturally-occurring or synthetic has no bearing on its toxicity or environmental impact. Without pesticides (which include insecticides, herbicides and fungicides) as part of integrated approaches to pest management, farmers would suffer crop losses, food would cost more, certain foods would be in short supply, and the amount of resources used for food production would increase.
Conflating “GMOs” with Monsanto creates a crude narrative and regulatory quagmire that stifles innovation , discouraging smaller entities from developing and commercializing GE products. As a May 2016 Nature Biotechnology article states:
“Multinational corporate crop developers can bear these high regulatory costs for high value, huge-volume commodity crops, but only as long as global sales are large enough to justify the regulatory expenditures. With development costs so high, researchers in the public sector as well as those at nonprofit organizations and small startup companies rarely have sufficient resources to navigate the complex, expensive and uncertain regulatory approval process.
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to justify the expense of developing GE varieties of lower-market-value products, such as so-called specialty crops—fruits, nuts and vegetables—or (especially) the staple crops grown primarily by subsistence farmers in less developed countries.”
Non-browning Arctic Apples and Innate Potatoes, neither of which are Monsanto products, are poised to hit the market, and will reduce food waste due to brown spots and bruises. But these are the exception and not the rule, due to the burdensome regulatory atmosphere that misinformation and ideology have sown. Gluten-free wheat with the potential to help celiac disease patients, tear-free onions, and bananas resistant to xanthomonas wilt (which is threatening food security in Uganda and eastern Africa) are all among GE plants stuck in purgatory. Remember these the next time you have the urge to utter, “but Monsanto.”
Kavin Senapathy is a science communicator, author and mother of two based in Madison, Wisconsin. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
