IN ORDER TO BE “CERTIFIED ORGANIC,” foods cannot be genetically modified.  Why the organic farming and environmentalist movements have grasped on to anti-GMO ideas with a fundamentalist-like fervor is beyond my understanding, because the technology is not inherently more dangerous than the traditional plant breeding it can enhance or replace.

    Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are plants (for all practical purposes – I don’t know of any genetically modified animals in the food supply) that have DNA added to their cells by artificial means.  The means could be using bacteria to inject engineered DNA into a mature plant, or physically shooting DNA into plant tissue culture cells, which are then coaxed into becoming a mature plant. 

    Contrast this with traditional breeding.  In the days before recombinant DNA, if a new trait was desired, breeders would cross the domesticated plant with a wild relative, then select for the desirable characteristics.  Disease resistant tomatoes were created by crossing an edible tomato variety with a wild one that had disease resistance genes, but also happened to have genes for toxins.  The breeder would select for disease resistant progeny, while selecting against toxic progeny.  It is time consuming and tricky to know for sure that the toxic genes are gone, and there’s no government oversight regarding the matter.  With genetic engineering, scientists can directly add the disease resistance gene, to the same effect as traditional breeding, but with more certainty about what genes were added and which were not.  So genetically manipulating crop plants is not new, nor is it risk free.  It’s just that traditional breeding is familiar, whereas high tech genetic modification is only about 20 years old.  Traditional breeding is better suited to some tasks, genetic engineering to others.  They each have their place.

    So genetic engineering isn’t a replacement for traditional breeding, but it can be a great way to enhance it.  It can also do some things traditional breeding can’t, like adding beta carotene to rice. 500,000 children in developing countries go blind from vitamin A deficiency every year, and golden rice (a genetically engineered strain containing beta carotene) could help alleviate this.  There is no wild rice strain containing beta carotene that could be bred into domesticated rice, so beta carotene-containing rice had to be produced by genetic engineering.  Golden rice is currently in the long and complicated regulatory process that is required before it can be distributed (free) to farmers.  Some environmentalist groups, particularly Greenpeace, vigorously oppose all GMOs, including golden rice.  I think this is an unconscionable position, especially because Greenpeace does nothing to combat malnutrition, and hence is not offering an alternative solution.  When golden rice was first developed in 2004, there was a lot of reporting about how Greenpeace was going to stop it from reaching poor farmers, and it turns out that the process is continuing in spite of their protests.  But it’s not irrelevant that first-world environmentalists take a hard-line against GMOs.  Public opinion against GMOs means that the potential benefits they can bring will be realized more slowly.

    While the potential benefits can be overstated, genetic engineering can be used to reduce pesticide use, preserve soil quality, improve nutrition, and conserve energy.  The risks of contaminating wild relatives through cross breeding are small because most domesticated crops don’t easily interbreed with wild varieties.  Each new genetic modification needs to be carefully and individually evaluated, but it would be tragic to deny the potentially great applications of GM because we fear the implementation might not be perfect. 

    There are a lot of good reasons to favor organic farming.  Decreased fertilizer and pesticide use, greater energy efficiency, and sustainability are a few.  Rather than dismiss GM as an un-natural threat, it would be better to recognize that no crop is “natural,” because all have been genetically modified through selection.  I wish there was a second category of organic farming, where chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones weren’t used, but where GMOs were allowed when appropriate. That would do the most good regarding human health, animals well being, and the environment.