April 28, 2004
Good to Eat, and Good for You
Wired News has a very good, balanced article looking at the pros and cons of genetically-modified food, and a new approach that reduces some of the risks involved in GM, while retaining the benefits.
The reality is that just about everything we eat (with the exception of, perhaps, edible fungus) is “modified” through years of selective breeding. Wheat has required human intervention to breed for the last few thousand years; modern cattle are a pale shadow of their ancestors.
So, what’s the problem with GM?
- The benefits to the consumer are tenuous; mostly, it’s the farmer and the seed companies that get the goodies from GM. That’s one of the main reasons that GM has found the most success in “ingredient” plants like soy (edamame notwithstanding). Saying that Roundup Ready soybeans are great because you can drench the field with herbicide like it was bubblebath doesn’t make me want to put the stuff in my mouth.
- People understand breeding. They don’t understand GM. The seed companies completely blew the PR battle by trying to make GM sound like it was something you could do at home with a high-school chemistry kit. They also painted anyone who raised issues with the technology as a moronic neo-luddite, rather than just addressing the concerns head-on.
- Although it’s admittedly a bit naïve, people think that a nice unbroken chain exists between the plants they grow in pots at home and those that spring out of the ground in large farms. GM plants seem like alien experiments, not nice tomatoes that you might find around the house. When you order seeds from Burpee, you don’t have to sign a long licensing agreement.
- This might just be me, but being specifically prohibited from replanting seeds from a plant that you grew seems like an absurd violation of the whole idea of fair use (and agriculture, for that matter).
Personally, I’m not impressed by some of the more hysterical anti-GM arguments. But while glowing fish are nifty enough, I’m not quite prepared to eat them.
posted 22:24