Paper 4 Draft 3- GMOs

GMOs. Genetically modified organisms. What do you think of GMOs when you hear them? More specifically, what do you think of GMOs in your food, perhaps even as your food? I believe that GMOs aren't as okay as most proponents portray them. If nothing at all, the government should at least make it mandatory for farmers and manufacturers to label their products as "GMO" or "non-GMO". However, people that are in favor of GMOs say that GMOs have less of a drastic impact on the environment, are adequately tested, and GMOs are used to feed the world, thereby ending world hunger.

In regards to their safety and potential environmental impacts, some people say they are very much safe. Proponents of GMOs argue that ever since GMOs have been used, the amount of herbicides and pesticides has been greatly reduced (Wager, par. 19). This is actually true-- but only when GMOs were a new invention. In a study by Charles Benbrook (published in 2012), the amount of herbicides and pesticides used for GM crops was calculated between 1996 and 2011. The results are pretty mind-boggling. Benbrook found that herbicide-tolerant crops (HT) contributed to a 527 million pounds of herbicides used. Pesticide use has went all the way up to 404 million pounds by GM crops. If GM crops were tailored to not use as many pesticides and herbicides as non-GM crops, shouldn't these numbers be significantly lower? In his study, Benbrook compared these numbers in non-GM crops. It turns out that non-GM crops used 20% less pesticides and 24% less herbicides, both per acre. In addition, according to a study done by the USDA and the EPA, the amount of weeds present in farms that were tolerant to herbicides was triple the amount in 2011 that were present in 2001 (Hoffman, par. 7). Ultimately, this means more herbicides will be used to rid farms of the weeds that never seem to go away. Natural selection is like an arm's race-- the other organism will constantly be trying to catch up. Organisms killing the GMO before (when it wasn't GMO) will at first start to lessen, but as they adapt to their new environment, it will be the same situation as it was before. Pests and other organisms will have reign on their food again. When that happens are developers going to alter the genes again? Is this literally going to continue to happen until the GM crop or organism will be nothing like how it was before?

Those in favor of GMOs also say that they are tested and reviewed properly (Wager, par. 6). Wager says, "Even though the present federal regulations declare FDA evaluations to be voluntary, every commercialized GE [genetically engineered] crops has undergone FDA evaluation. The legal and reputation consequences for not undergoing a careful FDA evaluation and then facing court challenges are so catastrophic that the system is considered de facto legal" (par. 6). I honestly want to question the validity of that statement. For the third unit of this course, I chose to analyze Maria Godoy's article "Did Congress Just give GMOs a Free Pass in Courts?" In it, she describes how in 2010 GMO sugar beets were allowed to be planted even though they weren't reviewed (Godoy, par. 10). And now, Monsanto doesn't have to abide by any judicial rulings that say they can't plant GMOs until they are sufficiently tested (Godoy, par. 4). In other words, Monsanto, with this act, has the ability to plant and distribute GM crops even though the crops weren't tested adequately enough. The sugar beets situation was back in 2010. Wager wrote his article this year. It is really hard, to me at least, to understand why he would use the phrase "every commercialized GE crop" when there is this blatant example completely disproving his statement. We can see just how properly GMOs are tested and reviewed. His argument still wouldn't be as convincing because Monsanto, the world's leading GM-crop producing company, has had more than a decent amount of lobbyists working with the government and has spent the most money lobbying since 2008-- the record being $8.8 million (Boschma, par. 9). Based on this one could argue how legitimate the "proper" reviews really are. Are they just political favors or are they something that's actually valuable?

Finally, I come to my last point-- the issue on world hunger. Advocates of GMOs argue that this is like the light in the dark tunnel of world hunger. Wager in his article says this: "A review of global yield data showed 154/168 studies of GE crops neutral or increased yields. Most striking was 101/107 studies in the developing world with neutral or increased yields. This explains why the developing world farmers are adopting GE crops faster than the developed world; they now grow over 50% of all GE crops on the planet." However, it should be noted that in most GMO producing countries, more GMOs are consumed by livestock, not people (Beville, par. 6). In fact, in the U.S. alone, 98% of soy and 79.5% of corn is used to either feed livestock or manufacture fuels for cars (Beville, par. 8). Thus, we can clearly see that GMOs should not be considered as something that will end world hunger, at least not at the stage we are in right now. Until these numbers change, until the crops (no matter how bad they are) are given more to people than livestock, we cannot make the claim that GMOs will end world hunger. Even though I don't like the idea of GMOs, it is true that at least they are food. Food for all the starving children and adults in the world. In reality, we are denying this right even to those that are starving, and making the false claim that they are the ones getting the bulk of the food that is being mass-produced in the form of GMO when nothing could be further from the truth.

While some people can argue that GMOs are indeed something good are nothing to be scared or frantic or skeptic about making statements about being good for the environment, adequately tested, and ending world hunger, I stand by my decision and opinion that GMOs have no place in the market.

 
Works Cited

Wager, Robert. "Not all Science Created Equal: The Genetically Engineered Crops Story." Genetic Literacy            Project, 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.
Benbrook, Charles. "Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use in the U.S.- the first sixteen              years." Environmental Sciences Europe 24.24 (2012): n. pag. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.
Hoffman, Beth. "GMO Crops Mean More Herbicides, Not Less." Forbes. Forbes. 2 July 2013. Web. 23 Nov.              2014.
Godoy, Maria. "Did Congress Just Give GMOs a Free Pass in Courts?" The Salt. NPR. 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 23        Nov. 2014.
Boshma, Janie. "Monsanto: Big Guy on the Block When it Comes to Friends in Washington." Open Secrets.            The Center for Responsive Politics. 19 Fe. 2013. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.
Beville, Ryan. "How Pervasive are GMOs in Animal Feed?" GMO Inside. Green America. 16 July 2013. Web. 23        Nov. 2014.