June 19: Gluttons for hunger

Food: It is an interesting proposition: we can genetically engineer food to be healthier, resistant to disease, drought, and insects, grow faster, and grow more. Considering 1 billion people are malnourished (and a total of 1.6 billion people malnourished or undernourished), genetically modified foods would seem to be the solution to our rapidly growing hunger problems. It is predicted that by 2025 that the globe will have to produce 50% more food just to stay at the status quo. However, GMO foods have received a lot of criticism. The most notable (and articulate) argument against GMO is the lack of long term research on the effects of consuming the food. There is an unofficial test underway right now: the United States.

For almost 12 years the primary crops (e.g., rice, soya, corn, cotton) has been GMO in the United States. What does that mean? Well, it means that the vast majority food Americans eat and export are or have been in contact with GMO products. Liberty corn is an example of this. Liberty corn is a specially designed corn that resists Liberty weed killer. Liberty corn has another interesting fact about it: it isn't grown for direct consumption. That's right. The primary corn crop grow across the Midwest is meant to be reprocessed into animal feed and (high fructose) corn syrup. The affect of this is that animals are being fed GMO feed, thus "contaminating" the animals (no research has shown differences between GMO grain and organic grain fed to cattle, they are both bad). GMO corn syrup is used in about everything you can imagine: soda, alcohol, chips, gum, condiments, breads, and candy bars, to give a short list. This doesn't make GMO bad, though. This is just an example of the poor management of food crops. However, the American public is alright (or ambivalent) to the issue. The American way of "more yield, more profit" seems to trump awareness.

In Europe it is exactly opposite. You have to search high and low through a British big-chain supermarket to find a product with GMO in it. The public push back about GMO has been immense, resulting in European governments restricting the growth the GMO crops. The only GMO crop that is allowed to be commercially produced in Europe is maize. The public is also very aware of GMO regulations, ensuring that all GMO products coming into Europe are clearly labeled--something Canada or the United States have yet to do. It is so aggressive in Europe that when the green movement catches wind of a GMO crop exists they will organize and vandalize the crops.

Two different views between North America and Europe are stark. They show that a lack of general education on the topic can lead to passive acceptable or ambivalence. Whereas in Europe, the little bit of information has been perverted and is being used as a weapon to fight GMO. GMO has not yet to be shown to cause any long term effects. It is the American diet and not the GMO which is causing the health epidemic. GMO might be the only option to ensure food production can match demand. Crop reorganization is essential, but is entirely controlled by the consumer: each time you buy a candy bar you are saying "grow more sugar, grow less vegetables".

Aside from the likely food crisis that is approaching there is still one more frightening thing to mention. The argument around GMO should be shifted away from blocking it entirely or denouncing it as "unnatural" and ought to be placed on who owns it. It shouldn't be the big corporations that own life. If you want to fight for the future of GMO, whether to keep it or destroy it, start by fighting for ownership of life. Humans own the earth. Humans should choose their food. Humans should choose how that food is grown.