8 years ago
9
GMOs Are Becoming A Proxy For Bigger Concerns About The Food System
Social scientists and consumer researchers say the battle over GMOs isn't really about GMOs. They say GMOs have become a stand-in for what consumers really want: less processed, natural food.
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This right here. This article articulates what I've been trying to say for years about my opposition to GMOs.
I'm very enthusiastic about the food I eat, and I care about where it comes from, its impact on the environment, and its effect on my health. I mostly buy fresh food from farmers' markets, not always organic, but always small scale, which, in my opinion, is better than an organic label from a Coca-Cola-owned organic superfarm.
I'm weary of GMOs for the same reason I'm weary of HFCS: they're markers of highly-processed food. GMOs are part of an industrial farming logic where we optimize the seed itself to raise yields and generate profits. They're not designed to be nutritious or tasty. They're not designed to enhance biodiversity. Additionally, they are sold by companies which have created environmental havoc, and whose business practices are at best unethical.
I'm also irked by the logic that merely labeling a product GMO-free should be illegal. In what sort of twisted logic would you willingly withhold information from the consumer? Let the market decide... GMO products, by their nature, are cheaper to produce, so the consumer will probably have to pay more for a GMO-less product (not to mention that label is a marketing point, too). That's like saying labeling a product "organic" (which includes non-GMO, as the article points out) is a prejudice to pesticide companies...
I'm on the bar with whether to label it or not. On the one side, I definitely agree. Consumers have the right to know as much information as possible about the product they are purchasing. On the other side, I'm worried it'll turn into like the gluten-free fad where things that couldn't have GMOs in the first place are being labeled GMO-free and that people will begin to think GMOs are inherently bad or dangerous.
What's the problem with the gluten-free fad? Freedom means the freedom to make stupid decisions. I don't think it's an argument in favor of withholding information from the consumer.
It's the misinformation that bothers me. I'm fine with people making "stupid" decisions as long as they're informed about it. We have had a trend of labeling things as "free" because they are assumed bad for us, such as fat and calories. So people go gluten-free because they somehow think it is bad for them when it's not. And the fad also encourages companies to label things that NEVER have gluten as gluten free almost to try to devalue their competition.
The problem seems to be there's just no middle ground between the two side because people refuse to educate others about the facts, or people simply refuse to be educated at all.
Like any technology, GMOs are not inherently safe or unsafe. Saying GMOs are safe is like saying cars are safe, electricity is safe. It would be possible to manufacture a GMO bacteria that would kill people.
Ownership of patents on GMOs creates huge financial pressures on companies to sell their products. Pressure that taints the scientific testing of safety, pressure that makes the corporations lobby governments to declare the products safe with less or without testing, pressure that means that those companies are competing with traditional farming to the detriment of traditional farming.
To recap: there is nothing inherently safe or unsafe about GMOs but there is in the corporate ownership of reproduction rights of living things.
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