14 Conclusion
This book began with a series of questions about the process and products of molecular breeding, also known as genetically engineered crops or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). As I noted there, no new technology has ever experienced the type of sustained societal divisiveness that GMOs have experienced. All sides of this debate have a selection bias in what they view as the evidence for their position. A fair-minded science can resolve some (but not all) of the issues. Those who remain skeptical about some claims recognize that science itself may have tacit values or normative presuppositions embedded in the analysis. This is well supported by the science and technology studies (STS) literature. For example, there is no consensus in the scientific definitions for substantial equivalence. When a regulatory agency declares a GMO to be substantially equivalent to its parental (non-GE counterpart) crop, it may be embracing trans-scientific concepts masquerading as science.1 Similarly, the concept of weight of evidence is sometimes used as though it is a scientific result. But the weight of evidence in support of a conclusion is rarely ever clearly defined or operationalized.2
Many (but not all) of the contested issues raised about genetically modified crops are about risks. Referring back to the initial questions in the introduction, these include the risks of consuming genetically modified crops, lowering productivity, reducing biodiversity, imposing ecological hazards, and thwarting efforts to advance sustainable agriculture.
The study and analysis of risks are largely relegated to technical fields such as risk analysis, decision analysis, and toxicology. These fields require an understanding of potential hazards and of the probability that any single outcome will result from a product or technology. For the moment, let us assume that the assessment of risks is largely or exclusively subject to empirical investigation and logical reasoning. After the results (probability times hazard) are determined, the next question is, What risks are acceptable and at what cost? That part of the risk issue is not scientific. We often have to decide the answer for ourselves as individuals or as a society through a democratic process. I decide whether I shall take a drug with its attendant and often unpredictable side effects in exchange for its potential benefits. Alternatively, a policy sector or a regulatory body will decide whether it will approve a product given its level of risk. If risk assessment were that easy, we could resolve a lot of issues. Risk assessment would be relegated to science, and risk acceptance would be the province of a democratic process and the representatives chosen by that process.
Quite often, however, the evaluation of risk does not fall neatly into the domains of pure science and policy. For one thing, when there is insufficient knowledge, scientists make guesses about the outcome or probability that certain events will occur. These discretionary or transcientific assumptions allow scientists to reach an outcome in the risk assessment. But the assumptions chosen may not be universally accepted or subject to empirical validation. As a result, disagreements in the risk assessments can arise.
In some notable cases, risk assessors have chosen a most-probable case scenario of a toxic event. The public, on the other hand, may choose to make a decision of acceptable risk on a worst-case analysis, where the probabilities are lower but the outcome is more hazardous. Science cannot resolve the framing of the risk problem because it is not a scientific issue.
And we also have to address the risks of not accepting a product or technology. Some prominent voices argue that opposing the development of Golden Rice could result in preventable cases of blindness and mortality. Risks and their acceptance or rejection must be applied fairly in examining pro-GMO and anti-GMO stakeholders. Moreover, the issue of justice demands that we ask, Risks for whom and benefits for whom? From one perspective, some risks to vulnerable developing world farmers and consumers may be less acceptable than the same risks to Western industrial farmers and consumers. Yet some have argued that those dealing with food scarcity should be willing to take more risks in growing and consuming GMOs or in accepting food aid.
There is also the issue of unintended consequences, which are the consequences that cannot be clearly articulated or measured. It is highly problematic to include unintended consequences or acceptable risk in a risk assessment. In the field of technology assessment, the best that can be done is to test the product in sufficiently varied settings at extreme conditions that will reveal any possible unintended consequences (see chapter 9).
When a company sells a food product whose manufacturing process results in unintended consequences for the consumer, the U.S Food and Drug Administration takes action. The agency identifies where the products have been sold, calls for them to be removed from shelves, and requires compensation for anyone harmed. This is possible because all processed food products are labeled and can be traced back to the time and place of manufacture and to their distribution networks. Sometimes raw agricultural products that are contaminated with pathogenic bacteria can be traced to their source. Otherwise, citizens are warned that, until further testing, they should avoid the product. It has been suggested that if a GMO were harmful, it would be discovered by researchers or farmers during the breeding process or by companies prior to commercial distribution. Without labeling and traceability, the unintended effects may be difficult to discover, especially if they are subacute or chronic.
My approach to addressing these questions has been to examine the scientific literature deeply and fairly. I chose not to impose a theoretical perspective on selecting the literature or on following any single line of reasoning. If I was guided by any framework at all, it would be by one of Robert Merton’s basic norms of science, “organized skepticism,” which influenced my approach to each issue and allowed the evidence to reveal itself from the breadth and depth of the scientific literature.
1. How does traditional plant breeding compare with the plant breeding taking place in biotechnology (molecular breeding)?
Question 1 in the introduction asks about the differences between traditional breeding and molecular breeding. What are the differences and similarities? Is genetic engineering a continuation of the plant breeding that humans have practiced for thousands of years? Or is it qualitatively different and, if so, by what criteria?
It is generally agreed that traditional breeding has limits that can be overcome by molecular breeding. Backcrossing or hybridization would not allow us to get a fish gene and its protein product into a vegetable. Traditional breeding generally rearranges the existing genes within a plant species or taxonomically very close plants. But that oversimplifies the situation. Mutagenesis by radiation or chemicals can create new gene variants or new alleles, but those are still constrained by the existing genotype of the plant. Transplanting new genes from distant species remains a qualitatively new process. As we have seen, there remains uncertainty within the scientific community on the relative risks in these two forms of breeding. European agencies consider molecular breeding to have a higher risk for uncertain effects, and the U.S. agencies consider the risks equivalent and of little concern.
2. What is known about the health assessment of genetically modified crops?
3. What are the arguments that the oversight of bioengineered crops should or should not be stricter than the oversight for traditional crop breeding?
Question 2 in the introduction asks about the health risks of genetically engineered crops. How can we account for differences among scientific studies on animal feeding experiments? Are such studies appropriate for evaluating the health effects of genetically engineered crops? What, if anything, do those experiments reveal about whether GMOs are safe to eat directly or be included in the food chain of processed food? If those experiments are not appropriate, how else are GE crops evaluated? Are there more or greater risks (health or environmental) involved in transferring genes into plants from widely divergent species (such as across genus, families, and even kingdoms) than through intraspecies gene transfer? Question 3 asks whether the novelty of the technology warrants special regulatory oversight. What is the distinction between process-based and product-based regulation? Does it make sense to have special regulations for a process—namely, the use of gene splicing to create GMOs?
There are two ways to approach the answers to these questions. The first is by science, and the second is by public opinion. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has consistently written in its reports that there are no unique risks with respect to applying recombinant DNA methods (gene splicing) to developing plant varieties. “No unique risks” does not mean “risk free.” NASEM has argued that GMOs should not be treated differently than crops that are traditionally bred. But NASEM’s 2004 study of GMO risks states that there are higher risks when genes from distantly related organisms are the source of transplanted DNA. The unanticipated risks are likely to be lower if the foreign genes come from closely related species and much higher if gene splicing is used to transfer genes from distantly related species or if chemical or radiation mutagenesis is used on crop germplasm.
Animal feeding studies have been one of the primary ways that scientists and regulatory bodies have sought to answer the questions about food safety of GMOs. About two dozen published studies have found adverse impacts on animal feeding experiments, whereas hundreds of feeding experiments have not shown adverse effects. The relatively small group of animal experiments that have revealed health effects have been derided by some scientists and organizations for not being a reliable method for determining food safety. The 2004 and 2016 NASEM reports concur that both conventional and molecular forms of breeding have unintended effects and that the unintended effects from GMO breeding and conventional breeding methods are within the same range of probability.
The 2016 NASEM report indicates that there is a lot we do not know about the material differences between a GMO and its parental crop (non-GM counterpart). One way to bridge the gap in knowledge, according to the NASEM study, is to apply omics analysis to the GMOs: “Knowing the variation that occurs naturally in a species one can compare the engineered genome with the reference genome [parental strains] to reveal whether genetic engineering has caused any changes—expected or unintended—and to gain context for assessing whether changes might have adverse effects.”3 Until such an analysis is undertaken, we will not know the answer to the question of whether GMOs are likely to produce greater unintended adverse effects than traditional breeding. Omics analysis can potentially resolve many of the issues of regulation. The 2016 NASEM report proposes a scheme involving four tiers of testing for evaluating transgenic crops that use the full array of omics analysis to compare proteins, metabolites, genomics, and transcriptomics (RNA molecules) between a transgenic and its parental crop.
The report calls for an omics approach for both genetically engineered and conventionally bred crops to determine any unintended changes. The problem is that no regulatory authority requires the omics approach as described in the NASEM report. Moreover, the European regulatory authorities have funded animal feeding studies based on traditional toxicological methods. Scientists are beginning to apply the omics analysis in their research, as shown by Yanhua Tan and his colleagues, who studied forty-four unique proteins in the leaves of transgenic and nontransgenic maize. In this study, significant differences were observed, and one of the differentially expressed proteins was identified as a new toxin.4
Another omics analysis was completed in 2016 on Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Robin Mesnage and his colleagues performed proteomics and metabolics analyses of GM maize sprayed and unsprayed with Roundup. They found significant differences in the metabolites between the GMO and non-GMO varieties resulting from the transgene: “The transformation process and the resulting expression of a transgenic protein cause a general disturbance in the GM plant and it is clear that NK603 maize is markedly different from its non-GM isogenic line at the proteomic and metabolome levels.”5 The study showed that the GMO and its non-GMO isogenic strain were not substantially equivalent because the chemical enzymatic pathways were different. However, nothing was revealed about the toxicity of the GMO corn in this partial omics analysis.
Omics analysis may reveal changes in the metabolites, proteins, or pathways of GMOs compared to their non-GMO counterparts, but it does not yield information about toxicology unless it shows increases in an already known toxic product. The question about whether a new transgenic crop will produce novel proteins or metabolites with toxic properties cannot be answered before conducting experiments.
Beyond testing, other considerations in evaluating GMOs are public opinion and consumer trust in the new products. The fact that a majority of the public has supported GMO labeling and that public debate has persisted for decades informs us that the public attitude is in favor of greater oversight or at least transparency about GMO-constituted food products.
4. What evidence, if any, is there that genetically modified crops are more productive (produce greater yields) than traditionally bred crops?
Question 4 in the introduction asks about the productivity or yield of GMOs. This question bears on whether GMOs will contribute to a greater supply of food given the same quantity of seeds and other production inputs, such as fertilizer, water, and land.
My analysis reaches the conclusion that the question cannot be answered unambiguously. One must acquire an understanding of the environmental and soil conditions—where the plants are grown and harvested, what the weed and insect resistance is during the time that planting and harvesting take place, and what technologies and inputs are used in an agricultural setting. There is no single or simple answer to the question of GMO yield. Before Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) resistance was discovered in target insects or herbicide resistance in target weeds, there was evidence of higher yields from Bt corn and cotton. Those yields decreased after the resistant weeds and insects spread. In response to GMO pest resistance, new approaches were taken by creating GMOs that genetically engineer more than one pesticide or multiple pathways for herbicide tolerance. One commentator has written that “Blanket conclusions that the technology is a success or failure lack the right level of nuance.… It’s an evolving story in India, and we have not yet reached a definitive conclusion.”6 Other commentators have reached a more favorable conclusion: “On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries.”7
The scientific literature about GMO yields provides conflicting results, depending on who is reporting the studies, from which countries they are reporting the yields, and what sources and methods are used in compiling the data. In one study, the authors undertook a meta-analysis of 147 original studies that examined the most important genetically engineered crops, including herbicide-tolerant soybeans, maize, and cotton and insect-resistant maize and cotton. The study reported that, on average, GE crop yields increased from non-GE yields by 21 percent. These yield increases were more pronounced for the developing world than the developed world.8
In contrast, another group of scientists obtained yield data of maize, rapeseed, soybean, and cotton from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) database for the United States, Canada, and Western Europe for 1961 to 2010. They reported that the United States had only marginally significant higher yields than Europe, despite the former’s much greater dependence on GE crops: “in recent years W. Europe has had similar and even slightly higher yields than the United States despite the latter’s use of GM varieties.… Notwithstanding claims to the contrary … there is no evidence that GM biotechnology is superior to other biotechnologies in its potential to supply calories.”9 From their literature review, Alan B. Bennett, Cecilia Chi-Ham, Geoffrey Barrows, Steven Sexton, and David Zilberman found that, on average, GE cotton and GE maize increased yield, reduced pest damage, reduced pesticide use, and increased farm profitability. GE soybeans, however, showed declines, and many farms were outliers and did not show the yield increases in GE cotton and GE maize.10
There is no clear consensus that GMOs are inherently better or worse than non-GMO varieties in terms of yield. Comparing different growth regions and practices will not provide a useful answer to a complex question. The literature suggests that each region, practice, climate, pest density, pesticide use, farm management practice, and transgenic seed will contribute to delivering a yield for that GM seed. Controlled greenhouse studies of GMOs and non-GMOs, everything else being equal, may provide useful information. But that information may not transfer to actual growing conditions in the field.
5. What distinctions are there, if any, between the environmental impacts of GMOs and traditionally bred crops?
Question 5 in the introduction asks whether GMOs are more, less, or neutrally favorable to the environment. Are some GMOs more favorable environmentally than traditional crops? Do GMOs have any unique impacts on biodiversity, beyond the impacts of traditional crops? Will GMOs contribute or become an obstacle to sustainable agriculture? Will they reduce or increase chemical pesticide use? Will they enhance, be neutral to, or reduce biodiversity? Will they support healthy and sustainable soil? Can this be predicted? Can it be ascertained from specific cases? What does the science tell us? Where is there consensus within the science?
One of the popular claims made about insect-resistant crops is that they will reduce the use of chemical pesticides. It is a plausible scenario. If insects are deterred or killed by eating a transgenic crop with a toxin gene, chemical pesticides will not need to be sprayed on the crop. This is similar to the idea that some plant lectins protect plants from certain insects. This assumes that insects will not become resistant to the Cry toxins in Bt crops. What do we know about the reduction of chemical pesticides on a farm scale where insect-resistant transgenic crops have been applied?
Charles M. Benbrook undertook a systematic study of pesticide use with genetically modified crops.11 We discuss his conclusions about the use of herbicides in conjunction with herbicide-tolerant crops in chapter 5. Benbrook found that Bt-transgenic corn and cotton displaced about 123 million pounds of chemical insecticides from 1996 to 2011. He also notes that every plant in a Bt corn or cotton field is producing insecticidal proteins within its cells. Benbrook calculated the amount of Bt protein toxins that are produced within all the plant components in the Bt corn and cotton crops in the United States. He estimates that the total Cry protein production in U.S. agriculture is about 3.7 pounds per acre, which amounts to nineteen times greater than the average chemical insecticide application in 2010. There is no consensus among entomologists, notes Benbrook, on whether Bt toxins produced in transgenic plants should be counted in determining whether Bt crops have reduced overall insecticide use. No disagreement can be found that insect-resistant transgenic crops have had an initial effect on reducing chemical pesticides. The amount of reduction will depend on the degree to which insect resistance to Bt develops. Finally, Benbrook argues that if Bt crop technology becomes more sophisticated so that the Bt endotoxins appear only in those plant tissues that are actively attacked by insects and only at the times that insects are feeding, then Bt crops could be compatible with integrated pest management. Thus far, biotechnology has not reached this level of sophistication.
A growing concern over insect resistance to Bt crops has led some farmers to return to chemical insecticides. Bruce E. Tabashnik, Thierry Brévault, and Yves Carrière review the effect of Bt crops on insect resistance based on monitoring data covering two decades from twenty-four cases in eight countries, after a billion acres had been planted. They conclude that “the number of major target pests with some populations resistant to Bt crops and reduced efficacy reported surged from one to five.”12
Edward D. Perry, Federico Ciliberto, David Hennessy, and GianCarlo Moschini sum up the answer to whether pesticide use has increased or decreased in GE crops: “For both soybean and maize GT [glyphosate-tolerant] adopters use increasingly more herbicides relative to nonadopters, whereas adopters of IR [insect-resistant] maize use increasingly less herbicides.”13
What about GMOs and sustainability? Both the pro-GMO and anti-GMO communities have sought ownership of the concept of sustainability as a framework for advancing their advocacy. It is reminiscent of the biotechnology debates in the 1980s, when similar struggles took place over ownership of the meaning of natural food. In the contemporary world, the term sustainability implies actions taken to protect the biosphere from despoliation and declines in the biodiversity of all life. Sustainable agriculture seeks to protect and preserve soil and water quality as well as the ecosystems within which farms are embedded. It also has been associated with low-chemical-input agriculture. A. Wendy Russell maintains that “sustainability is a highly contested term, in general, and in the GM debate.”14 It also is recognized that sustainability is not a scientific concept but a societal ideal and one for which there is no clear definition. Douglas H. Constance argues that the ambiguity of the concept of sustainability allows seed oligopolies to turn it to their advantage: “because the concept of sustainability is deeply contested, agribusiness is able to exploit the ambiguity surrounding the definition of sustainable and exercise power in attempts to frame sustainable agriculture in their favor.”15
Critics of genetically engineered crops are adamant that GE seeds are incompatible with sustainable agriculture. The seeds are produced, patented, and distributed by multinational corporations that support a neoliberal, high-input model of agricultural production. Advocates of GMOs use sustainability criteria for each product and compare the GMO with its parental strain (its non-GM counterpart).
Sustainability is not the outcome of a utopian world. It is one step in the right direction. We can meaningfully ask whether practice A or product B is more sustainable than practice Aʹ or product Bʹ. There are no absolute measures, only comparative ones. Russell highlights the point: “it is not feasible to ask whether a particular system, industry or technology is ‘sustainable’ or ‘unsustainable,’ but useful to consider whether it is associated with a tendency towards or away from sustainability.”16
It is not be possible to answer the question of whether conventional breeding is more sustainable than molecular breeding without considering what the two methods produce, what they substitute for, and what agricultural system they fit into. If we focus only on the process and examine it according to the four factors associated with sustainability cited by the 2016 NASEM report (health, environment, social, and economic), the task would be formidable. The process would have to be evaluated by sustainability criteria as an occupational, environmental, and social activity. Most discussions of sustainability are about the products and the systems they support. The reductionist approach asks whether Bt corn, raised without chemical pesticides, is more or less sustainable than traditionally bred corn raised with pesticides. If that were the only comparison (where soil, water resources, and humans are saved from pesticide exposure), the answer could be in the affirmative. Because organic farming does not permit the use of genetically engineered crops, the question of whether GE seeds could make organic agriculture more sustainable is not meaningful.
Echoing the 2016 NASEM report, a complete analysis of sustainability would have to cover all four of the factors. We would have to know whether the Bt crops were more or less dangerous to nonintended species or whether they provided added social and economic benefits to farmers, especially small farmers. The NASEM report dismisses any rhetorical claims made about GMO sustainability in its findings: “Although emerging genetic-engineering techniques have the potential to assist in achieving a sustainable food system, broad and rigorous analyses will be necessary to determine the long-term health, environment, social and economic outcomes of adding specific crops and traits to an agroecosystem.”17
6. Have any commercialized GMO crops been designed to improve a crop’s nutritional quality, flavor, or other attributes valued by consumers or public health advocates (such as through biofortification)?
Question 6 in the introduction, regarding nutritional improvements in GMO crops, is addressed in part in chapter 12 on Golden Rice, which describes the efforts that were made to bring to the market the first biofortified staple crop designed to save lives and eyesight in vitamin A–deprived countries. After nearly two decades, Golden Rice has not been approved for commercial markets. Nevertheless, the scientific literature shows evidence of its great promise. As an example, one 2015 review in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences states: “Great progress has been made over the past decade with respect to the application of biotechnology to generate nutritionally improved food crops. Biofortified staple crops such as rice, maize and wheat harboring essential micronutrients to benefit the world’s poor are under development as well as new varieties of crops which have the ability to combat chronic disease.”18
Notwithstanding such expressions of enthusiasm, biofortified GMOs have yet to be proven a public health success. Beyond the science, acceptance will involve unambiguous health assessments, philanthropic support, adaptation to local cultivars, and cultural adoption.
7. What are the critical issues regarding the demands for and against mandatory labeling of GMOs?
Question 7 in the introduction asks about the labeling of GMOs, which is covered in chapter 10. Is there a rational basis for labeling? How does the European Union compare with the United States in regard to labeling genetically engineered crops and GMO food? What federal or state initiatives have been taken to label GMO crops in the consumer market?
Rationality in this case depends on what the starting assumptions are. Both the European Union and the United States have reached decisions in favor of labeling in their unique ways. Their respective decisions were not crafted in rational arguments but rather based on the power of public opinion and lobbying. The question of whether the process of molecular breeding is likely to produce more unanticipated risks than traditional breeding will have to await future study as more rigorous analyses of the products of both types of breeding are compared. Sometimes it takes years to understand the impact of new food technologies and their products. This has certainly been the case with fast foods, processed food, sugary drinks, and transfats.
Public opinion polls favor labeling by up to 90 percent. Most food manufacturers are against it. Congress passed what might be called a “stealth labeling law” without penalties if it is violated. Either a smartphone-readable code or phone number can be used by the consumer to decipher whether a product has been grown or made with genetically modified products. Nothing on the packaging will be as apparent as the salt or calorie content of food. The federal labeling law preempts any state labeling legislation. Although the federal labeling mandate solves the problem of a patchwork of state labeling laws, until it is fully implemented, its value to consumers will not be known.
8. Can GMO and non-GMO agriculture coexist?
Finally, a new question addresses the cohabitation of GMO and non-GMO agriculture. Organic farms are certified as non-GMO, and organic farmers have raised concerns that GMO pollen wafting onto their farms can threaten their organic certification. Miguel A. Altieri considers the coexistence of GMOs and non-GMOs to be a myth: “The first important argument against the concept of coexistence is that the movement of transgenes beyond their intended destinations and hybridization with weedy relatives and contamination of other non-GM crops is a virtual certainty.”19 A 2010 headline in Nature News provides grist for Altieri’s concerns: “GM Crop Escapes into the American Wild.”20 Researchers reported at an Ecological Society of America conference that transgenic canola was growing freely in parts of North Dakota for the first time.
There are no systematic studies of GMO contamination of organic farms in the United States, only anecdotal reports and a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey. In February 2006, the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the USDA issued a report on the coexistence of GMOs with non-GMO crops. In 2008 and 2014, the ERS carried out surveys of certified organic corn producers. From the 2008 survey, it learned that 18 percent of the organic corn farmers in the United States had their corn production tested for transgenic components. According to the survey, 1 percent of the certified organic farmers reported that their food-grade corn was rejected, and 2 percent reported that their feed-grade corn was rejected by a buyer as a result of GMO contamination in 2010 or earlier.
In the 2014 National Organic Survey, farmers were asked if they had “experienced economic losses that you can document due to unintended presence of GMO material in an organic crop that you have produced for sale.”21 In this survey, 1 percent of the U.S. certified organic farmers representing eighty-seven organic farms in twenty states declared economic losses from the presence of GMO material in their crops from 2011 to 2014. The total estimate of the losses was around $6 million. Some states had losses of less than 1 percent in their organic farms, and others reported losses of 6 to 7 percent in their organic farms. The largest number of farmers reporting losses lived in Illinois, where sixteen farms had losses that averaged $38,884 per farm.
Organic farms remain a small, albeit growing part of U.S. agricultural production. In 2012, 390 million cropland acres were under cultivation in the United States, of which 182 million acres were planted with genetically engineered seed, 90 percent in corn and soybean. In contrast, 5.4 million acres were classified as certified organic farms in 2011, and only 0.3 percent (234,000 acres) of U.S. corn and 0.2 percent (132,000 acres) of U.S. soybean were organic.
Thus far, the commingling of GMOs and non-GMOs has cost eighty-seven farms about $6 million: “Nationwide, a total of 87 farms in 20 States reported an economic loss in at least 1 year between 2011 and 2014. These farmers reported a total of nearly $6.1 million in economic losses during this period, accounting for an estimated 0.4 percent of the total value of farm sales for all 9 crops with GE counterparts during 2011–2014. The average economic loss from unintended GE presence in organic crops varied substantially by State.”22 Organic famers also paid an unknown amount of litigation costs when Monsanto discovered GMO plants on their cropland.23
The United States has no national policy covering the coexistence of GMO and non-GMO farms. The situation is quite different in Europe, where the European Union has requested all member states to adopt measures to prevent the admixture of GMO and non-GMO crops. Europe has a labeling requirement for GMOs, where the standard admixture for most countries cannot be more than 0.9 percent GMOs in non-GMO crops.24
The European Commission defines the separation of GMO and non-GMO crops as follows: “Co-existence refers to the ability of farmers to make a practical choice between conventional, organic and GM-crop production, in compliance with the legal obligations for labelling and/or purity standards.”25 The Commission held that member states may take appropriate measures to prevent the commingling of commercial GMO products with non-GMO products. The coexistence of GMO and non-GMO agriculture is an established policy in many EU countries. The Netherlands, for example, established the Dutch Coexistence Committee to set standards for separations of GMO and non-GMO crops based on outcrossing studies. In addition to establishing buffer zones that are large (or extensive) enough to prevent outcrossing, other biotechnological methods are used to prevent horizontal gene flow from GMOs to non-GMOs.26
A decade ago, there was controversy among scientists about whether it was possible to prevent outcrossing from GMO crops to non-GMO crops. Clemens C. M. Van De Wiel and L. A. P. Lotz, in a study funded by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, find that the measures to sustain coexistence at a 0.9 percent EU labeling threshold between GM with non-GM agriculture with sugar beet, potato, and maize were plausible with a 25 meter separation, whereas there was skepticism about coexistence with oilseed rape due to volunteers and wild relatives.27 Alessandro Chiarabolli describes the Portuguese regulations and claims that they have implemented the most complete system of coexistence, which has not experienced any difficulties in segregating harvests of GMOs and non-GMOs.28
The Europeans are invested in protecting their organic farms while also providing opportunities for the commercialization of several GMO varieties. Some countries, like Portugal, have established compensation funds to cover damages caused by the accidental contamination of non-GMO crops. In the United States, organic and other non-GMO farms are largely on their own.
Finally, in 2003, Marion Nestle wrote that “Overall, the role of genetically modified foods in these larger aspects of the food system is as yet uncertain and unlikely to be known for some time to come.”29 Fourteen years later, over 90 percent of all the soy, corn, and cotton grown in the United States is genetically modified. Other approved genetically engineered crops include sugar beets, alfalfa, canola, papaya, summer squash, potato, and apples. This suggests that the U.S. approval process is far from uncertain, notwithstanding the more cautious approval in Europe, even while many scientific questions are still unanswered. GMOs remain one of the most persistent and resilient technological controversies in modern history.
Notes
1. Alvin M. Weinberg, “Science and Trans-Science,” Minerva 10, no. 2 (1974): 209–222.
2. Sheldon Krimsky, “The Weight of Scientific Evidence in Policy and Law,” American Journal of Public Health 95 (supp. 1) (2005): S129–S136.
3. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2016), 253.
4. Yanhua Tan, Xiaoping Yi, Limin Wang, Cunzhi Peng, Yong Sun, Dan Wang, Jiaming Zhang, Anping Guo, and Xuchu Wang, “Comparative Proteomics of Leaves from Phytase-Transgenic Maize and Its Non-transgenic Isogenic Variety,” Frontiers in Plant Science 7, no. 1211 (2016): 1–14.
5. Robin Mesnage, Sarah Z. Agapito-Tenfen, Vinicius Vilperte, George Renney, Malcolm Ward, Gilles-Eric Seraline, Rubens O. Nodari, and Michael N. Antoniou, “An Integrated Multi-omics Analysis of the NK603 Roundup-Tolerant GM Maize Reveals Metabolism Disturbances Caused by the Transformation Process,” Scientific Reports 6, no. 37855 (2016), http://
6. Natasha Gilbert, “A Hard Look at GM Crops,” Nature 497, no. 7447 (2013): 26.
7. Wilhelm Klümper and Matin Quaim, “A Meta-analysis of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Crops,” PLOS One 9, no. 11 (2014): 1.
8. Klümper and Quaim, “A Meta-analysis of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Crops,” 4.
9. Jack A. Heinemann, Melanie Massaro, Dorien S. Coray, Sarah Zanon Agapito-Tenfen, and Jiajun Dake Wen, “Sustainability and Innovation in Staple Crop Production in the U.S. Midwest,” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 12, no. 1 (2014): 76.
10. Alan B. Bennett, Cecilia Chi-Ham, Geoffrey Barrows, Steven Sexton, and David Zilberman, “Agricultural Biotechnology: Economics, Environment, Ethics and the Future,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 38 (2013): 257–259.
11. Charles M. Benbrook, “Trends in Glyphosate Herbicide Use in the United States and Globally,” Environmental Science Europe 28, no. 3 (2016): 1–15.
12. Bruce E. Tabashnik, Thierry Brévault, and Yves Carrière, “Insect Resistance to Bt Crops: Lessons from the First Billion Acres,” Nature Biotechnology 31 (2013): 510–521.
13. Edward D. Perry, Frederico Ciliberto, David Hennessy, and GianCarlo Moschini, “Genetically Engineered Crops and Pesticide Use in U.S. Maize and Soybeans,” Science Advances 2, no. 8 (2016): 1, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1600850.
14. A. Wendy Russell, “GMOs and Their Contexts: A Comparison of Potential and Actual Performance of GM Crops in a Local Agricultural Setting,” Geoforum 39, no. 1 (2008): 213.
15. Douglas H. Constance, “Sustainable Agriculture in the United States: A Critical Examination of a Contested Process,” Sustainability 2, no. 1 (2010): 48.
16. Russell, “GMOs and Their Contexts.”
17. NASEM, Genetically Engineered Crops, 441.
18. Kathleen L. Hefferon, “Nutritionally Enhanced Food Crops: Progress and Perspectives,” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 16 (2015): 3895.
19. Miguel A. Altieri, “The Myth of Co-existence: Why Transgenic Crops Are Not Compatible with Agroecologically Based Systems of Production,” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 25, no. 4 (2005): 369.
20. Natasha Gilbert, “GM Crop Escapes into the American Wild,” Nature News 393 (August 6, 2010).
21. C. Greene, S. J. Wechsler, A. Adalja, and J. Hanson, “Economic Issues in the Coexistence of Organic, Genetically Engineered (GE) and Non-GE Crops,” Economic Information Bulletin 149, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 2016, 26, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44041/56750_eib-149.pdf?v=42424.
22. Greene, Wechsler, Adalja, and Hanson, “Economic Issues in the Coexistence of Organic, Genetically Engineered (GE) and Non-GE Crops,” 28.
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