Transgenic travesty: genetically modified crops could help poor farmers—if rich Western greens allowed it

National Review, June 2, 2008 by Fred Schwarz

GENETICALLY modified crops should be a green activist's dream. They can increase productivity per acre, reduce the need for pesticides and herbicides, improve plants' ability to survive unfavorable conditions, and deliver key nutrients to prevent disease in those who eat them. Nowadays, with food in short supply, GM crops can be especially helpful, as they alleviate shortages where the shortages exist, literally at ground level, with no need to rely on charity from abroad.

Instead, greens hate GM crops. Here's a typical assessment from the Huffington Post: "There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops." In support of these claims, opponents trot out a constantly shifting set of scientific findings that purport to demonstrate how GM crops harm the environment.

The first to be widely cited was a 1999 paper supposedly showing that pollen from GM corn was toxic to monarch butterfly caterpillars. This laboratory study was swiftly and conclusively dismantled by other scientists, who demonstrated that it bore no relation to actual conditions in the wild. As John Foster, an entomologist at the University of Nebraska, has pointed out, "traditional pesticides are actually a much bigger threat than biotech corn ever will be. A lot more monarchs die on the grills of 18-wheelers than they do from farmers who plant biotech crops." Another experiment, which suggested detrimental effects on honeybees, also turned out to be deeply flawed. Neither study has been duplicated (though greens still cite them), and no new evidence of significant harm to non-target insects has been found.

Another common charge against GM foods is that they could cause problems with allergies. The evidence: In the mid-1990s a soy plant with a Brazil-nut gene added was found to be potentially allergenic in humans. This happened long before the plant reached the market, and even though it was intended as animal feed, it never went on sale. As this incident shows, allergenic proteins are fairly easy to recognize and test for; that's why no GM food has ever caused allergies in consumers. In fact, genetic engineering is currently being used to remove allergens from foods, raising the possibility of allergy-free peanuts and even seafood.

Do GM crops reduce biodiversity--for example, by displacing other plants or eliminating parts of the food chain? Evidence for this is weak at best. A 2001 article published in Nature purported to show such a decrease caused by GM corn in Mexico, but the study was so problematic that the journal's editors retracted it the following year. Unsurprisingly, GM opponents continue to tout this paper and portray its authors as martyrs (unlike those who dissent from scientific orthodoxy on global warming, who are mocked as "deniers"). Overall, there is at least as much evidence that GM crops increase biodiversity (by reducing use of pesticides and herbicides, among other things). Here, as with the other charges against GM crops, the purported effects are tiny if not illusory, and no different from what occurs with many common practices in non-GM agriculture, while the benefits are large and quantifiable.

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The closest thing to a legitimate objection has to do with the risk of promoting resistance to pesticides and herbicides. One type of GM crop produces a substance that is lethal to certain pest species but safe for humans. The most common such substance is Bt, an insect-killing protein produced in nature by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. As a natural product, it is widely used by organic farmers, who worry about the possibility of Bt-resistant pests.

GM plants can also be made resistant to a given herbicide. Monsanto sells a number of "Roundup Ready" crops that are immune to the company's Roundup herbicide. This greatly simplifies weed control for farmers, reducing the need for tillage and, in many cases, the amount of herbicide applied. Opponents say that herbicide-resistant traits could migrate from Roundup Ready crops to the wild through wind-borne pollen, creating "superweeds" that would be hard to kill.

There's a grain of truth in these criticisms, because anytime you use herbicides and pesticides, some organisms will develop immunity. That's a fact of life in farming, and there are ways to deal with it, such as rotating crops or using a different herbicide or pesticide. But the problem of pests' developing resistance through natural selection is no greater with GM crops than it is with non-GM ones. As for "superweeds," such hybrids are very rare and far from super. In one widely publicized study, researchers collected 95,000 seeds from wild plants and found exactly two that showed GM-induced herbicide resistance. When the researchers returned to the same field the following year, they found none. As agricultural scientists have long known, random cross-breeding almost never yields offspring that can reproduce, let alone flourish.