The GMO Debate is not for Us Anymore

An argument for American silence in the global debate over genetic modification.

Anurag Chaurasia penned an illuminating World View article in Nature a few weeks ago that highlights both what it calls for, that India needs home-grown GM food to stop starvation, and what it remains silent on, that is, input from the international community. No matter what your views on the genetically modified food debate (which, in the scientific community at least, is no longer a debate), articles like this point out an uncomfortable truth- it is not, and should not be, the West’s decision to make.

In recent months, the debate over genetic modification has resurfaced with a vengeance. The introduction of the CRISPR-Cas9 biotechnology has driven the discussion, as it has cut the amount of time and effort needed to carry out genetic tweaks (comparatively) to practically nil. Not only is this technology about to redefine biotechnology and medicine as we know it, it is likely to have a significant impact on the farm. Scientists are working on developing more disease-resistant crops and livestock, and even sustainability advocates site CRISPR as a viable path for reversing resistance in insects and weeds. Caribou BioScience, whose founders are also the discoverers of the technology, are currently collaborating with Dupont on drought-resistant strains of corn and wheat, which could make a big splash in Chaurasia’s India.

CRISPR-Cas9 in action

Interestingly, however, this is not at all what Chaurasia is advocating for. He is focused on the fact that India is, in the next 10 years, set to bypass China as the most populous nation in the world and is, as of 2015, experiencing a ‘serious’ hunger problem. He sees GM crops and the high yield potential of modern agriculture as the solution, which have already proven to be successful in India via the uber-successful pest-resistant cotton. The problem with the existing GM technology? The IP (intellectual property) is not Indian, it’s owned by multinational companies, it’s expensive, and it’s rarely optimized for the conditions of specific regions.

Chaurasia calls for “a concerted effort at home to discover and manipulate relevant genes in indigenous organisms and crops.” He sites China as an example of a country that has steadily built a knowledge base in GM food based on domestic discoveries, and despite having significantly less land planted in GM crops, boasts a significantly higher percentage of Chinese developed, tested, and commercialized plants. In light of tremendous funding increases for biotechnology in India’s national budget, Chaurasia argues that “indigenous development needs indigenous research.”

The debates about GM crops in India and the US are different, as the two countries are radically different in almost every way. In the US, much of the current debate is, in fact, not about the safety of GMOs themselves but about labeling them, a measure argued for by food advocates like Michael Pollan but fiercely opposed by the agricultural industry. Farmers and their representatives argue that a label would unfairly prejudice consumers against products based on unverified claims about the purported “dangers” of GMOs. On the other hand, cautious food advocates argue that if there are no dangers, what’s the harm in labeling, as people have a right to know what they’re consuming.

A surprising aside about the labeling issue- the issue has become so foggy in the US that even conscious consumers are confused. For example, a new, third party “Non-GMO” label has appeared on a some foods, angering certified organic producers, who expect consumers to know that certified organic in the US already requires the produce to be non-GMO, and that vice versa, “Non-GMO” does not mean organic. So to many consumers, the only real change that a legally-required GMO label would create is a potential rise in food costs.

In India, as in much of the developing world, the question is not about labels or consumer awareness, it’s about starvation, nutrition, and quality of life. Millions of Indian struggle with hunger, micro-nutrient deficiencies, and the lifetime of health and social issues that can accompany these challenges. And in a world where advances like golden rice (rice modified to increase levels of beta-carotene to help correct Vitamin A deficiencies) has more or less languished on a shelf for the last couple of decades as a result of GMO debates in the West.

A lot of people have chimed in. Bill Gates and Bill Nye (and 88% of scientists) have argued for the human and environmental safety of GM crops, experts at Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Union for Concern Scientists have advocated for caution. The European Union has taken a highly regulated approach that had at one point more or less shut down the trade of GM crops from many parts of the world. The UN required labeling of GMO’s in 2004, and has since supported studies that found GM crops to be “at least as safe as conventional crops”.

Which side of the argument you (or I, or Bill Gates) falls on is irrelevant to Mr. Chaurasia’s argument. Mr. Chaurasia is calling for India to step up and develop it’s own capacity- they have their own scientists, their own consensus, their own hopes and dreams for the future. And the best part is, we don’t have to say or do anything about it. If we so choose, we could be mindful of how our choices impact the world, and make decisions with the global margins in mind.

One way to do that would be to, as we are doing now, encourage food companies to label non-GMO foods (rather than GMO foods), thus using the carrot of a value-added label rather than the stick of regulation to deal with our desire for transparency at home, while avoiding disadvantaging a world of people who are simply struggling to survive. If we do require food labeling (as will be decided in the Senate shortly), we should do so with extreme care, acknowledging that not only do we have a moral duty to the rest of the world to not demonize helpful technologies, but also a legal obligation under the WTO not to impose unduly punitive trade barriers.

It feels like it might be time for us to bow out of the global GMO discussion. The US has been setting trends, guiding global discussion, and exporting our food and agricultural preferences for nearly a century. It would be a mark of our wisdom and our humility to offer our science to the developing world as its people plot their own roadmap to prosperity, and then, with kindness, offer our silence.