The documentary film Food Evolution provides a fresh, scientific look at the technology of crop genetic engineering and some situations it has, or could, help solve problems for farmers. It shows the ugly politics and distortions that have maligned a useful technology that has served farmers well for twenty years, worldwide.
Several
times a year I find myself exiting the Florida’s Turnpike at Yeehaw Junction
and heading south. When I get to the
small town of Okeechobee I take a left and head down Route 98 through Florida’s
extensive agricultural backyard. Flanked
by Lake Okeechobee on the west and the affluent cities of the Atlantic coast off
to the east, the small towns nestled in this sliver of land support vibrant
production of sweet corn, cattle, lettuce, and sugarcane. Cane-derived sugar
ends up in many cupboards as table sugar, and also is found in many consumer
products.
Houston, we have a problem. Well, you have a problem. The Houston Museum of Natural Science (Twitter: @HMNS) is sponsoring an event that slams science, denigrates technology, and gifts its credibility to a non-scientific movement.
Hijacking a Conference's Credibility
If you'd like to lose a few pounds, poke around the Internet and read about food and farming. Within ten minutes you will likely find that all of your favorite fare is poised to kill you, contributing to dozens of maladies from allergies, to autism, to Morgellons's disease, to impotence, to cancer. Is it true? Probably not. Why would people put such things on the web?
Things have been a little intense lately and the little voice in my head keeps begging, "How did I get here?" In other times of quiet introspection the little voice in my head says, "What would you have done differently?"What the heck happened?
How could you destroy someone with
their own words, if their words present no evidence of wrongdoing? It
actually is amazingly simple, and illustrates the danger of limitless access to
personal emails through public records requests. In this post I will show how two writers for a PLoS
One Blog* blatantly
misrepresent content obtained through such a request. This is how scandals are
manufactured from nothing.
In the shadow of Proposition 37's defeat maybe we can have a real conversation. Angry, uninformed discussion based on fear mongering from both sides detracted from a real issue-- how do we provide complete information about food in a manner consistent with science?Throughout the discussion scientists and some corporate officials stated repeatedly that labeling is not the problem-- Proposition 37 was the problem. A potentially complex and expensive bureaucratic web would be created to police foodstuffs that have no inherent dangers. That's just nuts.At this time I think everyone in interested in this issue should coalesce around balancing two concepts in complete fairness-- information and science.
When we think about agriculture, technology and the future there is one apparent truth—we will need to produce more with less. We are going to need to produce more food,with higher quality, closer to urban centers, with fewer agricultural inputs and impacts.
Why Throw-Away Statements Harm the Anti-GMO MovementAs an academic research scientist active at the public interface, I enjoy communicating about complex science topics. With regard to trasngenic (GMO) crops, if you read my blogs, comments left online, or listen to audiences in public discussions, you'll see that they ultimately reach a common point.Someone always indicates that Monsanto is my employer. Like clockwork.
We are currently witnessing the USDA public commentary period on the Arctic Apple, a transgenic apple that does not exhibit browning upon injury or cutting. The anti-browning trait was installed by scientists at Okanagan Specialty Fruits. A copy of the apple gene for polyphenol oxidase (PPO) was overexpressed, which triggers a plant response to silence the over-expressed gene. The same process also suppresses the apple’s endogenous PPO genes. Without this protein, the apple flesh cannot brown.
If you want to scare somebody, convince them that there is a remote chance of danger in their food, water or medicine. Even if there is no evidence to back up the claim, people respond strongly to such information, causing them to abandon safe foods for alternatives. Today this fear factor is being played to influence food policy and politics, as activists realize they can change consumption with distortions of truth and perpetuation of food phobias and food anxiety. Because it works like a charm.The Red Scare of 1976
If you are not a fan of transgenic (GMO) technologies, just wait until you hear about the freakish practices scientists and big seed companies are sneaking under the radar! Now, scientists soak seeds or tissues in toxic chemicals or subject them to high fields of radiation to cause random damage and genetic changes. Random damage to DNA causes unknown effects that produce new proteins, leading to new plant traits. The new plant lines are untested for safety and not assessed for environmental impact. They want to put these on your dinner table and feed them to children!
