Don't Like Monsanto? Then You Should Be Pro-GMO, Not Anti. Here's Why. [View all]

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Injecting big bad Monsanto fears into public perception of GMO has been a brilliant tactic–the phenomenon is hardly a fluke. With non-GMO and organic industry bigwigs pushing the myth that GMO equals big corporations and bad food trends, it’s no accident that these memes are pervasive, from the blogosphere to mommy groups, and mainstream media to street protests. Take the Organic Consumers Association, an anti-GMO lobby group largely funded by the “natural food” and organic industries. With objectives that include increasing organic market share and achieving a “global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops,” it founded the “Millions Against Monsanto” campaign “to fight back against Monsanto and the other Biotech Bullies.”

In the public psyche, the term GMO has become synonymous with Monsanto and the evils the agricultural company symbolizes. While business practices of massive corporations can and should be questioned, much of why Monsanto is hated is based in myth (for example, the company doesn’t sue farmers for unintentional contamination). I will not defend Monsanto here, but it’s interesting to note that Whole Foods, leading seller of “non-GMO” fare, outdid Monsanto’s revenue in 2015 at just over $15 billion.

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Conflating “GMOs” with Monsanto creates a crude narrative and regulatory quagmire that stifles innovation, discouraging smaller entities from developing and commercializing GE products. As a May 2016 Nature Biotechnology article states:

“Multinational corporate crop developers can bear these high regulatory costs for high value, huge-volume commodity crops, but only as long as global sales are large enough to justify the regulatory expenditures. With development costs so high, researchers in the public sector as well as those at nonprofit organizations and small startup companies rarely have sufficient resources to navigate the complex, expensive and uncertain regulatory approval process.

Under these circumstances, it is difficult to justify the expense of developing GE varieties of lower-market-value products, such as so-called specialty crops—fruits, nuts and vegetables—or (especially) the staple crops grown primarily by subsistence farmers in less developed countries.”

Non-browning Arctic Apples and Innate Potatoes, neither of which are Monsanto products, are poised to hit the market, and will reduce food waste due to brown spots and bruises. But these are the exception and not the rule, due to the burdensome regulatory atmosphere that misinformation and ideology have sown. Gluten-free wheat with the potential to help celiac disease patients, tear-free onions, and bananas resistant to xanthomonas wilt (which is threatening food security in Uganda and eastern Africa) are all among GE plants stuck in purgatory. Remember these the next time you have the urge to utter, “but Monsanto.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/10/25/dont-like-monsanto-then-you-should-be-pro-gmo-not-anti-heres-why/#1b99c80c2d73