An Urban's Rural View

The debate over genetically engineered crops is nothing if not passionate, with both sides viewing the issue in black-and-white terms. To proponents, GE is all gain, to opponents all pain. To both, it's become a matter of ideology.

I tend to perk up, then, when I stumble across an argument cast in shades of gray, like the recent Atlantic.com article titled "What You Need to Know About Genetically Engineered Food" (http://tiny.cc/…). I don't agree with everything in the article, but it strikes me as more credible than much of what I read on the subject. It challenges claims on both sides.

Because the author, Greg Jaffe, is with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, you might suspect the article leans more to the con side. To me -- and I tend to be pro-GE -- it seemed weighted towards the pro side, although I'm not sure the most fervent GE proponents would agree with me.

The article describes and debunks six alleged "myths." You can get a sense of the eclecticism of Jaffe's approach by viewing what he calls myths as a list:

--Myth: "Frankenfoods" made with GE ingredients are harmful to eat.

--Myth: FDA approves GE foods before we eat them.

--Myth: Monsanto and other seed developers are the main beneficiaries of GE crops.

--Myth: GE crops are environmentally sustainable.

--Myth: Mandatory GE labeling would increase consumer choice.

--Myth: GE is the best way to increase farm productivity and reduce world hunger.

Jaffe's explanations are more nuanced than his "myth" pronouncements might suggest. He concedes, for example, that GE seeds offer some environmental benefits. They're offset, in his view, by glyphosate resistance, the refusal of some farmers to follow EPA rules when planting pesticide-producing corn and the use of GE seeds "in vast monoculture fields where crops are not rotated adequately."

To be sustainable, Jaffe writes, all farmers, not just GE-crop farmers, must move in "an organic direction." If by that he means less use of chemicals, as he seems to, I would agree with him. If it can be done without sacrificing yields, so would many farmers. Reducing the need for chemicals is one of GE's aims.

Jaffe's beef with claims that GE crops will solve world hunger is twofold. The seed companies, he complains, aren't putting enough effort into the crops farmers in developing countries need to grow, like cassava. And even if they did, he argues, what would really boost productivity in developing countries are the infrastructure basics: irrigation, roads to get crops to market, that sort of thing.

All that may be true, but it doesn't really address whether conventional or GE seeds would make developing-country farmers more productive once they have the basic infrastructure. And Jaffe himself admits that while the seed companies skimp on poor-country crops research, governments in Brazil and China are taking up the slack.

Citing experience in Europe, Jaffe assumes that a requirement to label GE foods would mean food companies would stop producing them for fear nobody would buy them, with the result that consumers would actually be worse off.

That may be true in Europe, where anti-GE hysteria is mainstream, but it's questionable whether Americans would react the same way. The food industry might be willing to take its chances here. There's talk it's quietly discussing possible labeling schemes with federal authorities rather than face a myriad of conflicting state requirements.

Overall, I agree with a good deal of what Jaffe says. Agree with him or not, though, he has written a dispassionate piece on a passionate topic that's well worth reading.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

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