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OpEd: Ten good reasons why GMOs are not compatible with organic agriculture
By Jim Riddle Despite fundamental differences in what they represent, there are occasional calls to allow the use of genetic engineering (which produces genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs) within the USDA National Organic Program. GMO varieties are currently most widespread in corn, soybean, canola and cotton crops, in dairy production, and in minor ingredients, such as dairy cultures, used in food processing, but new products are being introduced and commercialized. Here are 10 essential points that I believe show why GMOs are incompatible with organic production: 1. Basic science. Humans have a complex digestive system, populated with flora, fauna, and enzymes that have evolved over millennia to recognize and break down foods found in nature to make nutrients available to feed the human body. GMO crops and foods are comprised of novel genetic constructs which have never before been part of the human diet and may not be recognized by the intestinal system as digestible food, leading to the possible relationship between genetic engineering and a dramatic increase in food allergies, obesity, diabetes, and other food-related diseases, which have all dramatically increased correlated to the introduction of GMO crops and foods. 2. Ecological impact. Organic agriculture is based on the fundamental principle of building and maintaining healthy soil, aquatic, and terrestrial ecosystems. Since the introduction of GMOs, there has been a dramatic decline in the populations of Monarch butterflies, black swallowtails, lacewings, and caddisflies, and there may be a relationship between genetic engineering and colony collapse in honeybees. GMO crops, including toxic Bt corn residues, have been shown to persist in soils and negatively impact soil ecosystems. Genetically modified rBST (recombinant bovine somatrotropin, injected to enhance a cow’s milk output) has documented negative impacts on the health and well being of dairy cattle, which is a direct contradiction to organic livestock requirements. 3. Control vs harmony. Organic agriculture is based on the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the agricultural ecosystem by farming in harmony with nature. Genetic engineering is based on the exact opposite -- an attempt to control nature at its most intimate level - the genetic code, creating organisms that have never previously existed in nature.
5. Transparency. Organic is based on full disclosure, traceability, information sharing, seed saving and public engagement. Commercial genetic engineering is based on secrecy, absence of labeling, and proprietary genetic patents for corporate profits. The "substantial equivalence" regulatory framework has allowed the GMO industry to move forward without the benefit of rigorous, transparent scientific inquiry. The absence of labels has allowed genetically modified products into the U.S. food supply without the public's knowledge or engagement., and without the ability to track public health benefits. 6. Accountability. Organic farmers must comply with NOP requirements and establish buffer zones to protect organic crops from contamination and from contact with prohibited substances, including genetically engineered seeds and pollen. Genetically engineered crops do not respect property lines and cause harm to organic and non-GMO producers through “genetic trespass,” with no required containment or accountability. 7. Unnecessary. It is well established that healthy soils produce healthy crops, healthy animals, and healthy people. Research and development should focus on agricultural methods, including organic, which recycle nutrients to build soil health, producing abundant yields of nutrient dense foods, while protecting environmental resources. To date, recombinant genetic modification has contributed to the development of herbicide-resistant weeds and an increase in the application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, with associated increases in soil erosion and water contamination, while producing foods with lower nutritional content. Technologies, such as genetic engineering, which foster moncropping are not compatible with organic systems, where soil-building crop rotations are required. 8. Genetic diversity. Organic farmers are required to maintain or improve the biological and genetic diversity of their operations. Genetic modification has the exact opposite effect by narrowing the gene pool and is focused on mono-cropping GMO varieties. 9. Not profitable. According to the 2008 Organic Production Survey conducted by the USDA National Ag Statistics Service, organic farmers netted more than $20,000 per farm over expenses, compared to conventional farmers. Use of GMO varieties has lowered the net profit per acre for conventional producers, forcing them to farm more land in order to stay in business. 10. No consumer demand. Consumers are not calling for organic foods to be genetically engineered. In fact, over 275,000 people said “no GMOs in organic,” in response to the first proposed organic rule in 1997. “Organic” is the only federally regulated food label, which prohibits the use of genetic engineering. By genetically engineering organic foods, consumer choice would be eliminated, in the absence of mandatory labeling of all GMO foods. Jim Riddle is an organic farmer who was an organic inspector for 20 years. He was founding chair of the International Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA), served on the National Organic Standards Board from 2001-2006 (chair in 2005-06). He currently works as Organic Outreach Coordinator for the University of Minnesota and has written authoritatively on organic issues many times on this website. The views expressed are those of the author.
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Sceptic convinced, now what?
I was a sceptic about the dire consequences predicted for GM crops, but I am convinced now that every effort must be made to stop their use. The damage to the soil is my number one concern, and the effect it has on selectively favoring weeds and pests by the overuse of chemicals. While it's true that man has been modifying plants for cultivation for hundreds of years, it was never with the intention of spraying chemicals on these plants because of some laboratory modification on the genes. We also need to get away from hybrids, but that is another fight.
So, what is the next step for consumers? Can we force labeling of GM foods? Can we get the word out there about China and the next wave of destruction for the natural order?
Second Response to Riddle
I have written the second part of my response to Jim Riddle's argument that genetically engineered crops are incompatible with Organic agriculture. What I found was that not only did he misrepresent genetic engineering, even more egregiously, he misrepresented organic agriculture as well. I invite people to read and be a part of the discussion.
http://www.biofortified.org/2010/05/ten-bad-reasons/
This is a very useful wrap
This is a very useful wrap up of the philosophy (not or only partially science) underpinning organic farming and consumption.
I wonder though whether the philosophy has been carried through to its logical conclusion. As a matter of fact, conventional plant breeding – typically the artificial or forced mating of two plants followed by selection within the progeny, and also the creation of hybrid varieties through repeated crossings of inbred lines to produce commercial seed – does not meet many of your good reasons either.
I'll use 'conventional' here for want of a better word, and it is my understanding that organic farming does use varieties that are the product of such breeding (even if some of them are decades old).
In particular, conventional breeding, exactly like genetic engineering, is based on “an attempt to control nature at its most intimate level – the genetic code, creating organisms that have never previously existed in nature” (good reason 3).
The degree of tinkering with nature is, of course, variable.
Let me quote at the one end triticale, which European organic farming is quite found of: it is a cross between wheat and rye, something which Mother Nature has been unable to do; it is a man-made species. Most of our crops are man-made to some degree; to the least, Man has selected selected natural variants that would otherwise not have had any chance of surviving in Nature.
At the other end, even the most ordinary cross(es) may fail to pass muster. Some thirty-forty years ago, oil from oilseed rape was accused, particularly in France, of provoking cardiovascular diseases, and the cause was identified as its high content in erucic acid. That fatty acid has been eliminated, particularly by Canadian breeders, and the change was so important that the Canadians invented the word 'canola'. Then, the development of the crop was hampered by the fact that the cake (the residue after oil extraction) contained glucosinolates, which limited its use in animal feeding. Again, conventional plant breeders eliminated the glucosinolates, producing what was once known as “double-zero varieties”.
Many breeding programmes do not have such wide-ranging effects. Yet, despite all the testing, it happens from time to time that they produce unpredicted and unknown outcomes... the hazard of genetic recombination sometimes beats Man's care and cleverness.
So the question becomes whether the gurus of organic farming should not reconsider their philosophy and adopt a more flexible approach, in fact an approach that also preserves the future of organic farming.
Let me illustrate this with an example.
But beforehand, let us overcome here the mantra of genetic engineering having only produced herbicide-resistant (more correctly: tolerant) and Bt varieties. This is by far not true, even today, and we are only at the beginning of these new techniques.
If you go through the specialised literature, you will see that the resistance of wheat to a number of diseases has been improved through painstaking interspecific crossings and selection to restore a good-performing wheat genome. Thus, in 1976, the French INRA (National Agronomic Research Institute) released the variety Roazon with resistance genes to eyespot and yellow and brown rusts from Aegylops ventricosa. I would surmise that this kind manipulation and its outcome are not acceptable to the gurus of organic farming as contravening several of their principles, but never mind : organic farming is very happy to use their products, whether from the first or a later breeding generation. As a matter of fact, a careful choice of the variety to be grown is often the only means available to organic farmers to overcome disease problems.
Now, in future, this kind of genes will be introduced into the genome of our crops through genetic engineering and, once introduced, passed on to other varieties. After a few generations, all or almost all varieties will be marked with the original sin of genetic engineering (in the same way as most current wheat varieties are descended in some way from an interspecific or even intergeneric cross). The current stance on GMOs thus implies that organic farmers are forced today into a straightjacked. For them, the clock of plant breeding and varietal improvement – that is, their crop husbandry options – will be stopped, and even wound back, to, say, 1990.
Response part I
I have written part I of a response to this article by Jim Riddle. I found that his arguments against genetic engineering in organic agriculture apply equally well (if not more so) to plant breeding itself. You know, rubbing two flowers together:
http://www.biofortified.org/2010/05/why-plant-breeding-is-incompatible-w...
Stay tuned for part II...
Keshava Krishi to the rescue
It is unfortunate that India despite having a large number of educated citizens, is allowing the MNCs like Monsanto to dictate what Indian agricultural policy should follow. Indian farmers showed their innovativeness by spraying country liquor on brinjal (aubergine) crops and reaping bumper harvests. Similarly Swami Valmiki Sreenivasa Ayyangarya has developed his own Keshava Krishi formulations out of toxic sludges, and common wastes, weeds. They work like a dream in tea, coffee, pepper, amla (Indian version of gooseberry), chillies, kiwi fruit to name a few. The agro climatic zones where these are cultivated range from the cold Himalayan tracts, hot, dustry planis of Rajasthan, temperate areas in Kanataka, Kerala. Plant diseases show regression, pest attacks get minimized, crops show zero toxic residues. Even the devils land of US agriculture's flat prairies can be tamed and the super weeds brought under control with this methodology. Can the US citizens and Uncle Sam shrug off the corrupting vested interests of US Agribusiness MNCS?
This was also posted as a comment at:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_Food_Angel_or_Devil.php
GM crops
I'd add "messing with evolution" to the list. A New York Times article (May 3, 2010) reported the inevitable evolution of Roundup resistant "superweeds," foretelling the imminent uselessness and long overdue demise of "roundup-ready" GE seeds. Can Bt-resistant bugs be far behind?
Given that industrial agribusiness has violated one of the basic primises of common sense and tossed 90% of its soybean and 70% of its corn and cotton seeds into one (GE) basket, it seems their grandiose promise to "feed the world" with the miracle of GE crops is as empty as the pod of a "terminator-enhanced" soy plant.
By forcing farmers to buy the genetically-identical seeds year after year, Monsanto, Sengenta and others have shelved both the land-wisdom of farmers and the innate biological ingenuity of plants, substituting a very limited bag of tricks produced by men in lab coats as industrial agriculture's only protection for the bulk of our food supply. Meanwhile unwanted plants ("weeds")and voracious bugs ("pests) continue their evolution at full throttle. And now they're starting to overwhelm the feeble GE-armor. As a scientist from Iowa State phrased it, "What we're talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward"--with the wanted crops not allowed to participate.
Meanwhile the genetic diversity so critical in responding to mutations of weeds and pests has been systematically bought up and plundered by the same oligopoly who've pushed their GE seeds and the chemical arsenal needed to complement them.
All of us who eat owe a great debt to the seed savers and organic farmers, and the wiser folk in Europe whose heroic efforts have kept viable at least some alternatives to GE seeds. But keep a watchful eye on China. They're planning full-scale implementation of GE rice and corn domestically--and in their agricultural colonies in Africa. An invitation to global famine.
This article was very
This article was very informative and gave me a lot of information that I needed. I'm a student doing a research project on GMOs and it' s great to find real resources, instead of all of the junk that's out there. Thanks!
GMO's
I agree with you 100%. Let me know if I can help with your research.
In full agreement - Say No to GMO!
I couldn't agree more!
Jim Riddle article on GMO's
All true points, # 1 and #2 alone being decisive. However, nothing is said about the relationship between USDA as the promoter of GMO's, and USDA as the guardian of organics.
NO GMOs
Organic farms are the last bastion against the unregulated use of GMOs in our food supply. GMOs absolutetly CANNOT be allowed in organic farming! Once the genie is out of the bottle, we can't put it back in. Unlike other pollutants and contaminants, this contamination of the gene pool is self-perpetuating.
Excellent Article on GMO Genetic Engineered Crops vs. Organics
Jim, that was an excellent article that you wrote to inform people about the damages caused by GMO Genetic Engineered Crops. I posted your website article at our Anti-GMO /"GMO Free, sans OGM" FLICKR Group website http://www.flickr.com/groups/gmo-free
Please join us on our FLICR group website, if you would like to comment or add to our "Group Discussions" or to our "Photographs".
Thanks very much! Daniel Voglesong, Breitenbrunn, Bavaria, Germany
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