Less Resistance to GMO Crops?

We may be seeing less resistance to genetically-modified crops developing among the sustainability conscious.

Discover Magazine has a little pictorial on “Frankenfoods That Could Feed the World” which include golden rice with vitamin A, purple tomatoes with an antioxidant punch, and multi-vitamin corn on the cob (image from National Academy of Sciences).

Maggie Romuld, who “studies rivers, teaches Earth Sciences at a local college, and writes for a sustainability magazine,” picked up on that little story and wrote about it here on IndyPosted. “While the developed world has the luxury of debating the ethics of GM food, recent crises in Africa have drawn attention to the use of GM food as emergency food aid, and in other countries millions of hungry people wait anxiously for field trials to be approved,” she writes.

She suggests a couple of sources for those who might “need help deciding whether you are for, or against, GM food.” One is FrankenFoods.com, a website dedicated to “Exploring whether Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms are safe for human and animal consumption or if they are a real and present danger to human beings, animals, plant life and the environment.” It’s only a one page website with no information about the authors, but it appears to be pretty objective on the issue - albeit with articles that are a little dated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is taking an active role in the evaluation of GMO foods “on the grounds that public health could benefit enormously from the potential of biotechnology, for example, from an increase in the nutrient content of foods, decreased allergenicity and more efficient food production.” WHO offers some objective answers to 20 questions on GMOs that indicate a desire to get some global consensus on the safety of biotech foods.

With the global population explosion, governments that have actively opposed GMOs may find themselves forced to accept crops that are engineered to be more productive, more nutritious and even offering pharmaceutical benefits. The evolution of less resistance to GMOs may be underway.