Genetically Modified Foods: Breeding Uncertainty

Genetically modified (GM) crops first appeared commercially in the mid-1990s to what seemed a bright and promising future. Resistant to pests and the herbicides used to control weeds, these new crops were so popular with farmers that millions of acres were planted with them by the turn of the millennium. Today, GM crops are grown commercially by 8.25 million farmers on 200 million acres spread throughout 17 countries, reports the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), an international nonprofit that advocates for the technology. The world’s top five producers—the United States, Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and China—account for 96% of global GM cultivation; of this, more than half is in the United States. Yet these impressive numbers tell only part of the story. Fully as notable as the growth of GM agriculture is the relentless backlash that has developed against it. Although GM supporters insist the technology raises harvest yields, reduces agrochemical use, and will eventually even produce high-nutrition food that can grow in depleted soils, skeptics counter that the risks of GM foods—made with gene splicing methods from biotechnology—are unknown and poorly addressed by current testing methods. They also worry that the spread of GM crops, which are supplied mainly by a handful of multinational companies, fuels corporate ownership of the seed supply and threatens the purity of indigenous crops, with which GM varieties can breed by cross-pollination.