GMOs Exposed

When you go to the grocery store how often do you take notice in the food label?

Do you ever see a “Non GMO” sticker on your food?

Many people in the agriculture industry claim that this sticker is misleading and could be what prevents us from being able to feed our growing population.

13 On Your Side’s Caitlin Slater took to the streets of “The Winter Lettuce Capitol of America,” Yuma, Arizona to see how much people know about GMOs. She found that in fact most people do not really know what GMOs are yet they have a very strong opinion against them.

GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms. Essentially, the process is designed to protect crops from disease and pests. But it’s not a natural process, in turn raising some eyebrows. One expert on GMOs says an advertising scheme might be to blame.

“There is a lot of fear-mongering around it and the science says it’s safe but often competing business interests try to say that it is unsafe and suggest somehow that it’s going to hurt you but in actual fact there is no data to support that and farmers throughout the world are growing these crops because it helps them to produce their crops in a way that protects them from weeds, insects, and disease and so it’s kind of a really sustainable breeding method that’s got a bad rap,” Dr. Van Eenennaam, one of the lead researchers in Genomics and Biotechnology at UC Davis said.

One local farmer in Yuma agrees.

“I think it is all based on fraud,” John Boelts, First Vice President of the Arizona Farm Bureau said. “I think the consumers and the public have been misled with pseudo-science and bad information,” he added.

One person who disagrees with the claims of GMO products is the author of “Going Against GMOs,” Melissa Diane Smith.

“I think long and hard about what books I want to write and I felt that this topic GMOs and the pesticides that go with them is something that has been kept from the American people, something that is vital for them to understand,” Smith explained.

One thing both sides to agree on is the importance for consumers to know what they are consuming.

Let’s take a look at how GMOs are made. For starters, no plastic or syringes is going into your food. Scientists adjust one gene in the crop so that it can better fight off insects or disease. The purpose is similar to the idea of flu shots helping people fight off the flu.

In the desert southwest, we grow three genetically modified crops: Cotton, corn and alfalfa hay.

“GMOs are 100% safe,” Boelts said. “There are over 2,000 peer-reviewed pieces of scientific work done by independent scientists and not one credible piece of science has been done to prove anything otherwise,” he added.

GMOs claim to help increase yields and decrease pesticide use.

“I know you are talking to farmers who have heard the biotech industries spiel about, ‘oh we need these to feed the planet, we need these to increase yield,’ but the research is very sketchy at best and increasing yield is a complex trait,” Smith said. “What they’ve been able to do in genetic modification is take a single trait like herbicide resistance, but they haven’t developed increasing yield,” she said.

Boelts sees things differently.

“If you talk to scientists that are intimately involved with this, if you talk to farmers who use genetically engineered crops and use pesticides there is no question that the use of pesticides and the use of genetic engineering does increase yields, he said. “Everyone airs on the side of caution and so do the companies that develop these products,” Boelts added.

Boelts told 13 On Your Side that the amount of pesticides used on genetically modified crops is very low because the gene replacement takes care of the problem that pesticides were originally used for on conventional crops. He shared that most toxin levels in pesticides are lower than your average household cleaner.

But this idea of what some people call “frankenfruit” is still very unsettling.

One Yuma resident told 13 On Your side that they would purchase something that says “Non GMO” on it over something that has GMOs in it.

“People are inherently uncomfortable with changing a natural food into an unnatural food,” Smith said.

One member at a local gym in Yuma shared their thoughts on GMO foods. “If it’s organic and Non GMO I know i’ll be good and that there is nothing else going into my body beside the food,” he said.

“Going and buying Non-GMO foods or organic foods, it’s not a radical approach at all, it’s simply wanting to get back to the food that our great-grandparents ate,” Smith said.

13 On Your Side asked our local farmer if going back to old farming techniques would be beneficial.

“There is no health benefit to going organic that’s been proven over and over again scientifically and the idea that you are going back to the way it was, well the way it was back then 97% of the population grew food and it was called subsistence farming,” Boelts said. “97% of the population lived on the land and we could all barely scrap out a way to make a go of things and that’s just not the case anymore,” he added.

As we evolve, one agronomist from the University of Arizona believes our food should also evolve.

“We have 7.6 billion people on the planet today and we have a challenge ahead of us and the next generation,” Dr. Jeffrey Silvertooth, the Associate Dean Director for Extension and Economic Development said. “How are we going to feed all of these people?” he added.

As consumers should we look closely at what GMOs are before jumping on what some people say is simply a food trend?

“I sometimes say we are a population of distracted drivers,” Silvertooth said. “We are watching the wrong thing and focusing on the wrong thing when there are real concerns,” he added. “The real thing we should be watching is not the thing we are pointing our attention to,” he said.

Whether you are for or against GMOs or like buying organic food, the choices we make in the food we buy impacts the world we live in. One impact is it forces farmers to plant certain types of crops, whether that be genetically modified crops, organic crops or conventional crops.

“We have a responsibility not only to ourselves but future generations and I’d hate to think that I’m part of a generation that cuts out tools and technologies that prevent future generations from having a sustainable food supply,” Silvertooth said.

“Other people take a different opinion and say they would hate to be a part of a population that develops technologies that harm the future generations and I agree. I don’t want that either. I am a father of four, I have grandchildren. I have a sense of responsibility not only to those two generations but the generations yet to come,” Silvertooth said.

Be sure to read all about the topic of GMOs in Melissa Diane Smith’s book, “Going Against GMOs” or you can find information on GMOAnswers.com or you can reach out to a local farmer in Yuma to find out more information to help you better decide if you want to buy GMO products.