Journal or Publishing Institution: Capitalism Nature Socialism
Study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455750902940609
Author(s): Newman, S.A.
Article Type: Journal Publication
Record ID: 1723
Text: Beginning three decades ago scientists learned how to sequence DNA and transfer it from one kind of organism to another. Since that time, claims about the power of the gene to determine and transform the properties of living forms have been unremitting in academic and popular venues. When proposals were first made to improve foods and other crop plants by introducing exogenous genes (experimental transgenesis, a type of genetic engineering), unsurprisingly, questions were raised about the capability of the methods to also induce harmful effects. Scenarios included the impairment of the quality and safety of fruits and vegetables, making them allergenic or toxic to humans and nonhumans who consume them, and the creation of superweeds, which could disrupt wild or farmed ecosystems (1). By 2005, however, when more than 90 percent of the annual soybean crop and 50 percent of the corn crop in the United States had come to be genetically engineered – a transformation in agricultural production that took less than a decade (2) – efforts at regulation that had once made precautionary sense were increasingly portrayed as irrational. A constant stream of article and books by ideological technophiles and recipients of corporate largesse now portray resistance to, and even reservations about, genetically modified (GM) food as scientifically ignorant, economically suicidal, and cruel to the hungry of the world (3). So far, however, virtually all genetic modification of food and fiber crops has focused on the economic aspects of production (i.e., making crops resistant to herbicides and insect damage, increasing transportability and shelf-life) rather than improving nutrition or flavor, goals that have proved more elusive. In addition to introducing biological qualities that enhance production and transport efficiencies (some of which, indeed, are antithetical to improving the eating experience), branding and patenting—i.e., industrial hegemony—have been the major motivation for introducing genetically engineered plant varieties (4)…
Keywords: Sequence DNA, Soybean Crop, Corn Crop, Genetic Modification, GM Products, Monsanto, Herbicide, Roundup, Bt Corn, Soil Ecology, Herbicide-Resistance, Climate Change, Agribusiness, GM Crops, Nature, Bioethics, Genetically Modified Organisms
Citation: Newman, S.A., 2009. Genetically modified foods and the attack on nature. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 20(2), pp.22-31.
