Few food innovations as polarizing as genetic modification

Most of us have been eating foods derived from genetically modified crops for a generation or so, and so far, none of the ills attributed to modern food systems have been traced back to their use.

Except, perhaps our propensity towards overeating.

Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, genetically modified crops have taken over nearly half of the global area sown to soybeans, canola and corn.

The foods from these varieties, which are most often genetically modified to allow farmers to use herbicides that kill weeds but not the crop, are the same as traditional varieties in every measurable way.

However, their use has stabilized or increased production, reduced pest control costs, cut the volumes of herbicides used and increased farm incomes, which in turn has increased the availability of these commodities on global markets. Beyond herbicide tolerance, GM-trait varieties help improve drought tolerance and resist insect pests in the crops farmers grow.

Globally, these traits are estimated to have added nearly six per cent to the value of the four main GM crops: soybeans, maize, canola and cotton. Some of that gain was lost to higher cost of the technology, and farmers have had to contend with unintended consequences such as weeds becoming herbicide-resistant.

But farmers are still further ahead and the food system is more secure.

“In developing countries, the average return was US$5.22 for each extra dollar invested in GM crop seed and in developed countries the average return was $3,” according to an economic analysis published in the journal GM Crops and Food in 2022.

The study assessing the farm income and production impacts of these crops estimated the average farm income gain across all GM crops grown between 1996 and 2020 at about $45 per acre. A disclosure statement attached to the article notes that the research was financed but not influenced by Bayer Crop Science.

The analysis by Graham Brookes, an agricultural economist with PG Economics found 72 per cent of the gains came from production increases while 28 per cent came from cost savings.

Yet even though this technology now has a proven track record and none of the early fears surrounding the so-called “Frankenfoods” have materialized, many consumers, and in fact, entire countries, want nothing to do with it.

Few innovations in food have been so polarizing or as puzzling, with a wide gap remaining between the science and public perceptions of this technology. So much so that companies such as Bayer, which stake their future on the fruits of their investments in research and development, are investing time and resources into understanding why.

The stakes are high. “It takes almost $140 million (USD) and up to 13 years to bring a genetically engineered trait to market,” says a 2024 analysis by Bayer researchers published in the same journal.

Calls for mandatory labelling of foods containing ingredients from modified crops have not had sweeping uptake. The industry fought these proposals on the basis that labels would imply the food is different, when it isn’t.

However, in the absence of proactive labelling, the proportion of new products coming to market voluntarily claiming to be GMO-free has continued to grow.

“The yearly percentage of non-GMO labelled food from all newly released food went from 0.8 per cent in 2005 to 1.8 per cent in 2009 and to 6.23 per cent in 2020,” the analysis says.

There are more than 3,000 verified brands, representing more than 50,000 products that are non-GMO Project-verified and net more than US$26 billion in annual sales in North America, the analysis says.

“Consumer fears and uncertainty around GMOs, largely created through organized mis- and disinformation campaigns, can be shaped into market opportunities such as free-from claims on food labels,” it says.

Farmers and agri-business are quick to condemn environmental and consumer lobbies wanting to ensure these technologies are regulated and without-a-doubt, absolutely, positively, risk-free for fostering irrational fears.

Yet at the same time, some in the food industry are capitalizing on those fears. It becomes a self-sustaining industry of sorts. Fear-based labelling clearly works, but only if marketing perpetuates the fear.

Follow the labels? Trust the science? Consumers get to choose.

Laura Rance is editor emeritus for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com.