Sanet Post, Charles Benbrook
Willie's question re: GE
December 24, 1996

Of course it would be a good thing if genetically engineered crops appeared safe to humans. How could any of us be glad they were unsafe? Willie's question is probing attitudes -- are some people so opposed to genetic engineering (GE) that they hope for evidence of negative impacts (and would greet news of safety with sorrow) in order to advance the cause of opposition to GE, in general.

Society has got to think in relative terms in assessing/managing risks, technological progress, agricultural sustainability. I hope genetic engineering will hasten the day farmers gain the ability to turn worn out, low organic matter soils into disease and weed suppressive soils, and perhaps GE will also help breeders develop plants with heightened immune response capabilities so that, for example, multiple fungicide applications are not required to deal with late blight in potatoes. Compared to today's methods/chemical-based technologies, such applications of GE would clearly be a step forward. This is not to take anything away from the organic farmer, or other producers who have already established healthy soils and cropping systems without the benefit of such GE tools/varieties, but ALL farmers will need new and better varieties and systems to keep ahead of food demand from shrinking soil and water resources, while also improving safety and environmental quality.

Many reasons have been expressed by people on this list for opposing GE. Clearly there is a dark side to GE, as there is to all technology. Dark side, reductionist applications also happen to dominate the first wave of products coming into widespread use. This is a failure of public policy, corporate vision/investment strategies, institutions and the market, not the technology. But it would be a great mistake to dismiss all GE applications, for GE offers great promise in understandign complex system interactions and processes, and will ultimately promote adoption of biologically based production methods. GE tools are providing the first molecular level insights into what is going on beneath the ground in organic and other biological farming systems that seem inexplicably immune to pest attacks, not to mention remarkable efficient in making use of nitrogen and water. Probes developed using GE are starting to characterize the microbial communities that give rise to disease suppressive soils, or the capacity of plant root and vascular systems to fend for themselves in the hostile environs of the soil. These are good things. They may not be of great value to the few farmers already managing their soils in ways that produce healthy crops with minimal reliance on chemicls; but such knowledge, and new tools will be very important to many other farmers who, for whatever reason, have not made the plunge. GE can produce many other postive tools and products, and hopefully all will be fully evaluated by unbiased scientists, reasonably supported to carry out both health and ecological research on their impacts. These will be good things.

Dark side applications of biotech, adverse social consequences, profiteering by monopolistic industries are all bad things, and should be challenged on the basis of the negative, unfair consequences they trigger. But they should not be attacked as unsafe if there is no evidence to support such a conclusion, GE (and organic systems, indeed food itself) should not be held to a standard no technology, and very few farmers can met today re being able to prove irrevocably the absence of ANY adverse impacts and absence of ANY unknowns re risks and long-term impacts; doing so undermines credibility when other, science-based claims are made.

Merry Xmas to all.

chuck