BY JAMIE DUCHARME
THIRTY YEARS AFTER TOMATOES BECAME THE FIRST genetically modified produce sold in the U.S., lots of people remain skeptical of science-ified foods. In a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, just 27% of Americans said they felt genetically modified foods are safe to eat, while 38% said they’re unsafe and 33% weren’t sure.
That’s not only a U.S. phenomenon. In the Philippines, for example, activists have been protesting the production of Golden Rice, a type of genetically modified rice harvested at scale for the first time in 2022. Golden Rice is engineered to contain beta carotene, an addition meant to counter vitamin A deficiency and resulting vision loss. But opponents argue that the rice has not been through adequate testing and that there are safer and healthier ways for people to consume vitamin A.
Golden Rice is only the latest example in a long history of anti-genetically-modified-organism (GMO) sentiment. Protesters have torn up fields where genetically modified crops are planted and marched in the streets against companies that produce GMOs. Much of the concern seems to stem from fears that gene editing could introduce new toxicity into old foods; make foods more allergenic; or lead to disease-causing genetic mutations in humans who eat these altered plants or animals.
The doubts persist even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—which work together to regulate GMOs and make sure they meet food-safety standards—say GMOs are safe. “Technophobia is a very common problem,” says Trey Malone, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas. “It’s this rosy retrospection that assumes that things used to be better back when. That leads to this belief system that creates pushback against GMO foods.”
What many people don’t realize, Malone says, is that humans have tinkered with their food for a long time. Even thousands of years ago, farmers would save the best seeds from their harvests and use them to optimize future yields, sometimes breeding them with other plants to create even more desirable crops in years to come. Modern corn, bananas, apples, and broccoli otherwise wouldn’t exist. Neither would the grain hybrids behind the Green Revolution, which increased crop yields beginning in the early 20th century. Norman Borlaug, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for the millions of lives the hybrids saved, welcomed GMOs, once saying, “All of the things we were doing with convent
