Ballot initiatives requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods are being voted on in Oregon and Colorado this election day, fueling the flames of this hotly debated topic in the nutraceuticals and natural product industry.
 
Passionate proponents on both sides of the GMO debate hosted a lively panel at SupplySide West, in Las Vegas, NV. James C. Greenwood, president and CEO, of Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), highlighted the October session as the featured speaker, with panelists Bethany Davis, director of regulatory affairs at MegaFood, and Loren Israelsen, president, United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA), joining in to offer a counter perspective on the use of genetically modified organisms in the world’s food supply.
 
Biotech Benefits
According to Mr. Greenwood, a major role of biotechnology in the food chain is to ensure the world’s food security. With the United Nations forecasting the global population reaching 9.6 billion by 2050, Mr. Greenwood sees genetically modified crops as an important tool in keeping humans fed, suggesting that food production must double to meet this looming demand. “Biotechnology helps companies across the supply chain to meet these goals,” said Mr. Greenwood. “I understand that people have a great interest in the food that they feed their families. I’m a father and a grandfather. But that’s not an excuse to let anti-science, anti-GMO activists distort or misconstrue the role that biotechnology can play in feeding a growing planet.”
 
He went on to state that more than 2,000 studies have found no safety differences between GMO crops, conventional crops or organic crops. “Some studies show that GMO crops can be safer than organics,” he suggested.
 
The process of genetically modifying plants first began with the age-old farming practice of selective breeding, a technique that has been used to alter the DNA and characteristics of plants and animals for tens of thousands of years. While traditional selective breeding takes generations of cross breeding a wild relative that contains a gene or trait that is desired with the crop plant that a farmer is looking to modify, genetic engineering can achieve this same objective more succinctly. “With genetic engineering you can make a copy of the gene you want, and then you incorporate it into the crop plant you’re working with. This is much more precise; you know exactly what it is you’re getting,” while traditional methods have more variable results, Mr. Greenwood said. 
 
Biotechnology, he said, is just the newest technique in the arsenal, which offers a more precise and fast-acting solution for farmers. And the fruit of such a process can help to make plants more nutritionally solvent, hearty and even more resilient against harsh climates or pests, he claimed.
 
One of the key ways biotech is changing food is by creating insect resistant crops. “Plants have evolved to have insecticides, essentially, in their genetic makeup,” Mr. Greenwood stated, explaining that over time the plants without this variation die off, leaving the more resilient vegetation to propagate.
 
“Take for example Bacillus thuringiensis, or ‘BT’—you’ve probably heard of BT corn, BT soy, BT cotton. BT is a globally ubiquitous soil bacterium that occurs in nature, which produces a natural protein that protects crops from a variety of devastating insects. BT bacterium has been applied to crops used by organic farmers for more than a hundred years,” Mr. Greenwood said. “So plant breeders took a tool out of the organic farmers shed, and used genetic engineering to incorporate the BT gene that encodes the protective protein. This means the crops have a built-in defense against some of the most threatening insect enemies.”
 
The use of BT crops has led to increased harvests, he said. Between 1996 and 2012 cotton yields have increased by more than 16%, and corn yield have improved by more than 10%. In addition, proponents of GMOs cite that BT crops reduce the use of chemical insecticides, leading to less ingestion by humans and livestock, and less chemical runoff into rivers and groundwater. Eliminating the use of tractors and farm equipment to spray crops also leads to fewer greenhouse gases in the environment.
 
While the use of genetically modified crops is popular among farmers, in the U.S. there are really only eight biotech crops. “The four major ones are soybeans, cotton, corn and sugar beets. And today more that 93% of corn, 96% of cotton, and 94% of soybeans grown in the United States are biotech crops. We also grow some biotech canola, alfalfa, papaya and squash,” Mr. Greenwood noted. “And globally in 2013, 18 million farmers in 27 countries planted about 400 million acres of biotech crops.”
 
Looking to the future Mr. Greenwood highlighted several up-and-coming innovations that are in the GMO pipeline. Healthier oils, such as DuPont’s Plenish, changes the fatty acids profile of oil made from soybeans, to make it more nutritionally significant and with same characteristics as good olive oil. Another advancement is a purple tomato higher antioxidant content, which scientists derive from blueberries. Mr. Greenwood said that many other new products in the pipeline are designed to address the issues of crop disease and insect infestation. Some of the other scientific advancements include “drought resistant corn, lycopene enriched pineapple, micronutrient and vitamin fortified casaba, and vitamin A enriched Golden Rice.”
 
Anti-GMO Counter Point
Voicing concerns from the natural products industry, Ms. Davis of MegaFood and Mr. Israelsen of the UNPA presented an opposing view of genetically modified ingredients in the food pipeline.
 
Ms. Davis countered Mr. Greenwood’s claim that biotech crops make for a healthier and less chemically tarnished crop, citing glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops as genitive side effects of GMO plants. “A team of researchers from Washington State University demonstrated that the net effect of GMOs has been a net increase in the use of toxic chemicals. So for the first couple of years that some of these GMO crops were planted, specifically corn and soy, we did see a slight decrease in the amount of herbicide needed, and the amount of Roundup [glyphosate] needed to control weeds. And then shortly thereafter, there was a sharp increase in the amount [of herbicides] needed because the weeds also developed the same resistance to the glyphosate.”
 
She added that herbicide use has continued to dramatically increase, with current regulation pending with the EPA as to whether or not farmers will begin using a new chemical combination called “Enlist Duo,” which utilizes Roundup and 2,4-D, a controversial herbicidal ingredient that was used in Agent Orange.
 
Ms. Davis also questioned the assertion that GMO crops lead to a higher crop yield, referencing research published in Nature that found “organic methods showed better water-holding capacity and better water-filtration rates, and produced higher yields than GMO and conventional methods in drought and excessive rainfall conditions.” She added, “So there’s a compelling argument that there is a more environmentally and health-friendly way to get to some of these issues of crop yield and toxicity, without the answer being to change the DNA of the crops that we’re growing.”
 
Ms. Davis added that bee and butterfly populations have been damaged as a result of the use of BT. Further, she questioned whether this protein has a negative effect on humans as well, mentioning preliminary research that suggests that the BT protein may damage the gut flora of humans, therefore impacting immune health.
 
Mr. Israelsen said some of the major concerns within the natural product industry and consumers are economic in nature. “If you patent seeds, and they become the sole property of a company, and if that business model expands, at a certain point farmers will become slaves to a seed company. And ultimately, choice among consumers for individual seeds for their own use becomes limited.” In addition, he said many consumers globally either have a religious or personal mandate to be able to preserve and conserve seeds for future generations. As a result, “the notion of the economic ownership of the plant’s genetic material is very troubling to many people,” he said.
 
Farmers who have chosen not to plant GMO crops are also facing the problem of cross breeding with biotech plants, according to Ms. Davis. “This very powerful technology is becoming transient. The people who are choosing not to use GMO crops are having their crops contaminated, and their organic crops are being compromised. And rather than having that be the responsibility of the biotech industry, these farmers are being sued for stealing the technology.”
 
She concluded, “In the 1970s, when the EPA first evaluated glyphosate, so little of it was going to be used I think that you could make a pretty strong argument that there would be no human health impact and that it was fairly benign. However, with the amount that we’re using now, it needs to be reevaluated under these circumstances. It’s in our water, it’s in our breast milk, and there are new correlations that are starting to emerge about long-term exposure to glyphosate and it may increase several very serious disease states, including autism in children. It’s not conclusive, but there is early evidence that needs to be explored more.”
 
For more information from both sides of the debate, visit www.bio.org and www.nongmoproject.org.