While watching this scene from a packed Manhattan auditorium at the film’s theatrical debut in June, the audience shifted and muttered in discomfort-maybe even in disgust. “We made a contribution to that defense fund.” The two men laugh. “We might be funding your testimony,” Arnold replies. He adds: “I’m whispering in your ear because I’m mic’d.” (Vermont had recently passed a law that would require companies to label GMO foods lawsuits from pro-GMO industry groups followed.) Benbrook’s disclosure meant he was helping defend these labeling laws.
“I’ve been hired as an expert witness by the Vermont defense statute,” Benbrook says. It looks like Benbrook is about to kiss him on the cheek. In the scene, Benbrook leans close to Chris Arnold, the public relations director for Chipotle-a company that has publicly shunned GMOs. He’s just participated in a public debate over GMO technology, and moviegoers know his angle: Benbrook is the author of several influential scientific papers that have been rallying points for pro-organic and anti-GMO folks, including one suggesting pesticide use skyrocketed after the introduction of GMOs, and another claiming organic milk is more nutritious than conventional milk. To learn more about GMOs, please visit the GMO Answers website.Three quarters of the way into Food Evolution, a recent documentary about genetically engineered food, agricultural economist Charles Benbrook glances furtively around a crowded lobby. To not use it is like asking a plant breeder to use an abacus instead of a calculator.” Genetic engineering isn’t going to be the only tool, but it’s a good one. Learn nine things you need to know about GE salmon in this master answer on the GMO Answers website.Īs Sarah Evanega with the Cornell Alliance for Science points out in a Bloomberg news story on the report, “We have to use all the tools that we have at our disposal. Developing this new salmon has required an improved aquaculture system. One way sustainably farmed fish is the genetically engineered salmon that grows more quickly than a conventional salmon, using fewer resources and meeting demand more quickly. Improving aquaculture is one way to help keep natural stocks in the ocean at necessary levels.
The report points out that genetic modification saved the Hawaiian papaya population from a deadly virus, and says it may be able to do the same for potatoes in Uganda, soybeans in Brazil and tomatoes in Florida. The report, co-issued by the World Bank, the UN Development Program and the UN Environment Program, highlights several potential solutions to meet this challenge, and GMO crops and other genetic engineering techniques are key to many of these.
The group warns that we need to accept and adopt new technologies if we are going to produce enough food for this growing population and that GMOs are one technology that will have to be part of the solution. A fresh new report from the World Resources Institute notes that GMOs and genetically modified food are going to be an important tool for feeding a global population that is expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050.