OPINION
Monday, September 14, 2015 5
GM(w)O(e)s
Brad Wall Stirs the Genetically Engineered Pot
nadia aboufariss › opinions editor
R
ecently, the premier of Saskatchewan,
Brad Wall, came out and asked federal leaders to explain their viewpoints on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Mr.
Wall is obviously very concerned about their opinion,
since Saskatchewan relies heavily on many of these
crops, specifically GE canola, for their economy. As
far as I know the candidates have yet to respond, and
I can’t say that I blame them.
Also in recent news, the ever popular fast-food
chain Chipotle has come under fire. After a recent
decision to label their products GMO-free, a class
action lawsuit was brought against in them in
California, claiming that the labelling is inaccurate
because the animals used in their meat products eat
GMO feed.
There are few jurisdictions that require specific
GMO-free labelling. In North America, three states
in the US have enacted legislation that requires labelling, and only Vermont will see this come into effect
in 2016. In Europe, all foods containing more than
0.9% of GMO products must be labelled.
I have been on the fence about GMOs ever since I
heard about them. It doesn’t help that it seems almost
impossible to find unbiased facts. Doing research for
this article led me to a website which claimed to be
unbiased, looking further I realized the website was
created by a United States university known to be
heavily funded by Monsanto. Instances like that are
typical in this area. If there is one thing I can positively say, it is that both sides have distorted a lot of
facts to back up their claims.
My initial reaction to the concept of GMOs was
actually pretty positive. Not only because humans
have been manipulating crops ever since we got our
hands on some seeds, but because the undisputed
facts of climate change lead me to believe that in the
future we might need all the help we can get for food
production. Biotechnology and genetic engineering, as scary as they sound, have the potential for
huge, positive worldwide change. I’m clearly being
an optimist here, but solving world hunger and malnutrition, saving rainforests, lowering emissions; if
we could safely engineer plants (and even meat), we
could possibly save the earth in the most literal sense
of the term.
Of course, on the other hand, we are opening a
door which many rightfully fear. Laboratory modified crops have only been around since the 1970s, and
have only been eaten regularly since 1996. Most scientists seem to
agree that there is
no harm in eating
the heavily tested
a n d a p p rove d
GMO crops as
well as the animals which feed off of them, but forty years is a pretty
short time to get any sense of the long term repercussions. The environmental concerns are certainly more
worrying, and unlike the general scientific consensus
about their edibility, no one really knows what introducing non-natural crops into the environment will
do in the long run. There is also the fact that a lot of
the companies involved in the creation of these crops
come off as at best, somewhat shady