November 2014 PF...

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Foundation Briefs November 2014 PF Brief

Resolved: On balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms.


Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 2

A Note ................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Definitions............................................................................................................................................................. 13

Genetically Modified Organism. ASF ...................................................................................................... 13 Definition of Benefit AMS ....................................................................................................................... 13

Definition of Harm AMS .......................................................................................................................... 13 EU definition of food. RMF ..................................................................................................................... 14

US FDA definition of food. RMF ............................................................................................................. 15 Dictionary definition of food. RMF .......................................................................................................... 15

History................................................................................................................................................................... 16 A background on GM crops and distribution. DAT ................................................................................. 16

Regulatory standards for GMOs. DAT ..................................................................................................... 17 GMO adoption, country by country. DAT ................................................................................................ 18

Topic Analysis One ............................................................................................................................................... 19 Topic Analysis Two .............................................................................................................................................. 28

Defend Your Source ............................................................................................................................................. 37 Pro Evidence ......................................................................................................................................................... 44

GMOs are Safe .................................................................................................................................................. 45 GMOs are not risker than conventional technology, Fj ............................................................................ 45

GMOs have been backed by multiple credible organizations, Fj ............................................................. 45 Eenennaam and Young study on livestock, Fj .......................................................................................... 46

Meta-studies show that GMOs are safe, Fj ............................................................................................... 46 American Association for Advancement of Science in Favor of GMOs AMS ........................................ 47 Studies have shown GMOs don’t alter their ecosystems. DAT ................................................................ 48

Twenty Years of Studies Verify GMO Safety AMS ................................................................................ 49 GMOs require less pesticide use. ASF ..................................................................................................... 49

Researchers are Focused on Solving World Issues AMS ......................................................................... 50 GMOs Are Safer Than Conventional Produce ............................................................................................. 51

Conventional breeding is more likely to create toxic crops. DAT ........................................................... 51 Genetically Modified Food Do Not Pose More Health Risks than Non-GMO Foods. PSM ................... 52


Affirmation of the Safety of GM Food. PSM ........................................................................................... 53 FDA Affirmed Safety of Bioengineered Foods in the USA. PSM ........................................................... 54

GMO consumption doesn’t lead to allergy development. DAT ............................................................... 55 GMOs can have allergens removed. ASF ................................................................................................. 55

More genetic predictability of GMOs when compared to traditionally bred plants. ASF ........................ 56 GMOs are efficient ........................................................................................................................................... 57

GMOs have increased output, Fj .............................................................................................................. 57 GMOs saved Hawaii’s papaya. ASF ........................................................................................................ 57

More advanced modification can yield adaptive crops. DAT .................................................................. 58 GM fish have increased production and weight for nutritional benefits. ASF ......................................... 59

GMOs increase access to livestock and their by-products. ASF .............................................................. 59 GMOs can integrate medical benefits into food. ASF .............................................................................. 60

GMOs help developing nations ........................................................................................................................ 61 GMOs are already being used extensively, Fj .......................................................................................... 61

Case study: South Africa. DAT ................................................................................................................ 62 Wide-scale implementation of GMO cotton benefits Indian Farmers. ASF ............................................ 63

Iron-enriched GMOs benefit health in developing nations. ASF ............................................................. 63 Benefits to Agricultural Practice AMS ..................................................................................................... 64

GMO cotton helped millions in China. ASF ............................................................................................ 64 GMO crops show net gains for those in South Africa. ASF ..................................................................... 65

GMO crops reap financial gains for US farmers. ASF ............................................................................. 65 More developing nations use GMOs than developed nations. ASF ......................................................... 66

Developing nations make up a larger portion of the GM market than developed nations. ASF .............. 67 GM crops aid the impoverished in developing countries. ASF ................................................................ 67

Golden Rice helps developing nations .......................................................................................................... 68 Golden Rice helps fight blindness. ASF ................................................................................................... 68 One cup of Golden Rice is 50% daily intake of Vitamin A. ASF ............................................................ 68

Golden Rice is not big business, but rather made for public good. ASF .................................................. 69 Impacts of Vitamin A deficiency in Tanzania. ASF ................................................................................. 70

Golden Rice comes at no cost to farmers in developing nations. ASF ..................................................... 70 Golden Rice could have been available sooner if there was less GMO resistance. ASF ......................... 71

Lives saved projection from Golden Rice distribution in India. ASF ...................................................... 72 Golden Rice is a cheaper alternative to current Vitamin-A deficiency response programs. ASF ............ 73


Scuba Rice helps farmers during floods. ...................................................................................................... 74 Floods are devastating to farmers in poverty. ASF ................................................................................... 74

Rice composes major part of South-Asian diets. ASF .............................................................................. 75 Scuba Rice is effective in Bangladesh. ASF ............................................................................................. 75

Anecdotal Scuba Rice efficacy. ASF ........................................................................................................ 76 Social implications for Scuba Rice. ASF .................................................................................................. 77

Unethical Not to Use GM Food to Fight Poverty. PSM ........................................................................... 78 Examples of Beneficial GMOs ......................................................................................................................... 79

Plenish and Pioneer Bring Healthier Tastier Options AMS ..................................................................... 79 GT soybeans in Argentina have led a low-till farming boon. DAT .......................................................... 80

Agricultural production must rapidly increase ................................................................................................. 81 Population growth demands increased production of food, Fj ................................................................. 81

Food Security and Helping Small Farmers Through GM Crops. PSM .................................................... 82 Food security is deteriorating in the developing world. ASF ................................................................... 83

Our progress fighting world hunger has been stunted and we need a new approach. ASF ...................... 83 Traditional breeding is insufficient for the growing population. ASF ...................................................... 84

GM crops have increased in production for the last 17 years. ASF ......................................................... 84 GMO use has increased 100-fold since 1996. ASF .................................................................................. 85

Adaptability of GMOs provides accessible crops for developing nations. ASF ...................................... 85

GMOs grown in developing nations benefit food security. ASF .............................................................. 86 Resistance to GMOs hurts African nations ....................................................................................................... 87

Western resistance to GMOs comes from a privileged economic perspective. ASF ............................... 87 Resistance to GMOs encourages famine in African countries. ASF ........................................................ 88

Denying GMO imports stagnates African economies DAT ..................................................................... 89 Developed nations don’t perceive the benefit of GMOs to the developing world. ASF .......................... 90

GMO cotton has benefitted Indian farmers. ASF ..................................................................................... 91 Economic Impacts of GMOs ............................................................................................................................ 92

The introduction of GM crops boosts employment on manual farms. DAT ............................................ 92 Increasing crop yields decreases global poverty. DAT ............................................................................ 93

The greatest global benefit of GMOs is in developing countries. DAT ................................................... 94 Despite massive gains, GMOs still have unprecedented economic growth potential. DAT .................... 95

Case study: Argentina. DAT ..................................................................................................................... 96 Extra GMO regulations don’t have a negative impact. DAT ................................................................... 97


Specific Economic Benefits of GM Foods ................................................................................................... 98 Pest Resistance Benefits from GM Foods AMS ....................................................................................... 98

Economic Benefits of Herbicide Tolerance AMS .................................................................................... 98 GM Foods are More Resilient AMS ......................................................................................................... 99

Global economic benefit between 1996 and 2011 from GM foods. ASF ................................................ 99 Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT) Benefits ................................................................................. 100

Suicide seeds protect biodiversity. ASF ................................................................................................. 100 Suicide seed benefits medical research. ASF ......................................................................................... 101

GURT benefits developing nations. ASF ............................................................................................... 101 GURT incentivizes progressive market for food. ASF ........................................................................... 102

GURT tech creates adaptable crops. ASF ............................................................................................... 103 Climate Change and GMO Production ........................................................................................................... 104

Climate Change and Role of Biotech Crop. PSM ................................................................................... 104 Climate Change and Food Security: The Role of Biotechnology in Africa. PSM ................................. 105

Climate Change in South Africa and Food Security. PSM ..................................................................... 107 GM Crops, Global Warming, and Carbon Emission. PSM .................................................................... 108

GM Crops and Reduction of Green House Gas. PSM ............................................................................ 109 Food Security and Capricious Weather Conditions. PSM ...................................................................... 110

Value of Salt Resistant Biotech Crop and Its Application to GM. PSM ................................................ 111 Reductions in deforestation from GM food requirements benefits biodiversity. ASF ........................... 112

GM crops mitigate agricultural impact on environment. ASF ............................................................... 113 Current GM crop research is aimed at alleviating water insecurity. ASF .............................................. 113

GM crops benefit soil carbon sequestration and our atmosphere. ASF .................................................. 114 GMO and Alleged Claims of Suicides ........................................................................................................... 115

GM Genocide. PSM ................................................................................................................................ 115 Empirical suicide vs. GMO adoption data. DAT .................................................................................... 116 Farmers’ suicide-inducing debts came from predatory banking practices, not failed crops. DAT ........ 117

GM Food is GM Fuel ...................................................................................................................................... 118 GM sugar increases efficiency of biofuel. ASF ...................................................................................... 118

GM sugar used for energy has a smaller carbon footprint. ASF ............................................................ 118 GM corn for biofuel is under precaution to avoid cross-contamination. ASF ........................................ 119

GMOs made for biofuel are safe for consumption. ASF ........................................................................ 119 GMOs increased ethanol production 8%. ASF ....................................................................................... 120


Con Evidence ...................................................................................................................................................... 121 GMOs may have unintended effects ............................................................................................................... 122

Genetics is incredibly complicated, Fj .................................................................................................... 122 Scientific community still doesn’t completely understand regulatory switches, Fj ............................... 123

GMOs can cause birth defects. ASF ....................................................................................................... 124 GMOs contain Bt toxins. ASF ................................................................................................................ 125

The GMO Gluten-Sensitivity Trigger AMS ........................................................................................... 126 Food Safety Tests Are Inadequate To Protect Public Health AMS ........................................................ 127

Impact of Gluten Sensitivity Trigger AMS ............................................................................................ 128 Genetic Engineering May Provoke Increased Allergies To Soy AMS ................................................... 129

Genetic Engineering Damaged Soy DNA, Creating New (Or More) Allergens AMS .......................... 130 Soy Linked To Peanut Allergies AMS ................................................................................................... 131

GMO corn causes cell damage. ASF ...................................................................................................... 132 GMOs lead to pesticides reproducing inside of us. ASF ........................................................................ 133

GMOs cause digestive issues. ASF ........................................................................................................ 134 Detection of Harmful Chemicals from GM Foods in Animals and Humans AMS ................................ 135

Harms of Glyphosate AMS ..................................................................................................................... 136 Glyphosate Harms AMS ......................................................................................................................... 136

GMOs contain herbicidal chemicals. ASF .............................................................................................. 137 The presence of GMO chemicals increases risk for breast cancer. ASF ................................................ 138

GMOs lead to birth defects. ASF ............................................................................................................ 138 Genetically Engineered Foods May Pose National Health Risk. PSM .................................................. 139

Contamination, Social Fabric, and Pest Resistance. PSM ...................................................................... 140 Case studies: A hard look at GM crops. PSM ........................................................................................ 141

U.S. Farmers Report Widespread GM Crop Contamination. PSM ........................................................ 142 Saving Corn from GMO Contamination. PSM ...................................................................................... 143 Farmers Fight to Save Organic Crops. PSM ........................................................................................... 144

GM is a Liability to the Farmers and Consumers. PSM ......................................................................... 145 Fear of GMO and Potential Contamination in Nearby Fields. PSM ...................................................... 146

Potential Harms to Women and Babies AMS ......................................................................................... 147 Complete Genes Pass from GM Foods to Human Blood ........................................................................... 148

Analysis of 1000 Human Samples Reveals Plant DNA AMS ................................................................ 148 Pro-GMO Research is biased .......................................................................................................................... 149


Scientists are afraid of losing funding, Fj ............................................................................................... 149 Scientific dissent has become demonized, Fj ......................................................................................... 149

Small-scale farmer yield reports used in studies are potentially biased. DAT ....................................... 150 GMOs do not increase yields .......................................................................................................................... 151

Yield Drag, Fj ......................................................................................................................................... 151 GMOs have uncertain benefits, Fj .......................................................................................................... 152

Genetically modified crops are less efficient under typical conditions. DAT ........................................ 152 Study Finds Genetically-Modified Crops Have Forced Farmers To Use Way More Pesticides. PSM .. 153

The Economic and Diplomatic Harms of GMO Trade ................................................................................... 154 American biotech exports harm relations with China. DAT .................................................................. 154

American GM crop farmers are harmed by the volatility of international policies DAT ....................... 155 China Rejects U.S. Hay Exports Because of GM Alfalfa Contamination. PSM .................................... 156

Impact of GM Contamination in the Global Organic Sector of the Economy. PSM ............................. 157 GM Crops Disrupt Global Food Trade. PSM ......................................................................................... 159

The market for GMOs is unresponsive to those living in poverty and excludes them. ASF .................. 160 Tracking GMOs over national boundaries is impossible. DAT ............................................................. 161

Asymmetric GMO regulation makes trade a high risk. DAT ................................................................. 162 The Harms of GMO Donations to Developing Countries .......................................................................... 163

Importing GMO foodstocks puts in developing countries in a high-risk bind. DAT ............................. 163 Decision-making on GMOs in developing countries is inhibited by lack of information. DAT ............ 164

Conflict over GMOs has eroded trust between the United States and African nations. DAT ............... 165 Importing American GMOs jeopardized agricultural trade in African nations. DAT ............................ 166

Farmers should get insurance for GMO crops ............................................................................................ 167 Farmers Worried About GMO Should Get Insurance. PSM .................................................................. 167

Long-Term GMO Harms Often Can’t Be Foreseen ....................................................................................... 168 It’s impossible to verify the safety of a synthetic crop in lab settings. DAT .......................................... 168 Regulatory agencies are too understaffed to study long-term impacts. DAT ......................................... 169

Regulatory Problems ....................................................................................................................................... 170 Governmental bodies are unequipped to deal with increasing numbers of bioproducts. DAT .............. 170

Regulatory financing of GMOs is grossly inefficient DAT .................................................................... 171 Case study: Bt corn. DAT ....................................................................................................................... 172

Some GMOs also can potentially enter the market completely unregulated. DAT ................................ 173 The Harms of GURT ...................................................................................................................................... 174


GURT hurts agrarian stability. ASF ....................................................................................................... 174 GURT has negative spillover effects. ASF ............................................................................................. 175

GURT is bad for the economic standing of developing nations. ASF .................................................... 176 GURT opens the door for higher risk of mutated plants. ASF ............................................................... 177

GURT cuts developing countries out of the market. ASF ...................................................................... 178 Developing countries struggle to maintain production of GMOs in short term. ASF ............................ 179

Genetic Modification Has Superior Alternatives ............................................................................................ 180 Enhanced mutation delivers GM benefits without its regulatory and scientific hurdles. DAT .............. 180

Nuclear treatment is an economic boost and safety net: case studies. DAT ........................................... 181 Mutant breeding has proven effective at achieving the objectives of genetic modification. DAT ........ 182

3D printable food can provide nutritional benefits without hidden chemicals or ingredients. ASF ...... 183 3D printable food greatly reduces our carbon footprint from food production. ASF ............................. 184

Nanotechnology in food can greatly boost nutritional benefits. ASF ..................................................... 184 Nanotechnology associated with 3D printing food reduces food waste. ASF ........................................ 185

GMO pesticide solvency can be replaced with 3D printed nanotechnology. ASF ................................. 185 Proper horticultural methodology can increase crop yields without GMOs. ASF ................................. 186

Invasiveness of Transgenic Plants .................................................................................................................. 187 On invasiveness of transgenic plants: evaluating screening models and their predictions. PSM ........... 187

GM Crop on the Loose: Escaped Populations. PSM .............................................................................. 188 Politics of GMO .............................................................................................................................................. 189

GMO Safety Voted in Oregon. PSM ...................................................................................................... 189 Political Movement Against GMO Food Contamination. PSM ............................................................. 190

The EU political agenda towards GMOs hurts Africa. ASF .................................................................. 191 High regulations hurt GMO development and availability in developing nations. ASF ........................ 192

GMOs Used In Biofuel Harms Global Food Availability .............................................................................. 193 GMOs used in biofuel are not grown for consumption. ASF ................................................................. 193 GMOs for biofuel hurt food availability. ASF........................................................................................ 193

Minimal amounts of GMO crops for biofuel can damage the food market. ASF .................................. 194 GMOs and Environmental Encroachment ...................................................................................................... 195

The introduction of GMOs has re-accelerated deforestation in Latin America. DAT ........................... 195 GM fish are high-risk and difficult to manage. DAT ............................................................................. 196

Pro Counters........................................................................................................................................................ 197 GMOs are not radical ...................................................................................................................................... 198


GMOs are comparable to selective breeding, Fj ..................................................................................... 198 The process of genetic modification happens naturally, Fj .................................................................... 198

GMO products are substantially safer than legal alternatives. DAT ...................................................... 199 Faulty Scientific Studies ................................................................................................................................. 200

Pusztai/Rowett Institute of Scotland study is extremely flawed, Fj ....................................................... 200 Séralini/ University of Caen Lower Normandy study improperly designed, Fj ..................................... 200

Hogan study results could not be replicated, Fj ...................................................................................... 201 Aris and Leblanc study on birth defects used inappropriate methods, Fj ............................................... 201

Aris and Leblanc study on birth defects assumed causation, Fj ............................................................. 202 Aris and Leblanc study on birth defects was misinterpreted, Fj ............................................................. 202

Studies’ safety concerns aren’t legally or scientifically valid barriers to GMOs. DAT ......................... 203 Enough Studies Can Validate GM Foods ....................................................................................................... 204

Huge Bodies of International Research Support Safety of GM Foods AMS ......................................... 204 International Research Body: No Harms from GM Foods AMS ........................................................... 205

Validated Research Body Dispels Allergens/Toxins Argument ................................................................. 206 GMOS Do Not Introduce Unique Allergens AMS ................................................................................. 206

No Substantial Economic Impact from GM Foods ..................................................................................... 207 Huge Body of GMO Food Research Demonstrates No Real Negative Environmental Impact AMS ... 207

Farmers are not impoverished due to GMOs .................................................................................................. 208 Non-unique: Farmers in developing nations become poor through agriculture reform. ASF ................ 208

GMO’s have not caused damage in practice .................................................................................................. 209 GMO’s are standard for consumption in the US. ASF ........................................................................... 209

GMOs fight fungal toxins better than non-GMOs. ASF......................................................................... 210 GMOs’ negative genetic effects occur on a million-year timeline. DAT ............................................... 211

GM Foods Do Not Cause Gastronomical Problems AMS ..................................................................... 212 GM Maize is Harmless ........................................................................................................................... 213 GMOs still require good agricultural practice to properly implement. DAT ......................................... 214

GMOs don’t harm biodiversity ....................................................................................................................... 215 There is no unique harm to biodiversity from GMOs. ASF ................................................................... 215

Herbicides used for GMOs are less harmful to biodiversity. ASF ......................................................... 216 GMOs don’t increase pesticide use ................................................................................................................ 217

Benbrook study fails to account for increased yield, Fj .......................................................................... 217 Benbrook study contradicted by Brookes study, Fj ................................................................................ 217


Answers Defending Golden Rice ................................................................................................................... 218 Pollan’s numbers are misrepresented. ASF ............................................................................................ 218

Ways to Combat GM Food Problems ............................................................................................................. 219 Response to Gene transfer to non-target species AMS ........................................................................... 219

Response to Human health risks AMS ................................................................................................... 220 Vandana Shiva’s Claims Are a Hoax ............................................................................................................. 221

Shiva’s alternatives to Golden Rice are impossible to implement. DAT ............................................... 221 Indian farmer suicide myths (including a prominent documentary) stem from Shiva. DAT ................. 222

Political Shift towards GMOs Benefits Developing Nations ......................................................................... 223 Developed nations are moving away from GMOs while developing nations are growing them. ASF .. 223

Developing nations can implement large-scale GMOs: Brazil. ASF ..................................................... 223 GMOs Help Small Scale Farmers ................................................................................................................... 225

Over 15 million small-scale farmers benefit from GMOs. ASF ............................................................. 225 Con Counters ...................................................................................................................................................... 226

GMOs are radically different .......................................................................................................................... 227 GMOs are not like selective breeding, Fj ............................................................................................... 227

Studies not faulty ............................................................................................................................................ 228 Seralini study was scientifically valid, Fj ............................................................................................... 228

Defense of Seralini Study AMS .............................................................................................................. 228 Problems with GM Studies ............................................................................................................................. 229

Studies Done on GM Foods Not Long-Term Enough AMS .................................................................. 229 Studies may have falsely attributed improved Chinese farmer health to GMOs. DAT ......................... 230

Legitimate Studies Consider GMOs a Long-Term Risk ................................................................................ 231 GMO impact on biodiversity is unpredictable in long-term. ASF .......................................................... 231

Food Security Is Getting Better Now ............................................................................................................. 232 Global food security has increased in the past 20 years. ASF ................................................................ 232 Food insecurity is projected to decrease. ASF ........................................................................................ 232

World hunger is decreasing. ASF ........................................................................................................... 233 Conventional Breeding Can Achieve GMO Benefits ..................................................................................... 234

The same vitamin benefits can be achieved conventionally. ASF .......................................................... 234 Corporations Control Research ....................................................................................................................... 235

Companies have veto power over research, Fj ....................................................................................... 235 Scientists petition for more independence in their research, Fj .............................................................. 236


Anecdotal impacts, Fj ............................................................................................................................. 237 Contentions ......................................................................................................................................................... 238

Pro Case .......................................................................................................................................................... 239 Introduction: ................................................................................................................................................ 239

Contention One: Genetically modified foods are safe. ............................................................................... 239 Contention Two: Genetically modified foods benefit developing countries. ............................................. 240

Contention Three: Genetically modified foods are essential for the future. ............................................... 241 Con Case ......................................................................................................................................................... 242

Introduction: ................................................................................................................................................ 242 Contention One: The opportunity costs ...................................................................................................... 242

Contention Two: GMOs harm global trade ................................................................................................ 243 Contention Three: GMOs are unpredictable ............................................................................................... 243

November 2014 Definitions


A Note The acronyms that you see attached to our taglines (DAT, AMS, ASF), are the initials of our authors.



Definitions Genetically Modified Organism. ASF

Merriam-Webster English Dictionary. “Genetically Modified Organism (gmo)”. Merriam-Webster. 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/genetically%20modified%20organism%20(gmo)

An organism whose genome has been altered in order to favour the expression of desired physiological traits or the output of desired biological products. Genetically modified foods were first approved for human consumption in the United States in 1995. The techniques used to produce genetically modified organisms include cloning and recombinant DNA technology. The primary applications of GMOs are in the areas of agriculture and biomedical research. GMOs offer numerous benefits to society, including increased crop yields and the development of novel therapeutic agents to prevent and treat a wide range of human diseases. Concerns surrounding the use of GMOs include risks posed to human health and the generation of INSECTICIDE-resistant “superbugs.”

Definition of Benefit AMS Merriam-Webster English Dictionary. “Benefit.” Merriam-Webster. 2014.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/benefit Benefit : a good or helpful result or effect

: money that is paid by a company (such as an insurance company) or by a government when someone dies, becomes sick, stops working, etc.

: something extra (such as vacation time or health insurance) that is given by an employer to workers in addition to their regular pay

Definition of Harm AMS Merriam-Webster English Dictionary. “Benefit.” Merriam-Webster. 2014.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harm

harm noun \�härm\

: physical or mental damage or injury : something that causes someone or something to be hurt, broken, made less valuable or successful, etc.



EU definition of food. RMF Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28

January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety. Official Journal L 31 , 01/02/2002 pp. 1 - 24 . Accessed 10/15/14. http://faolex.fao.org/docs/texts/eur34771.doc

Article 2

Definition of "food"

For the purposes of this Regulation, "food" (or "foodstuff") means any substance or product, whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed, intended to be, or reasonably expected to be ingested by humans.

"Food" includes drink, chewing gum and any substance, including water, intentionally incorporated into the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment. It includes water after the point of compliance as defined in Article 6 of Directive 98/83/EC and without prejudice to the requirements of Directives 80/778/EEC and 98/83/EC.

"Food" shall not include:

(a) feed;

(b) live animals unless they are prepared for placing on the market for human consumption;

(c) plants prior to harvesting;

(d) medicinal products within the meaning of Council Directives 65/65/EEC(21) and 92/73/EEC(22);

(e) cosmetics within the meaning of Council Directive 76/768/EEC(23);

(f) tobacco and tobacco products within the meaning of Council Directive 89/622/EEC(24);

(g) narcotic or psychotropic substances within the meaning of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971;

(h) residues and contaminants.



US FDA definition of food. RMF Federal Drug, Food, and Cosmetic Act. SEC. 201. [21 U.S.C. 321] CHAPTER II—

DEFINITIONS 1. 1938. Accessed 10/15/14. < http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Legislation/FederalFoodDrugandCosmeticActFDCAct/FDCActChaptersIandIIShortTitleandDefinitions/ucm086297.htm>

(f) 1 The term "food" means (1) articles used for food or drink for man or other animals, (2) chewing gum, and (3) articles used for components of any such article.

Dictionary definition of food. RMF “Food.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed 10/15/14. http://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/food 1a : material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy; also : such food together with supplementary substances (as minerals, vitamins, and condiments)

1b : inorganic substances absorbed by plants in gaseous form or in water solution

2: nutriment in solid form

3: something that nourishes, sustains, or supplies <food for thought>

We are including these definitions of food because it is possible that you or your opponents will include GM crops that are not traditionally viewed as food (i.e. cotton) or crops that can be used as food but whose use is not animal or human ingestion (i.e. corn for biofuel). The EU definition seems to narrow the debate to objects intended for consumption, which would exclude “non-eating” purposes, whereas the other definitions give more ground by simply stating food is an object which can be used for “eating” purposes.

November 2014 History


History A background on GM crops and distribution. DAT

Adenle, Ademola A. “Are transgenic Crops Safe? GM Agriculture in Africa.” unu.edu. United Nations University. 19 January 2012. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://unu.edu/publications/articles/are-transgenic-crops-safe-gm-agriculture-in-africa.html

In 1996, when GM crops were first officially commercialized, six countries around the world planted a total of 1.7 million hectares of GM crops. By 2010 this had grown to 148 million hectares in 29 countries (of which 19 countries were in the developing world). This 87-fold growth makes GM the fastest growing crop technology adopted in modern agriculture.

Of 15.4 million farmers that planted GM crops in 2010, over 90 percent (14.4 million) were resource-poor farmers in developing countries, including in three African countries: Burkina Faso, South Africa and Egypt. Almost 100,000 farmers in Burkina Faso cultivated GM cotton on 260,000 hectares in 2010 (representing a 126 percent increase from 2009), and GM crops are estimated to have benefited Burkina Faso’s economy by over US$100 million per year.

Similarly, in South Africa, the first and biggest producer of GM crops in Africa, GM technology is reported to have enhanced farm income by US$156 million in the period 1998 to 2006. South Africa is the only African country among the five principal GM-producing countries (along with India, Argentina, Brazil and China), and farmers there planted 63 million hectares of GM crops in 2010 alone.

It’s clear simply from the distribution of GM crops that teams will have to diverge from US-centric perspectives to adequately weigh harms and benefits in this resolution.



Regulatory standards for GMOs. DAT Lynch, Diahanna, and David Vogel. “The Regulation of GMOs in Europe and the United

States: A Case-Study of Contemporary European Regulatory Politics.” cfr.org. Council on Foreign Relations. 5 April 2001. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://www.cfr.org/agricultural-policy/regulation-gmos-europe-united-states-case-study-contemporary-european-regulatory-politics/p8688

Ironically, notwithstanding strong American criticisms of the EU's use of the precautionary principle to prevent or delay the approval of GMOs, "no country has so fully adopted the essence of the precautionary principle in domestic law as the United States."[5] The precautionary principle in American regulation of food safety was enshrined in the Delaney clause to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which banned the use of any food additive if tests revealed that it caused cancer in either laboratory animals or humans on the grounds that such chemicals could cause irreversible harms. [6] The precautionary principle also underlay many American environmental statues enacted during of the 1970s. Both the 1970 Clean Air Amendments and Clear Water Act required the EPA to apply "an adequate margin of safety" in setting emission limits for hazardous pollutants. Regulatory agencies were often not required to wait for scientific proof of harm before establishing standards or imposing restrictions, and in some cases were explicitly prohibited from doing so. The 1997 Clean Air Act Amendments authorized EPA to "assess risk rather than wait for proof or actual harm," before establishing standards. [7] Under the Endangered Species Act, a finding of potential irreversible harm can led to an order to desist all development activities.

A precautionary approach toward risk regulation was also reflected in and reinforced by a number of judicial decisions. In Sierra Club v. Siegler, the Court interpreted the environmental impact requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act as requiring a worst-case analysis on the grounds that it was needed "to assist decision making in the face of scientific uncertainty." [8] In a 1976 Court of Appeals decision upholding EPA's ambient air standard for lead, the court reasoned: "A stature allowing for regulation in the face of danger is, necessarily, a precautionary stature. Regulatory action may be taken before the threatened harm occurs. . . . the statues and common sense demand regulatory action to prevent harm, even if the regulator is less than certain than harm is otherwise inevitable."[9] In Reserve Mining, the Supreme Court permitted EPA to regulate an effluent based on only a "reasonable" or "potential" showing of danger, rather than on the more demanding "probable" finding requested by the industrial plaintiff. In sum, "elements of the precautionary principle (are) firmly entrenched in U.S. environmental law."

The US’s principle echoes a global sentiment (at least in developed countries) of the need for regulation prior to implementation. This is the standard to which GMOs are held: all precautionary measures are applied and considered prior to approval.



GMO adoption, country by country. DAT “Growth Areas.” The Economist. 23 February 2011. Accessed 10/7/2014. Web.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/02/adoption_genetically_modified_crops

As can be seen in our map, GM technology has been enthusiastically embraced in the Americas and in many Asian countries. By contrast, many European countries are subject to severe restrictions on growing GM crops. Developing countries are planting GM crops at a more rapid rate than rich countries. Brazil has added some 10m hectares since 2008 and overtook Argentina as the second-biggest grower in 2010. India, too, increased its area by over 10% last year. The most popular crop is soya, while the most common modification is tolerance to herbicides.

November 2014 Topic Analysis One


Topic Analysis One “On balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms.” Coming from a U.S.-based perspective, this seems like a tightly bound argument: there are clear sides to the debate in the States, with concerns about safety and corporate cronyism facing off against the free agricultural market and increased farm productivity. The great part about this resolution, however, is its lack of constraint. It fails to list any specific criteria to bind our treatment of GMOs (as genetically modified foods will be called here and throughout the brief). Debaters aren’t pigeonholed into looking at only the impacts on consumers, or farmers, or seed companies, or governments, or…well, you get the point. More importantly for debaters looking to get a good baseline on this topic, there is no regional requirement; that is, the resolution fails to list the much-used qualifier “in the United States.” For any PF debater looking to categorically dominate a debate (and be generally well-versed in the topic for rebuttal purposes), this is crucial. It’s easy for teams to consume themselves in evidence solely with United States/North American impacts, if only out of habit.

For this resolution, however, every region is important to understanding the arguments and the impacts behind GMOs. Agriculture is a global market. Genetically modified foods—whether destined for consumers or livestock—pass through nearly every country on the planet. The debate in each region is different, and given regional differences in both the regulation and use of GMOs, so too are the impacts. By taking advantage of a good understanding of the regional dynamics behind GMOs, teams on both sides have a substantially larger wealth of impacts and examples from which to draw. This can be the difference between spending the debate bickering over the minutiae of GMO labeling laws, and leaving opposing teams flat-footed and on the defensive against examples outside their intuitive native understanding of the resolution.

United States

Background It would be understandable for debaters to focus on the United States; the U.S. controls the global GMO market, relative to other countries. In terms of sheer production, the United States grows a plurality of GM (genetically-modified) crops, at about 40%. This number, like all others, is highly variable, especially considering the massive growth rate for GMO production in developing countries. A name that never ceases to dominate GMO-related headlines is Monsanto, and for good reason; the company controls an overwhelming majority of the GMO market, with figures in excess of 90% for certain crops; Monsanto’s lead currently hovers at around 80% for most major strains.

In the United States, the two largest GM (genetically-modified) crops are corn and soybeans. This is due to a combination of subsidy effects and wide use: The United States produces massive excesses of both products,



which is used in the international agriculture trade, and the domestic use of these crops ranges from biofuels to feedstock to the consumer market. The American public is not nearly as divided on GMOs as with most other issues. A recent ABC poll found that 93% of respondents favored GMO labeling (e.g. slapping a big GMO label on anything containing even a single GM ingredient), while only a third believed GMOs to be safe (a majority, 52%, believed them to be unsafe). Of those who supported labeling, most said this would be for the purposes of subsequently avoiding genetically-modified foods. Negative perceptions of GMOs were particularly concentrated among women.

Impacts Opinion data by itself isn’t relevant information to a debate; assuming public opinion to be indicative of overall harms or benefits completely misses the point of evidence-based public forum debate. Where this information comes in handy, however, is reading a judge. In front of a lay judge, Pro teams are initially at a disadvantage. The key is to understand this and mitigate it, which is completely possible. Public misconceptions of GMOs come from myriad sources, but the big ones are inflated stories in traditional media, and the poor reputation of large GMO-producing companies (e.g. Monsanto). By starting off the debate with a short primer on GMO facts, and negating harms prior to discussing benefits and advocacies, Pro teams give themselves more solid footing with judges while allowing themselves to build a forward-minded and positive case. In the United States, the debate over GMOs is contextualized by the United States’ status as a global agricultural superpower and, more generally, the fact that the U.S. is a developed nation. Droughts, while increasingly frequent in the West, do not impact agricultural production to the point that either food, or the ability for end consumers to purchase it, is significantly short. Seasonal weather, e.g. monsoons, also is a not a factor with significant impacts on the average citizen’s livelihood.

Currently, the most prominent debate is over GMO labeling. While most citizens are in favor of a federal mandate to label foods containing GMOs, corresponding legislation currently doesn’t exist. This has left the onus on states, which have zealously taken on the task of drafting their own regulations; Vermont has already passed a labeling law, and states across the country have similar prose on ballots and agendas.

Of course, labeling isn’t by itself relevant to the debate at hand; whether or not a GMO has a label doesn’t change the net harm/benefit that it entails. More important are the reasons behind, and impacts of, labeling legislation. The push for labeling has come from grassroots groups (note that grassroots does not necessarily imply “poorly-funded”) across the country. The premise is that GMOs are potentially harmful for human consumption, which means they ought to be labeled just like the other potential harmful contents of a food product (e.g. trans fat, peanut cross-contamination). Given that most people are of the opinion that GMOs are harmful (or potentially harmful), it’s easy to see why proposed legislation to label them has a groundswell of popular support.

The reservations of pro-label groups and citizens aside, legitimate scientific and regulatory bodies have failed to find any scientific proof to differentiate conventional foods and GMOs with respect to the risks they pose to the typical American consumer. The American Medical Association and has confirmed this consensus. Additionally, it’s well known that GMOs are engineered, tested, and proven to fulfill their objectives: increased pest resistance, increased yield, and increased tolerance to less harmful pesticides. Any new trait introduced



through genetic modification is screened by comparison to equivalent conventional strains to ensure full safety and compliance prior to release to market. It would seem, then, that from an impact standpoint, GMOs score a unanimous victory between their effectiveness and lack of evidence to attest to their negative health impacts.

The side effects of both popular opinion and United States regulatory policies ensure there’s a fair fight for the Con to wage. We first take a look a public opinion. We’ve already established the link between labeling laws and public opinion, but the consequences spread further. Taking Vermont as a test case, the state didn’t simply set up a labeling law; it also set aside millions of dollars in state funding to defend its law from suits. As such, regulation becomes an economic harm that is inherent to GMO legislation in Vermont, and this will likely spread to other states. This doesn’t even touch the cost of initial clearance for a new GMO strain, which can run from $7 to $15 million. Essentially, it takes the resources of a large corporate entity to splice a gene into a crop and be able to sell it on the U.S. market. This can lead to another potential impact: stifling innovation, as only the Monsantos of the world have the financial resources to develop GM products. While GMO implementation virtually guarantees increased yields and lower operating expenses for U.S. farmers and agribusiness, this shouldn’t be convoluted with profit. In fact, one potential impact of GMO adoption is increased economic volatility. Farmers open up to additional sources of risk by selling GMOs on either the domestic and international markets. In both, the issue is of rejection. Given that most consumers support labeling policies to help avoid GMOs, every GMO grower opens up to the risk of another state adopting Vermont-like legislation; GMO labels correlate highly to consumer rejection (see the section on the EU). The international market can have even greater risk and reward. While selling GMO crops on the international market is a potential boon for U.S. growers, inconsistencies in national regulatory policies, and changes to either U.S. policies or importing countries’ regulations, can leave domestic farmers in a bind. This played out last year with China’s sudden rejection of certain GM corn crops, which left American farmers with $3 billion in lost revenue and corresponding extra supply.

Strategy Pragmatism, then, will be a bulwark for Con teams. While judges may be receptive to arguments against the categorical safety of GMO products, the weight of evidence will run counter to such contentions. More importantly, there exists a wealth of unconventional arguments with strong impacts in the United States for Con teams to mine. Many are centered on economics: the combined costs of export volatility and regulatory approval for GMOs is significant, not to mention the increasing supply chain disruptions that look to increasingly occur as more states implement pro-labeling legislation for GMO products. Con teams can also seize on the idea of safety, but in the form of volatility: looking at the United States as a net producer in the GMO industry means that GMOs’ net benefits are only in context of how stable they are; if they are increasingly rejected by both consumers and the international market, they fail to meet the benchmark for a useful economic good. Con teams can systematically address every group involved in agriculture—producers, regulators, and consumers—and develop novel harm-benefit analyses for each.

Pro teams have the preponderance of evidence behind many of the more conventional arguments. The safety point can be made moot with relatively little research, seeing as no legitimate major study has come to a disparate conclusion from the conventional line that GMOs are safe for human consumption. As for economics,



the raw income and yields generated from GMO production—both for the national and international market—should be a solid baseline from which to develop more elaborate arguments.

European Union Background

We’ll keep this much curter largely because the GMO picture in Europe is thematically similar to the one found in the United States and throughout the developed world: low consumer approval, extensive cautionary regulation, stringent requirements for labeling. Granted, we’ve considered the U.S. a nation with rigorous labeling requirements despite only one state implementing such legislation, but this number is virtually guaranteed to rise significantly by the decade’s end. That said, European agricultural regulators run a tighter ship compared to their counterparts across the Atlantic. Both use the cautionary principle when screening GMOs: all potential harms are evaluated relative to acceptable baselines. A GMO cannot be approved for public use if any cautionary criteria are failed—if any one trait of a GMO poses an elevated risk, the product is summarily rejected. Regulation is handled by the European Food Safety Authority, which operates under the auspices of the European Commission. Approval for GMOs is generated in the form of proposals, which are eventually either adopted by the European Commission or reviewed by the Council of Agricultural Ministers and subsequently turfed back to the European Commission. More important is the European Union’s stance on labeling; since 1997, it has been required for any product containing a GMO sold in the EU. For a good idea of what both implementation and impacts for labeling GMOs in the United States would look, Europe is a good place to look. While GMOs run rampant through American consumer selection (upwards of 70% of processed foods in the United States contain a GMO), GMOs are rarely found throughout the European Union. Given the Union’s collectively smaller consumer base, coupled with a strong popular aversion to GM foods, it has become a net negative proposition, economically, to market GMOs in the European Union. As such, low availability and high production/supply chain costs have been married with low consumer adoption and availability in the EU. Impacts

As such, the impacts of GMOs in Europe are largely identical to those found in the United States. It would seem that the largest impacts from the EU come from the territory’s role in the global agricultural market. While foods produced in the EU are unlikely to have negative impacts locally (since they are unlikely to run afoul of other nations’ anti-GMO laws), the EU is also a crucial importer for Sub-Saharan Africa (which we’ll cover in the next section). As such, European policies can wind up posing as roadblocks to African nations which might have chosen the production and reliability of GMOs over potential trade ramification.



Strategies

The main function of the European Union in context of this resolution is to serve as a time-lapse image of the United States, whose policies are still evolving and whose impacts are likely to be larger simply due to the sheer scale of its agricultural economy. The EU’s regulations are 1-2 decades ahead of the United States’ based on current trends; if teams need to extrapolate large impacts in the U.S. from current policies, they can see the theoretical frameworks of those impacts in the EU.

Sub-Saharan Africa Background

Africa is really where the myriad nuances of this resolution all come together. As such, an understanding of the agricultural dynamics here will likely be more important than having a passable understanding of the issues at play in the developed world. Sub-Saharan Africa is often categorized in the West as simply a recipient of Western agricultural sustenance goods. Indeed, the United States and Europe have been instrumental in helping the continent stave off truly horrific blows of famine in this century. That said, there is an interesting import/export duality at play in countries like Zambia, Kenya, etc. Southern Africa is, in fact, a heavy recipient of Western food aid. Countries’ reliance on subsistence farming for both employment and food production leaves them vulnerable to meteorological and climatological shifts (i.e. short- and long-term changes in weather patterns, respectively). The famines of a decade ago were some of the worst ever witnessed, prompting massive attempted influxes of United States food aid. The reason we add “attempted” was a particularly notorious incident revolving around GMOs: several governments, most notably including that of Zambia, categorically rejected U.S. food aid due to the presence of GMOs in the grain supply. An overlooked facet of southern Africa is its role in the global economy as an agricultural importer. In 2011 alone, the region imported $43.6 billion in agricultural goods. To put the numbers in context, southern Africa outspent India—a burgeoning developing country with a comparatively massive population and inefficient agricultural practices—by a total of $16 billion. (Note: the preceding figures are taken from the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.) Keep in mind these figures do not include food aid—this is food purchased and paid for. Another common assumption is that due to both high import figures and the periodic reliance on Western food aid, southern Africa is not an export region, agriculturally. This, too, is inaccurate. In context of food imports and food donations, the United States is the region’s largest supplier. Europe (specifically the European Union), however, is the region’s largest buyer of exports across all industries, ahead of the U.S. and China (the two powers share second place).

Looking solely at food, 40% of the region’s agricultural exports flow to European markets. This includes nuts, fresh-cut flowers (a surprisingly large market), tea, coffee, fruits, and vegetables (data for this section is taken from Euractiv.com’s Special Report on agriculture). At the same time, however, most countries in the region find themselves regularly needing food aid from the aforementioned foreign powers.



Southern Africa finds itself in the clutches of economic disjointedness. While foreign markets provide clear-cut regulations, a steady source of consumers, and the requisite logistics, regional trade in Africa is hampered by protectionist policies, market barriers, and poor coordination. The result is that it’s actually easier for southern African farmers to sell the wares on the European market than the African one. As such, the African market faces a curious duality of increased intercontinental commerce (both import and export) and fractured local food economies. Within the last couple decades, GMOs have slowly wormed their way into this already complex picture; currently, however, South Africa is the only country to have readily adopted GM crops and grown them at an economically significant scale Impacts

The easiest and most intuitive way to analyze the net harm-benefit proposition of GMOs is to break up the agricultural economy of Sub-Saharan Africa into four parts: local supply, foreign aid, import, and export

“Local supply” refers to the ability of southern African farms to generate consistent, sizable yields to meet the demands of local populations regardless of time and weather. The more the local supply component of the region’s agricultural commitment is fulfilled, the less reliance there is on foreign aid and food imports. Speaking purely from the scientifically-validated evidence on GMOs, there ought to be a major impact from implementing GMOs on local supplies. The hallmark of GMOs has been adaptability. This doesn’t just mean increased yields; hardiness can be genetically coded into a crop. Just as flood-resistant rice has the potential to solidify agricultural dependability in Thailand (barring the destruction of crops by locals, as has frequently occurred there), so does drought-resilient grain and maize in Africa. With proper implementation, GMO crops tailored to regional weather and climate conditions should improve locally-generated stocks of essential foodstuffs.

The issue, then, is of implementation. African governments up and down the continent have been notoriously reticent toward the use of GMOs. There is a lingering and widely-held suspicion among legislators that GMOs cause allergies and a myriad of side effects when consumed. Zambia’s 2002 resistance of Western food aid due to the presence of GMOs was no anachronism; the same thing occurred during the 2010 East African famine. Apart from South Africa, there has been across-the-board resistance to implementing GMOs, despite the African scientific community’s repeated claims of GMOs’ safety.

As already demonstrated, the legislative backlash extends to acceptance of food aid in times of famine. Food aid is an annual ritual, varying mostly by country and severity as weather patterns shift across the continent. The problem lies in the disconnect between the governments of donors and recipients; donors like the U.S. to ship cost-effective GMOs by the ton to African nations, while African nations are generally loathe to accept aid in the form of GMOs. While the foodstuffs are crucial to communities’ survival, there is an ancillary harm of violating nations’ sovereignty. If local governments’ regulatory bodies do not clear shipments containing GMOs, it would theoretically be inappropriate for donor nations to deliver GMOs. The problem is compounded by mixing; grain stocks are often a GMO-nonGMO combination. This makes tracking, storage, and regulation for recipient African countries an absolute boondoggle. The biggest concern revolves around planting the donated stocks, which we’ll cover shortly.

The African continent has been a net importer of food since approximately 1980—over 30 years. This hits different countries in different ways, depending on their level of economic development. For countries with vast



oil reserves (e.g. Nigeria) or those with more developed industrial economies (e.g. Mauritius), importing food isn’t a problem; running a net trade deficit for agriculture is trivial if doing so is a better use of funds than allocating land and resources for agricultural purposes.

The problem is that the agricultural trade deficit also affects countries less able to pay their debts. The countries with the lowest level of food security are also typically the ones running the largest deficit. As the bills mount from imports, countries wind up facing a choice between feeding their people and investing in other pressing areas of need.

In theory, this should be a gulf where GMOs are ideally suited. For countries which export goods to African nations, GMOs lower the costs of crop cultivation in terms of pesticides, crop variability, labor, and land use. These savings then should be passed on to African nations, resulting in lower net costs across the board. The reality is hampered, again, by legislative roadblocks. Most African nations have systematic barriers between themselves and widespread GMO adoption. The categorical refusal to import GMOs is a contemporary phenomenon in much of Africa; it’s a situation that is unlikely to see a quick reversal.

As discussed in the background section, however, a trade imbalance is not an indicator of overall exports, which are actually booming (for reasons already discussed). The problem for GMOs here is of implementation. Importing countries are typically stringent against GMOs—note European policies on GMO products—and local governments are loathe to grow them to begin with. Even with a local reversal of policy, reliance on GMOs would likely hurt African agricultural exports; with the EU as its biggest consumer, the continent risks alienating its most prominent market by transitioning to GMOs. This negative impact spreads all the way through the other components of African agriculture. Because the nation cannot export GMOs, it cannot accept them as part of food aid (some of which is planted, rather than simply consumed) and GMO imports cannot clear local trade regulations. Strategies

The debate between Pro and Con in the region, then, appears to be one of potential against pragmatism. The best case for Pro teams is through advocacies, seeing as the GMO infrastructure in southern Africa is underdeveloped. Pro teams have few contemporaneous examples with large impacts due to low adoption across the continent (South Africa is the prominent exception). Making up for this is the sheer potential of the region: between explosive population growth, massive tracts of available land, and the burgeoning GMO and biotech industry in South Africa, the continent is the most prepared to see explosive growth with proper policy implementation. A potential growth model is India, which has capitalized on genetically-modified cotton. While it would be improper for Pro teams to suggest concrete policies, advocacies decreasing the political roadblocks to GMO adoption will help Pro teams demonstrate realistic impacts of genetically modified foods in the region. Pro teams can also potentially weigh the four categories against each other. By prioritizing survival, Pro teams can weight local supply and food aid more heavily than import/export, which would bolster the case for GMO implementation.

As evidenced in the impacts section above, Con teams have substantially less extrapolation in an African context. Across all four categories—food aid, local supply, import, and export—an unconditional pro-GMO advocacy would have harmful impacts across the continent. By properly explaining the predicament of the African agricultural economy and how it ties into a global food trade which is increasingly GMO-averse (at



least as dictated by the EU, a key African ally), Con cases can turn into workable advocacies against further implementation of GMOs, thus strengthening the explicit argument of harms outweighing gains.

China Background

While homegrown (and often state-sponsored) industries typically spring up in areas of Chines interest, GMOs appear to be a rare exception. Particularly striking is the disconnect between popular sentiment and Beijing’s policy directives. Among Chinese citizens, an anti-GMO stance is increasingly linked to patriotism; given that China imports most of its GMOs, which are originally developed by American companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, it is a culturally understandable sentiment. The official line from the Chinese government, however, is bullish on GMOs. The main use cases for genetic modification—corn and soybeans—happen to encompass the bulk of Chinese agricultural imports. The nation is responsible for a third of global soybean consumption, accounting for 65% of world soybean imports.

China’s borders, however, are not a GMO sieve. In a testament to the fractured nature of GMO regulation, Chinese GMO policies do not necessarily align with those of its trading partners. One particularly notorious instance is of the Chinese cutting off U.S. corn exports following the discovery of unapproved GM strains mixed with standard corn shipments.

Impacts Given the nation’s massive role in the global agricultural trade, the impacts of GMOs in China can reflect the product’s future worldwide. While China has rabidly funded local development of alternative GM crops, they have failed to gain traction in the market and have generally been discontinued.

It would seem the largest impact of GMOs in China is security: the nation satisfies a massive demand, at least for widely-used soybeans, by importing American-designed GMOs despite its own citizens’ reservation. The battle in China is reflective of an emerging battle across the world: a generally unaware public with anti-GMO sentiment whose interests conflict with those of a government with primarily economic and logistical concerns. The trade lines up as political capital for agricultural and economic security. This tradeoff is an easy one to make in Communist-ruled China, but teams should be hesitant in applying this example to the West or more volatile regions of the world.

India Despite being a relatively minor player in the GMO conversation, India is being included here based on the likelihood of the region’s inclusion in debates around this topic. The reason India comes up so frequently in the GMO debate is because of Bt cotton, a genetically-modified cotton crop which shares insecticidal genes with similarly-named food products with the same insecticidal and yield-producing qualities. The emerging narrative from the continent has been of farmers’ livelihoods being destroyed (along with a particularly preposterous myth about increased suicides) by the failings of Bt cotton. Given that the seed is



developed by Monsanto, the link in popular media is quickly made to the general harms of GMO food products. In truth, Bt cotton, introduced by Monsanto in 2002, has led to a resurgence in the Indian cotton economy, with the country recently becoming the world’s top exporter of the material. The adoption rate for Bt cotton continues to creep toward 100%, even as the genetically modified seeds sell for 10 times the price of their conventional counterparts.

Teams may find themselves having to spend time shooting down the Indian farmer suicide myth, which is relatively trivial in terms of its evidentiary validity. Additionally, the entire cotton industry is technically off limits to the resolution. That said, however, Pro teams could seize on the introduction of the topic by Con teams to illustrate the glaring disparities between positive real-world impacts and the mythical publicized harms of genetically modified products.

A general primer As is hopefully clear at this point, there is no surefire categorical solution to GMO implementation globally. The key, then, will be for teams to balance regional interests as pragmatically as possible. This requires some nuance: the African GMO benefit-harm balance cannot be extrapolated to Europe or China. The priorities for developed and developing nations can overlap, but are typically different. Both sides will have to combine strong theories and case studies emerging from all over the globe and pair them with pragmatic advocacies. The onus is on each team to present a compelling vision for the worldwide GMO economy (or its restriction).

It is our hope this brief contains enough material from every perspective to tackle the above challenge. It’s certainly doable, and should be a rewarding time. Best of luck!

- DAT

November 2014 Topic Analysis Two


Topic Analysis Two When you first look at this topic, it seems to have a heavy bias towards the affirmative side. On face a lot of research that says GMOs are dangerous are inconclusive, the benefits that GMOs can bring apparently vastly outweigh the harms they can potentially cause, and they’ve been around a fair amount of time without killing us all. Put that all together and it seems the negative has an uphill battle in most of rounds. In this topic analysis I am going to cover both how to maintain the affirmative advantage, and address different weighing mechanisms, strategies, and arguments to at least level the playing field, if not turn the tables holistically.

In my personal opinion, this topic brings a lot of good reason to use legitimately fleshed-out, well-warranted frameworks. The numbers debate on this topic is tenuous, kind of confusing, and doesn’t discuss the big impact issues, except economics (but even the economics debate can be won more on theories of economics and their implications than the numbers debate itself). Setting a value or overarching goal for the round can prove to be beneficial. The problem is that frameworks that are thought out have yet to become a norm in public forum debate. Some teams may find it hard to fully utilize a framework, so before we discuss actual options you have for the topic, let’s go through a brief rundown on how to write and utilize frameworks.

With all the different types of frameworks to set-up they will generally follow one principle rule: set a value, pick a standard to evaluate the links to that value, and justify it. One example would be explaining that promoting economic stability for developing countries is the most important impact in today’s round. The justifications for this importance can range from economic stability of any country being good for global trade to arguing that GMOs carry the greatest potential impact on developing nations, thus how they are impacted matters most. You can provide multiple justifications, which would in fact be a good thing, as it gives more reasons to evaluate your value over alternatives provided in the round. Then you explain how to evaluate impacts that affect your value. Examples in this scenario can be timeframe, because GMOs can have positive impacts in the short run, that are vastly outweighed by permanent lasting damage in the long run. Another example can be magnitude, as GMOs have a much more significant impact in developing nations, both in terms of how many people can be affected by them, and the actual magnitude of the impact economically on the country. From there you can then discuss your contentions. Remember to explicitly establish links back to your framework, saying this is how GMOs cause impact “X”, and when weighing it through our weighing mechanism (i.e. timeframe) it is the biggest impact in the scope of the round.

With all that said and done, lets move onto framework analysis.



Frameworks for the affirmative

Medical implications of GMOs for 3rd world countries

The argument on the contention level here revolves around the actual benefits third world countries can derive from GMOs with access to them. It revolves around two points: direct medical benefits and indirect medical benefits. Direct medical benefits, such as golden rice to help blindness seem pretty straightforward in how they should be argued. In terms of indirect medical benefits, it may be strategic to have an independent contention discussing malnutrition solvency, and have sub-points impacting to indirect medical benefits. This can be a variety of things, depending on what you decide to argue. One line of argumentation can discuss how when people are less worried about food-supplies, they begin to focus more on education as a community, and then read impacts to education and such. Another option can be about affordability of GMOs, and how that frees up cash to go to other funds like medical research. Yet another option you have is that hospitals become less crowded with malnutrition patients, giving more attention to actual diseases in developing nations. But these are suggestions all pertaining to the contention level, and that is left up to your discretion. Let’s move onto framework.

The first thing to note with a case revolving around this premise is that you don’t necessarily need to prove feasibility. This will be the hardest part of the framework to justify, and will probably be a negative team’s biggest response. It is not necessary for you to include a frontline to feasibility. You can engage in the feasibility debate if you prefer, however I see no detriment to including this in your framework.

The way to side-step feasibility arguments is to argue on behalf of the intent and potential of GMOs. If we do not pursue GMOs and help to fund them, we effectively close the door on any shot of these products helping developing nations. In the negative world, we would not see any potential benefit, and would insure the harms they cite would manifest. At least in the world of the affirmative we give potential for GMOs to benefit developing nations, so even if it doesn’t work, we tried.

If you prefer another way to side-step feasibility you can simply say the resolution doesn’t require you to defend implementation, as that would be a plan. The resolution just asks about benefits to GMO foods, and one benefit that can be cited is progress and aid made in developing nations.

Aside from feasibility, we should also discuss values that can be set for these arguments. The most obvious value that we can set is life. Some justifications and weighing mechanisms for life are reversibility (once a life is gone there is no getting it back, so the permanence of the impact inherently outweighs reversible impacts), prerequisites (you must be alive to gain access to any other impacts in the round, therefore it inherently should be prioritized before all other impacts), or magnitude, seeing as the lives impacts in developing nations probably vastly outweighs the number of lives impacted in developed nations.



A second value one can set is the quality of life. Many of the impacts for medical stability in developing nations lead to a sustainable increase in the quality of life. This is accessed through all the impacts addressed above, such as increased access to healthcare and education. To prioritize this above other impacts you can mostly use timeframe and magnitude in conjunction to make this the most important theme in the round. An increased quality of life leads to overall increases of other beneficial impacts. If we increase access to education for example, we further prevent lives in a sustainable fashion in the long-term, thus linking into lives impacts, but you outweigh on magnitude because you will save more lives in the allocated time. This is true of almost any other benefit for similar reasons as that of multiplier effects. If we generate more access to education, healthcare, equality, etc., we generate more sustainable growth quicker, and the rate of growth will inherently outweigh that of a linear lives impact.

Overall, this framework is simple to grasp, utilize, write, and present. It should take no more than 45 seconds to establish in case, and is a very strong way to utilize stock arguments to their maximum potential. I would recommend using the following sections:

GMOs help developing nations

Agricultural production must rapidly increase Economic impacts of GMOs

Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT) Benefits Climate Change and GMO Production

Implications of wide-scale GMOs benefit globally

This framework focuses mostly on stock contentions but gives a wide breadth in the way you can impact everything. It does not necessarily ask the judge to value one impact specifically over another, but rather begs the round to be drawn towards the importance of the “big picture”; the impacts in conjunction.

The resolution asks us to simply weigh the harms of genetically modified food and does not give us a qualitative lens for the round. This leaves debaters with a certain amount of leeway in how they choose to frame the round. An advantageous position for the affirmative to take would be to examine the entirety of the potential of GMO’s and not limit themselves to the status quo. There are multiple justifications for this framework.



The first, and probably most persuasive, is that the GMO market and integration is still in its youth. Though this means we may not definitively know about all the impacts of GMO on a person or group of people on a large scale there have been many predictive studies that generally conclude to the affirmative. Moreover it seems to be a general trend that GMOs are a growing market (i.e. it is about 80% of American consumer foods), and as countries lift bans upon it we can expect to see similar trends. If you want impacts to weigh to justify the framework you can also discuss how the potential benefits on-face significantly outweigh the harms. The potential benefits are stated to be everything from global food security to alleviating poverty, while most of the impacts for the negative show slight medical discomforts such as digestive issues, or in some severe cases death. If you find yourself engaged in the debate where the negative team cites wide-scale death as a potential impact just remember that famine is a guaranteed increase in the death toll, and will only grow in years to come. If we do an impact calculus the negative world would at-best just prolong death if all their studies conclude, while the affirmative has potential to solve for hunger, so the affirmative position is preferable even under the negative lens.

The second and third justifications are slightly more “debate-y”. One justification is that having a holistic view of the round is better for the educational quality of debate because it brings in more issues to the discussion and gives them equal important and weight. Seeing that debate is an educational activity, increasing the educational value would be a good thing to meet the goal of debate. The third justification is that if we only talk about one or two aspects of the topic we severely ignore other important areas in relation to GMO. This is probably the weakest justification however it does not necessarily hurt to throw it in. It is more just a line or two thrown in to say “don’t forget that there are a lot of areas of life affected by GMOs”.

The final and fourth justification for the impacts is pertinent more to how you extend your case and arguments throughout the round. This justification explains that no impact stands alone, meaning everything from the market to the quality of health people get is related and affect each other to some degree. The reason this justification is contingent on how you extend your case is that it requires you to actually discuss and acknowledge how impacts interact. This is a persuasive position to take as it provides the most holistic and realistic view of argumentation in general. It inherently provides logical warrants if you really explain how everything interacts. For example, if you explain that an increase in market stability leads to an increase in the spending power of everybody in a country from the upper to the lower class, then it makes sense to follow that up with an increase in government funding to programs such as welfare and education. Feel free to follow that up with an explanation of how an increase in education can lead to a more politically stable society, which appears to be crucial in many developing nations.

Remember, a framework doesn’t exist just to sound pretty and impressive. You should be sure to know how to utilize and extend a framework effectively. Arguments about the safety and normalcy of GMO’s tend to be relatively defensive. In order to gain access to a lot of impacts I would recommend choosing a diverse set of impacts such as those from an economic contention, a food security contention, and an environmental



contention. We will briefly go through these and then summarize the big picture you should be aiming to achieve.

An effective economics contention discusses economics on both a macro and micro economic level, meaning there should be at least two sub-points. When discussing macro-economic impacts you can refer to the potential for GMOs to close the gap between developing and developed nations. Moreover you can examine the trade markets that have opened up between developing nations as well. It allows for stable long-term trade routes that did not necessarily exist before. On a microeconomic level you should focus more on the jobs counts that get created, and the level of financial gains of GM crops compared to traditional crops for farmers. Note that an increase in yields at the microeconomic level means an increase in government funding for other programs. This argument is a little tangential, and the numbers on it are hard to look up, however, if yields and trade increase that means the government generates more tax revenue off the new trade, thus having more funds to invest back in the people.

Food security is a hot-button issue when discussing GMOs. The key to an effective food-security debate is to not claim full-solvency, but rather claim that GMOs can help the fight. Not many scientists will go as far to say that GM foods will stop world hunger, but many will acknowledge the potential for GM foods to be a massive step in the right direction. Food security is an impact that affects all countries. Every country has its own population that struggle to eat on a daily basis, and today we have many countries that are in states of food emergencies or have experienced famine and natural disaster in recent years. A unique angel to take on the food security debate is situational food security. This refers to the resiliency of GM foods to natural disasters such as droughts and floods. Food security will generally be considered a beneficial thing and should be a relatively straightforward contention impacting to lives and potentially the focus of nations and how they allocate spending (as they now do not need to spend as much on securing harvests).

Finally on the environmental debate, it should be noted that this is probably the least-researched area of the topic. There is plenty of literature that claims benefits and harms to the environment, and thus can be a tricky argument to win. Instead of discussing biodiversity impacts here, it may be safer to aim for global warming impacts. This tends to be less controversial and more conclusive in its scientific research. Also, global warming will tend to outweigh biodiversity because the changing atmosphere makes the biosphere unsustainable, so if we want any sort of biodiversity in the future we should deal with global warming first.

When you put these three categories of impacts you have a very persuasive reason to vote for the affirmative. You have an increase in wages from the first contention, and a small economic impact coming off of the second. This only grows over time because we now are helping the environment, which a) increases our ability to grow crops, b) decreases the long-term amount of spending necessary for the fight against global warming and c) alleviates natural disasters that damage crops and developing countries severely. With an increase in



lives and life expectancy we can expect to see an increase in the population in general which in turn leads to these impacts manifesting again in the next generation.

Frameworks for the negative

The political consequences of GMOs

If you want a case that really levels the playing field from the affirmative bias on the topic I strongly recommend the argument of politics behind GMOs. The politics of GMOs have detrimental impacts of cooperation between countries and can create an even larger disparity between developing and developed nations. The framework here is easy to establish and the impacts undercut the affirmative to a high degree.

The framework functionally states that when discussing the real-world implications of GMOs we cannot look at them in a vacuum. This means that we can’t just look at these scientific studies as a reliable method for how GMO crops will affect the world. Instead we should prefer a picture that includes other factors that affect GMO use and sale. The justification for this is pretty logical. If we are supposed to evaluate the true benefits and detriments to GMO crops then we must only discuss realistic scenarios. If we discussed benefits that were impossible to attain it would unfairly skew the topic in favor of the affirmative, and we wouldn’t even really be able to count those as benefits.

The argument under this framework focuses on the disadvantages that occur due to the debate of GMO safety on a national scale. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the developing world relies on developed countries’ scientific studies in order to determine the safety of GMOs. The different between developed and developing nations in regards to GM crops is that of how important and influential they can be.

Developing nations heavily rely on crops as 1.) a source of food, 2.) one of their largest exports as a nation and 3.) a source of jobs. Crops are central to developing nations and stability. When the developed world publishes studies that are inconclusive and ambiguous about GM crops, developing nations will stay away from GM crops because they will not risk their current, already fragile, state in the international world.

Developed nations need not risk everything when using GMOs because most countries in the developed world have other exports, a service sector, and no struggle to attain food. This makes GMOs a luxury item that developed societies can reject.



The overall effect of this manifestation of GM politics is that a culture of fear surrounding GM foods ultimately sets back developing nations, and actually creates a permanent gap in progress of the two types of societies. The gap actually becomes even bigger because, despite inconclusive research, the developed world still uses GM crops and benefits both in terms of food and in terms of economic gains, thus progressing further, while the developing nations stay stagnant and continue to struggle more each day both financial and in regards to food security. For evidence that carries this message look in the “Politics of GMO” section as well as the “Resistance to GMOs hurts African Nations” section.

The nice thing about this argument is that it actually accepts the affirmatives arguments that GM foods are beneficial. It concedes that GM crops have the potential to change the world, however they are ultimately bad because we have influences the world to restrict acceptance of, and therefore access to, GM crops.

The arguments you can make under this framework to attain this message are pretty flexible. You can run economic gaps on an international level, famine impacts, and health impacts as well. Anything that the affirmative generally tends to claim as a benefit becomes negative ground, unless the affirmative discusses benefits to GM foods that aren’t related to consumption, such as fuel.

You can have an opportunity-cost section of an argument that uses evidence from the affirmative half of the brief by citing the benefits of GM crops that we lose access to. This would require that you absolutely win the framework. It would be an overview for the round that says any benefit to GM crops that science proves we lose access to. This is slightly risky as you can simply claim that throughout the round as you extend the framework and turn the affirmative case in rebuttal. Instead I would recommend independent contentions that cite harms to GMOs due to their implementation.

One persuasive argument that functions independent of politics, but still operates under the “holistic view” framework is that of economics. Both GURT crops and general wide-scale implementation hurts developing nations. GURT crops hurts both the long-term sustainability of GM crops in developing nations as well as further increases the economic gap between developed and developing nations. Moreover the actual trade of GM crops disenfranchises certain trade relations and eliminates certain markets completely from developing nations’ trade partners. This evidence can be found in “The Economic and Diplomatic Harms of GMO Trade” and “The Harms of GURT” sections.

Another option that can be done is actually discussing the fuel agenda and how it impacts food availability. In this case the argument would essentially explain that we use GM crops for fuel and not food due to politics, which overall is bad for food security and hurts developing nations. The link is a little tenuous, as most articles would not openly acknowledge that politics discourse is why we avoid using GM crops for food, however it is still plausible and believable. Regardless of the link, the argument can still be cited as an independent harm. This evidence can be found in the “GMOs Used In Biofuel Harms Global Food Availability” section.



The risk-analysis framework

Quite on the flipside of the previous framework, you can use the logic of the developing nations to justify why GM crops are bad. Essentially due to the large central impacts crops play in developing nations, the lack of conclusive research means we should be hesitant to cite benefits, as we have no clue how everything operates on a large scale. It is dangerous to even discuss GM crops as a group, as opposed to examining each crop on a case-by-case basis instead. The justifications for this are pretty much the narrative that most judges are used to hearing, which usually will work in your favor.

First we can cite that changing markets on a large scale can have negative consequences unless we are 100% certain that the direction we take it in is sustainable in the long-run. At best GM crop studies go back 20-or-so years, and were not really marketed as a mainstream project until even more-recently than that. Second, we have no clue how each independent modification impacts the environment. We cannot cite wide-scale benefits when one crop can literally cause an entire ecosystem to unravel. Finally, we have no idea of any long-term affects of GMOs on health. In modern times we have record cases of allergies and disorders, and that seems to correlate with introduction of GM products into the market. Even if some GM crops are harmless, we, once again, should be evaluating this on a case-by-case basis. Some evidence that may help you can be found in the “Long-Term GMO Harms Often Can’t Be Foreseen” and the “Pro-GMO Research is biased” sections.

This type of framework links into everything you would expect to hear from a stock team at a tournament, but emphasizing the framework can be a real testament as to why stock arguments are so effective. I would recommend more focusing on the potential environmental harms, as they are first, more believable, but second also carry a greater impact. The health detriments, although plentiful and can be believable, are still not particularly detrimental to humanity for the most part. Judges are more likely to vote in favor of a case that can cure blindness as opposed to a case that cites gluten-allergy as a harm. Though with that said, the sheer magnitude of potentially negative health impacts may sway a judge. You can find all this evidence in the “GMOs may have unintended effects” section.

A more potent argument in relation to this style of case is that of the ecosystem. A lot of the evidence throughout the brief discusses how there can spillover effects from GM crops that lead to mutation of other crops, as well as direct harms to the environment and sustainability. There is a lot of evidence in terms of impact analysis that can be independently researched that can actually be a brief in of itself. The evidence you have here does however go a long way to provide you many links to negative impacts to the environment. This argument is convincing because of what every high-school student learns in his or her biology class. They are taught that the slightest change to a biosphere (i.e. soil) can have major ecological changes all the way up the food chain. I’m not recommending going for an extinction impact, but more-so an impact that leans towards questioning the long-term stability of GM crops and how they affect the fertility of the land. Even if the crops themselves can adapt to growing in relatively unfertile land, what does that mean for other creatures that live off the land?



Finally you can top off this case with acknowledging that we are holistically unprepared to regulate and use GMOs on the scale that the affirmative advocates. Partially due to the lack of research on long-term effects, but also because the world isn’t all on the same page and does not have universal standards for GM crops. There are still governments that have independent higher and lower standards for evaluating GM crops, there are more products created than the government body can properly evaluate, and governmental studies get criticized more often than not for being too lenient into researching the actual potentially harmful areas of GM crops. With all that said, it might not be the safest move to sign an affirmative ballot, citing everything as a true benefit.

Conclusion

At the end of the day I still believe the affirmative will have an easier time arguing this topic than the negative, though hopefully I have shed some light as to balancing all of this out. A framework makes the rounds a lot easier, and in general are a positive step for this activity. When utilizing frameworks always remember to extend at least one or two justifications, and reiterate the links from the contentions back to the framework in each speech you give.

This topic has a lot of ground with true and powerful messages about how privileged developed nations are and how we really do have the luxury to choose which discourse we see fit to influence the world, for better or worse. I hope you all explore beyond the briefs you read into different areas of the topic that hasn’t been mentioned yet. Good debaters run cases, great debaters teach the community.

Best of luck to everybody at their tournaments, win your rounds, have fun with your travels, and just remember that if you’re eating, somebody probably messed with the food’s DNA.

- Adam Freilich

November 2014 Defend Your Source


Defend Your Source AATF-Africa

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates and promotes public/private partnerships for the access and delivery of appropriate agricultural technologies for sustainable use by smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) through innovative partnerships and effective stewardship along the entire value chain.

Ademola, Adenle A. Dr. Adenle A. Ademola holds a Bachelor of Science from University of Lagos, Nigeria, MSc in Genetic Manipulation (Biotechnology) from University of Sussex, UK and a PhD in Toxicology from University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Adenle is currently a Research Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Science and Technology for Sustainable Societies (STSS) team, UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS).

Allen, Nick Nick Allen is the Daily Telegraph's US West Coast Correspondent. Nick was previously based in London where he was a member of the award winning team that investigated MPs' expenses. He has also been a crime reporter and covered conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Haiti earthquake and Japan tsunami.

Almendral, Aurora Aurora Almendral is a Philippine-born freelance writer based in New York City. As a Fulbright Scholar to Morocco and Spain, she researched and filmed a documentary on entrepreneurship and illegal immigration in Madrid. She previously worked as a research assistant at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and has written for Filipinas Magazine and New America Media.

Antoniou, Michael Michael Antoniou, PhD, is reader in molecular genetics and head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group, King’s College London School of Medicine, London, UK. His work and experience with genetic engineering is comprehensive, working in the field for almost three decades, making him well placed to highlight the dangers and shortcomings of genetically engineering our crops.



Aris, Aziz. Clinical Research Centre of Sherbrooke University Hospital Centre, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

Azadi, Hossein Dr. Azadi is a senior researcher at the Geography Department of Ghent University. He has broadly been involved in agri-rural and development studies including 36 national and 5 international projects among which he steered 18 projects. Besides, he has published about 70 papers amongst a series of high impact factor journals.

Bullis, Kevin Kevin Bullis is the Senior Editor for Energy at MIT Technology Review magazine, where he has been an editor for seven years.

Celec, Peter Biomed Research and Publishing Group, Bratislava, Slovakia. Institute of Pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia. Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Glass-O’Shea, Brooke Assistant Professor at Haramaya University College of Law. JD from University of Southern California, specializing in writing about policy.

Goeschl, Timo Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.

Goldenberg, Suzanne US environment correspondent for the Guardian.



Ivanic, Maros Maros Ivanic is an economics researcher for the World Bank Group.

James, Clive Clive James is the chair at the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications Board of Directors.

Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas Dr. Kalaitzandonakes is the MSMC Endowed Professor of Agribusiness Strategy at Mizzou. He is also the Director of the Economics Management of Agrobiotechnology Center at the university. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Florida.

KCET KCET is the nation's largest independent public television station. Link Media, an independent non-profit media company that operates the Link TV national satellite network and online international news portal, LinkNews, recently announced a merger to create KCETLink, a powerful new independent public transmedia company that acquires, produces and distributes provocative global programming targeted to a national audience across multiple media platforms.

Keese, Paul

Leblanc, Samuel Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

Li, Jing State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, Institute of Insect Sciences, School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Lombardo, Luca Department of Crop Systems, Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy



Mayer, Amy Amy Mayer joined Harvest Public Media in 2012 and works in Iowa Public Radio’s Ames office. Amy worked as an independent producer for many years and also previously had stints as weekend news host and reporter at WFCR in Amherst, Mass., and as a reporter and host/producer of a weekly call-in health show at KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska. Amy’s work has earned awards from SPJ, the Alaska Press Club and the Massachusetts/Rhode Island AP. She produced the 2011 documentary Peace Corps Voices, which aired in over 160 communities across the country and has written for The New York Times, Boston Globe, Real Simple and other print outlets. Since the spring of 2008, Amy has served on the board of directors of the Association of Independents in Radio. Amy has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from Wellesley College and a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Pollack, Andy Andy Pollack has covered the business and science of biotechnology since 2000.

He joined The Times in 1981, covering computers and telecommunications, after three years at The Dallas Times-Herald. He previously covered technology and other business while based in San Francisco from 1985 to 1992, Tokyo from 1992 to 1997 and Los Angeles from 1997 to 2000. He still works out of the Los Angeles bureau.

A native of Queens, New York, Andy earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Potrykus, Ingo Ingo Potrykus is Professor Emeritus of Plant Sciences at the Institute of Plant Sciences of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich from which he retired in 1999. His research group applied gene technology to contribute to food security in developing countries. Together with Peter Beyer, he is one of the co-inventors of golden rice. In 2014 he was chairman of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board.

Purugganan, Michael Michael D. Purugganan, a Filipino-American biologist and former journalist, is the Dorothy Schiff Professor of Genomics and Professor of Biology at New York University (NYU). Since the summer of 2012, he has served as the Dean for Science of NYU. He is also on the affiliated faculty and the co-director of the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi. Previous to this, he was the associate director of the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology in New York City from 2010 to 2012.



In June 2013, he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and in that same year was also named as the US representative to the Council of Scientists of the Human Frontier Science Program. He also serves on the Biological Sciences Advisory Committee for the US National Science Foundation.

Purugganan is a leading authority on plant molecular evolution and genomics, and has published over 100 research papers. His work encompasses the study of plant transposable element evolution, the diversification of regulatory gene families, evolution of development, molecular population genetics, the domestication of crop species and microbial social evolution.

Purvis, Andrew Andrew Purvis is a journalist. In 2010 he became a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. He is a former bureau chief for Time magazine's Berlin bureau. He was working for Time as early as 1991. Purvis has also written for the Smithsonian magazine.

Qaim, Matin Dr. Matin Qaim has been Professor of International Food Economics and Rural Development at Georg-August-University in Goettingen, Germany. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Bonn.

Sarracino, Francesco Francesco Sarracino is an economist collaborating with STATEC, the national institute of statistics of Luxembourg, the GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and an associate member of the scientific network of the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research – Higher School of Economics, Russia.

Sarracino’s work aims at identifying policies to make economic growth compatible with people's well-being and to pursue a sustainable development. His research focuses on developed and developing countries and is based on within and cross-country empirical evidence.

Simbeye, Finnigan Wa Finnigan wa Simbeye is a Senior Writer with the Daily News in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a member of Forum for African Investigative Reporters. He also works as a correspondent with foreign media houses, and he was a stringer for Voice of America English to Africa Service between 2002 and 2007.



Smith, Jeffrey Jeffrey Smith’s books include: Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating, which is the world’s bestseller on GMOs; andGenetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, which is the authoritative work on GMO health dangers.

An admired keynote speaker , Mr. Smith has lectured in nearly 40 countries, counseled leaders from every continent, and has been quoted by hundreds of media outlets including: The New York Times,Washington Post, BBC World Service, The Independent, Daily Telegraph, New Scientist, The Times (London), Associated Press, Reuters News Service, LA Times, and Time Magazine. Also a popular guest, he appears on influential radio shows and television programs, such as the BBC, NPR, Fox News, Democracy Now, and the Dr. Oz Show.

He is the founding executive director of The Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT), a leading source of GMO health risk information for consumers, policy makers, and healthcare professionals. IRT’s educational programs are driving the tipping point of consumer rejection against GMOs, which is already starting to push genetically engineered ingredients out of the market in the US.

Spady, Tyrone Tyrone Spade is the American Society of Plant Biologists’ Legislative and Public Affairs Director. He earned his B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of New Hampshire while studying visual sensitivity in East African cichlids, a rapidly evolving assemblage of fishes. Wanting to continue to his work on the evolution and genetic architecture of rapidly diversifying systems, he then turned to the domestic dog because of its more robust genomic resources and did his postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While there, Tyrone participated in research focused on the genetic basis of breed defining traits such as dwarfism and coat type, work which resulted in several high profile publications.

Suppan, Steve Suppan is a policy analyst with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He’s held the position since 1994.

Swanson, Timothy Department of Economics, Faculty of Laws and CSERGE, University College London.



Vogel, David Solomon P. Lee Chair in Business Ethics, UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business. International Research Fellow, Oxford University Centre for corporate Reputation.

Zerbe, Noah Noah Zerbe is Professor and Chair of the Department of Politics at Humboldt State University. Prof. Zerbe’s research and teaching interests examine the material and ideational relations that surround the production and consumption of food. His work has focused on the question of regulatory food politics and of the debates that have surrounded agricultural biotechnology.


Pro Evidence

November 2014 Pro: Safe


GMOs are Safe

GMOs are not risker than conventional technology, Fj Pinholster, Ginger. “Statement by the AAAS Board of Directors On Labeling of

Genetically Modified Foods” American Association for The Advancement of Science. October 20, 2012.

The EU, for example, has invested more than €300 million in research on the biosafety of GMOs. Its recent report states: “The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.”

GMOs have been backed by multiple credible organizations, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. Plenty of other credible groups have arrived at the same conclusion. Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a science-based consumer-watchdog group in Washington, D.C., takes pains to note that the center has no official stance, pro or con, with regard to genetically modifying food plants. Yet Jaffe insists the scientific record is clear. “Current GM crops are safe to eat and can be grown safely in the environment,” he says. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences have all unreservedly backed GM crops. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats. Dozens of review studies carried out by academic researchers have backed that view.



Eenennaam and Young study on livestock, Fj Entine, Jon. “The Debate About GMO Safety Is Over , Thanks To A New Trillion-Meal Study”

Forbes. September 17, 2014 Writing in the Journal of Animal Science, in the most comprehensive study of GMOs and food ever conducted, University of California-Davis Department of Animal Science geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam and research assistant Amy E. Young reviewed 29 years of livestock productivity and health data from both before and after the introduction of genetically engineered animal feed. [NOTE: article is behind a paywall until October 1.]

The field data represented more than 100 billion animals covering a period before 1996 when animal feed was 100% non-GMO, and after its introduction when it jumped to 90% and more. The documentation included the records of animals examined pre and post mortem, as ill cattle cannot be approved for meat.

What did they find? That GM feed is safe and nutritionally equivalent to non-GMO feed. There was no indication of any unusual trends in the health of animals since 1996 when GMO crops were first harvested. Considering the size of the dataset, it can reasonably be said that the debate over the impact of GE feed on animal health is closed: there is zero extraordinary impact.

Meta-studies show that GMOs are safe, Fj Entine, Jon. “The Debate About GMO Safety Is Over , Thanks To A New Trillion-Meal Study”

Forbes. September 17, 2014 The findings also comport with long-term GMO feeding laboratory studies. TheGENERA database, found at Biology Fortified online, lists more than three-dozen examples of multi-year studies. A recent review of 24 of these studies by Snell et. al found: “Results…do not suggest any health hazards and, in general, there were no statistically significant differences within parameters observed.”



American Association for Advancement of Science in Favor of GMOs AMS White, Michael. “The Scientific Debate about GM Foods is Over: They’re Safe.”

September 24, 2013. PS Mag. http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/scientific-debate-gm-foods-theyre-safe-66711/

Within the scientific community, the debate over the safety of GM foods is over. The overwhelming conclusion is, in the words of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that “consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.” Major scientific and governmental organizations agree. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences found that “no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population,” and a report issued by the European Commission made the same claim. The World Health Organization has concluded that GM foods “are not likely, nor have been shown, to present risks for human health.”



Studies have shown GMOs don’t alter their ecosystems. DAT “GMOs for African Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.” Academy of Science of

South Africa. aatf-africa.org. July 2010. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://aatf-africa.org/userfiles/GMOs-for-African-Agriculture-ASSAf.pdf

A number of meta-analyses of data, collated from a wide range of non-target studies conducted on Bt crops, mainly from peer-reviewed journals but also from non-peerreviewed reports, and from industry studies conducted to gain regulatory authorisation, were recently published (e.g. Duan et al., 2008; Marvier et al., 2007; Wolfenbarger et al., 2008). These have largely shown the expected lack of effect of Bt proteins on nontarget invertebrates, regardless of whether organisms were categorised taxonomically (order to species) or by ecological functional guilds. However, with the exception of Duan and colleagues (laboratory honeybee studies), the analyses focused on field studies. In an extension to these analyses, Naranjo (2009) added data from 14 more studies (on Bt eggplant and Bt rice) to the cotton, maize and potato analyses from the original study by Wolfenbarger and colleagues (2008). The results from this later enlarged meta-analysis did not indicate any qualitative alteration to the patterns for ecological functional guilds previously observed.

Collectively, the non-target studies performed to date demonstrate that Bt crops do not have any unexpected toxic effects on natural enemy species of agricultural pests, as would be predicted from knowledge of the mode of action and specificity of Bt proteins. Bt crops therefore effectively preserve local populations of various economically important biological control organisms that can be adversely impacted by broad-spectrum chemical insecticides. The only indirect effects on non-target organisms that have been observed with Bt crops are local reductions in the numbers of certain specialist parasitoids whose hosts are the primary targets of Bt crops. Such trophic effects will be associated with any effective pest control technology, whether it be transgenic, chemical or cultural, as well as with natural fluctuations in host populations (Head, 2005).

The studies thus conclude that Bt (GMO) crops effectively preserve beneficial populations more effectively than their conventional counterparts. As a side note, many claims against the results of these studies wind up failing the “would this have happened anyway?” test, something which this card hints at in its final sentences: Bt crops still need maintenance, and this can require chemical treatment. Just because they require chemical treatment does not mean that Bt crops are more dangerous; typically, a conventional alternative crop will require even greater treatment, with more consequences.



Twenty Years of Studies Verify GMO Safety AMS White, Michael. “The Scientific Debate about GM Foods is Over: They’re Safe.”


The scientific literature backs this up. In February, the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published a literature review covering 20 years of safety studies. The authors found “overwhelming evidence” that using biotechnology to genetically modify crops “is less disruptive of crop composition compared with traditional breeding, which itself has a tremendous history of safety.” An overview of safety studies appearing this month in Nature Biotechnology noted that, despite disagreement over a need for more long-term safety studies, both critics and proponents of GMOs agree that so far “genetically modified foods have failed to produce any untoward health effects.”

GMOs require less pesticide use. ASF Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food".

Biomedicie & Pharmacotherapy Vol. 59 pp. 531 - 540. 2005. http://facweb.northseattle.edu/esciara/GMOs/GMO_review.pdf

Roundup Ready soybeans are parts of the “first generation” of biotechnologically derived seeds, which offer farmer benefits such as lower chemical input and reduced farming costs. Other seeds, which are part of this “first generation”, include those with specific pest, disease or virus resistance. For example, papaya-ringspot-virus-resistant papaya has been grown and commercialized in Hawaii since 1996 [5]. There may also be a benefit for the environment, if the use of pesticides will be reduced. For instance, transgenic crop containing insect-resistant genes from Bacillus thuringiensis [Bt] have made it possible to reduce significantly the amount of insecticide applied on cotton in the United States.

This ultimately says that we have a net-positive impact on the environment compared to the status quo as we use less pesticides because it now part of the crop itself.



Researchers are Focused on Solving World Issues AMS White, Michael. “The Scientific Debate about GM Foods is Over: They’re Safe.”


A focus on the risks and benefits of all new crops could move the debate in a direction that would prompt scientists, companies, and regulators to more clearly justify the role GMOs play in our food supply. To date, consumers nervous about GMOs have been given little reason to think that companies like Monsanto are designing GM crops to solve any problem other than the one of patents and profits. As journalist Mark Lynas put it in his rousing defense of GM foods, for most people GMOs are about a “big American corporation with a nasty track record, putting something new and experimental into our food without telling us.”

But many researchers working on GM crops are in fact trying to solve important problems, such as feeding a growing population, keeping food prices affordable worldwide, making healthier fruits and vegetables widely available, confronting the challenging growing conditions of a changing climate, saving Florida’s oranges or Hawaii’s papaya from pests, and fighting malnourishment in the developing world. For many of these problems, genetic engineering is faster, more cost-effective, and more reliable than conventional breeding methods.



GMOs Are Safer Than Conventional Produce This is an easier argument to sell to a lay judge than simply saying “GMOs are safe.” The major premise is simple: every modern society has already implicitly weighed favorably on the harms vs. benefits of conventional food, for obvious reasons. And proving safety compared to conventional products is much simpler and more clear-cut than proving absolute safety.

Conventional breeding is more likely to create toxic crops. DAT Kaskey, Jack. “Mutant Crops Drive BASF Sales Where Monsanto Denied: Commodities.”

Bloomberg. 13 November 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/mutant-crops-drive-basf-sales-where-monsanto-denied-commodities.html

Still, for some scientists there’s a clear distinction between mutagenesis and creating GMOs. The latter are more likely to be safe because regulators require breeders to document why any new proteins won’t cause health problems such as allergies, said Alan McHughen, a molecular geneticist at the University of California in Riverside.

Breeders who avoid genetic modification are simply trusted to rid their new plants of any hazards. That doesn’t always happen: Varieties of conventionally bred potatoes, celery and squash have been pulled from the market after breeders accidentally increased levels of naturally occurring toxins.

Whatever the risk borne by mutation breeding, it has a “microscopic” chance of creating a health hazard compared with the possibility of getting a food-borne illness such as salmonella, according to Wayne Parrott, professor of crop science at the University of Georgia in Athens.

“There are always unintended changes, but what we are worried about is hazardous unintended changes, and the probability of that is very, very low,” Parrott said by phone.

The NAS and other science groups have urged the U.S. to adopt a system more like Canada, where novel food traits are examined for safety regardless of the method used to create them. In the U.S., where only GMOs are required to pass through an approval process, the Department of Agriculture issued a memo this year verifying crops created through mutagenesis as acceptable even for organic farming.

“Any GMO on the market today is safer than anything that hasn’t gone through that safety regulatory step,” McHughen, a member of the National Academies who helped write the 2004 report, said by phone.

Mutagenesis is the process of bombing crops with radiation to induce mutation, and selecting the most favorable mutations—it essentially speeds up the classic breeding process. The most important point is one of relativism; if we hold GMO crops to the same standard as conventional ones, they are almost guaranteed to be safer.



Genetically Modified Food Do Not Pose More Health Risks than Non-GMO Foods. PSM Haspel, Tamar. "Genetically modified foods: What is and isn’t true." Washington Post, 15

10 2013. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/genetically-modified-foods-what-is-and-isnt-true/2013/10/15/40e4fd58-3132-11e3-8627-c5d7de0a046b_story.html>.

To figure out how we all might make better decisions about charged issues, I talked with James Hammitt, director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and a professor of economics and decision sciences. “Risks that are uncertain and dreaded tend to be more feared,” he said. GMOs are relatively new, poorly understood by many consumers, and in violation of our sense that food should be natural. Not only are those risks uncertain and dreaded, they’re visited on people trying to feed their families healthfully and safely while the benefits accrue to farmers and biotech companies.

The National Academies, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the Royal Society and the European Commission are all on the same side. Although it’s impossible to prove anything absolutely safe, and all of those groups warn that vigilance on GMOs and health is vital, they all agree that there’s no evidence that it’s dangerous to eat genetically modified foods. Even the Center for Science in the Public Interest is on board, and it has never been accused of being sanguine about food risks.

Science-oriented publications including Nature and Scientific American have taken a hard look at safety and also concluded there’s no evidence that GMOs are bad for us. Nathanael Johnson, who’s doing yeoman’s fact-finding work at Grist.org, concurs.

Joining Earth Open Source and the Union of Concerned Scientists are the Non-GMO Project, the Center for Food Safety, the Institute for Responsible Technology, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine and GMWatch.



Affirmation of the Safety of GM Food. PSM

Wendel, JoAnna. "With 2000 global studies affirming safety, GM foods among most analyzed subjects in science." . Genetic Literacy Project, 8 10 2013. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/10/08/with-2000-global-studies-confirming-safety-gm-foods-among-most-analyzed-subject-in-science/>.

A popular weapon used by those critical of agricultural biotechnology is to claim that there has been little to no evaluation of the safety of GM crops and there is no scientific consensus on this issue.

Still the claim that GMOs are ‘understudied’—the meme represented in the quotes highlighted at the beginning of this article—has become a staple of anti-GMO critics, especially activist journalists. In response to what they believed was an information gap, a team of Italian scientists cataloged and analyzed 1783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods—a staggering number.

The researchers couldn’t find a single credible example demonstrating that GM foods pose any harm to humans or animals. “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops,” the scientists concluded.

The research review, published in Critical Reviews in Biotechnology in September, spanned only the last decade—from 2002 to 2012—which represents only about a third of the lifetime of GM technology.

One of the fastest growing areas of research is in gene flow, the potential for genes from GM crops to be found—“contaminate” in the parlance of activists—in non-GM crops in neighboring fields. Nicolia and his colleagues report that this has been observed, and scientists have been studying ways to reduce this risk with different strategies such as isolation distances and post-harvest practices. The review notes that gene flow is not unique to GM technology and is commonly seen in wild plants and non-GM crops.

These 1783 studies are expected to be merged into the public database known asGENERA (Genetic Engineering Risk Atlas) being built by Biofortified, an independent non-profit website. Officially launched in 2012, GENERA includes peer-reviewed journal articles from different aspects of GM research, including basic genetics, feeding studies, environmental impact and nutritional impact. GENERA has more than 650 studies listed so far, many of which also show up in the new database. When merged, there should be well over 2000 GMO related studies, a sizable percentage—as many as 1000—that have been independently executed by independent scientists.



FDA Affirmed Safety of Bioengineered Foods in the USA. PSM Brackett, Robert. "Bioengineered Foods." . U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 14 06

2005. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/testimony/ucm112927.htm>.

First, let me state that FDA is confident that the bioengineered foods on the United States market today are as safe as their conventional counterparts. This conclusion has been echoed in recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Government Accountability Office, and most recently in a 2004 report from NAS’s National Research Council and Institute of Medicine entitled, “Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects.” Over the last ten years, FDA has reviewed the data on more than 60 bioengineered food products, ranging from herbicide resistant soybeans to a modified canola oil. To date, the evidence shows that these foods are as safe as their conventional counterparts.

In a 1992 policy statement on bioengineered foods, FDA announced that the Agency was “not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or material way, or that, as a class, foods developed by the new techniques present any different or greater safety concern than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.” This 1992 statement and its scientific underpinnings still reflect FDA’s thinking about bioengineered foods.

This is an important improvement over traditional breeding. Any genetic modification technique, including both traditional methods and bioengineering, could change the composition of a food in a manner relevant to food safety. But because of the increased precision offered by the bioengineered methods, the risk of inadvertently introducing detrimental traits is actually likely to be lessened. Bioengineering does expand the range of new proteins and other substances that can be introduced into plants. However, the agencies have well-established procedures for determining the safety of such new substances.

Developers of bioengineered foods analyze the composition of the foods from their new crop varieties to ensure that they do not market foods whose composition differs from conventionally-derived counterparts.

It is important to note that the kinds of food safety testing typically conducted by developers of a bioengineered food crop to ensure that their foods meet all applicable requirements of the FD&C Act address these potential concerns.



GMO consumption doesn’t lead to allergy development. DAT Adenle, Ademola A. “Response to issues on GM agriculture in Africa: Are transgenic

crops safe?” biomedcentral.com BioMed Central Ltd. 8 October 2011. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/4/388#

It should be noted that eating conventional foods is not risk free as they are known to contain allergies. For example, there was no known allergy when kiwifruit were introduced into the European and United States markets in the 1960s, but the fruits are now known to cause allergic reactions. GM technology is like any other new technology and has its merits and drawbacks. Over the period of time that commercially available GM foods have been produced, no studies have indicated that GM foods are less safe than traditional counterparts. Although merit may be given to concerns of unintended gene flow from genetically engineered agricultural products, further studies are required to establish the reality and/or scope of this and other potential environmental risks due to GMOs. Unintended adverse effects of GMOs on non-target species (e.g. butterflies) have been reported to be similar to what currently exists in traditional agricultural products [21]. While there are other individual claims that GMOs could pose health risks to human beings, most of these findings are not peer-reviewed in international scientific journals or by any officially recognised standard.

GMOs can have allergens removed. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:

Frankenfoods, Superweeds, and the Developing World". Journal of Food Law and Policy, Vol. 7, 2011. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2019491

Genetic engineering can also be used deliberately to make foods safer. In 2003, a team of scientists used genetic engineering to remove a common allergenic protein from a line of soybean plants.85 The target protein, known as “Gly m Bd 30 K,” is responsible for over 65% of allergic reactions to soy products, yet traditional breeding methods have failed to find a way to remove or suppress it.86 The scientists noted that the increasing use of soybean products in processed foods has made it difficult for allergic individuals to avoid eating soy, and that infants are usually given soy-based formula if they exhibit milk sensitivity.87



More genetic predictability of GMOs when compared to traditionally bred plants. ASF Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food".


GMO can resolve problem of nutrition in the third world, reduce vitamin and nutrition deficiency. For example by using GM technology it is possible to create rice with an increased synthesis of vitamin A precursor [1], plants resistant to herbicide and insecticide or plants able to grow in extreme weather conditions. Recently, GM crops are being used in agricultural production in 18 countries around the world [2]. Although there is no direct evidence that GMO have any harmful effect on human’s health many people are sceptical about. Reason for this sceptical attitude is lack- ing knowledge and negative propagation of GMO in the media. It is often being told only about risks associated with GMO but not about benefits. Nevertheless, some authors predict that 21st will be the century of biotechnology. Genetic modifications are often compared to traditional plant breeding (TPB). TPB can be defined as “applied plants genetics” [3]. Principal mechanism of TPB is chromosomal recombination. In comparison to TPB the GM technology enables transfer of single genes, while TPB ma- nipulates with hundreds of genes. In other words we are not able to predict how much genetic information will be transferred by TPB. In addition, GM technology allows transfer between species, while TPB does not allow overcoming of interspecies barriers. Finally, GM technology results in small proteome changes in comparison to TPB.

With GMOs we can crossbreed species and isolate genes to transfer, where as traditional means only allow us to influence but not “pick and choose” which genes and traits to share between organisms.

November 2014 Pro: Efficient


GMOs are efficient

GMOs have increased output, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. Take it from David Zilberman, a U.C. Berkeley agricultural and environmental economist and one of the few researchers considered credible by both agricultural chemical companies and their critics. He argues that the benefits of GM crops greatly outweigh the health risks, which so far remain theoretical. The use of GM crops “has lowered the price of food,” Zilberman says. “It has increased farmer safety by allowing them to use less pesticide. It has raised the output of corn, cotton and soy by 20 to 30 percent, allowing some people to survive who would not have without it. If it were more widely adopted around the world, the price [of food] would go lower, and fewer people would die of hunger.”

GMOs saved Hawaii’s papaya. ASF Mayer, Amy. "GMO Debate Influences Africa". Harvest Public Media. November 17,

2013. http://harvestpublicmedia.org/content/gmo-debate-influences-africa#.VCzdHLywJtM

When a crop disease in Hawaii was threatening the papaya, an important commercial crop for that state, a genetic modification helped save the fruit, Paarlberg said.

“A GMO disease resistant variety was introduced and now the papaya is doing very well,” Paarlberg said. “You would think that that would leave Hawaiians pre-disposed to welcome GMOs. You’d think that would change some minds about GMOs. But apparently very few minds were changed, even in Hawaii.”



More advanced modification can yield adaptive crops. DAT Garthwaite, Josie. “Beyond GMOs: The Rise of Synthetic Biology.” The Atlantic. 25

September 2014. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/beyond-gmos-the-rise-of-synthetic-biology/380770/

Some synthetic biologists are imagining an “off” switch for engineered traits. Crops today that have been engineered to tolerate pests, herbicides, disease, or drought express that tolerance all the time. With the tools of synbio, biophysicist and synthetic biologist Christopher Voigt explained, an organism could be programmed to have a genetic trait that could “deal with the problem, and then go away.”

As the tools to design entire genomes catch up to the ability to construct them, Voigt expects to see cereal crops programmed to sense and respond to environmental information, like dryness. In the coming years, Voigt said, “You'll think about the organism you want, and then be systematic about building that organism up from scratch.”

As a demonstration, Voigt’s team at MIT has inserted a cluster of 16 delicately tuned genes into a bacterium to give it nitrogen-fixing abilities. If successfully applied to plants, this approach could potentially reduce applications of nitrogen fertilizers, which contribute to emissions of nitrous oxide—a powerful greenhouse gas. There are implications for energy, too. According to a recent paper on emerging synbio policy issues from the OECD, the impact of creating self-fertilizing plants through synthetic biology, “could revolutionize agriculture and would significantly decouple agriculture from the oil industry.”

This card has economic implications. As modification advances from single genes to entire genomes, the automaticity (independence) of crops increases. This can lead to less volatility in yields, less labor involvement in maintaining crops, and fewer recurring costs for farmers.



GM fish have increased production and weight for nutritional benefits. ASF Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food".


Although reports about GM fish are rare, this group of vertebrates is used in GE for more than a decade. The possibilities and targets of genome tailoring in fishes have been reviewed recently [50]. The simplest approach came out to enhance the growth by increasing growth hormone production using various methods with very good results (increase in weight up to 200%). The same methods were applied when genes from Ant- arctic fishes that are resistant to freezing were transferred to industrially used species like the Atlantic salmon. The cold resistance is caused by an anti-freeze protein that influences membrane fluidity. However, the expression of this protein is still too low to improve the quality of consumed meat. In contrast, successful experiments focused on affecting the fertility of fishes were completed. Sterile individuals produce quantita- tively and qualitatively improved meat. The sterility is induced by the production of triploid zygotes or by influencing the go- nadotropin axis. Further advances were achieved in DNA vac- cination of fishes against various diseases. Although this might improve the biological safety, the method must be tested and controlled prior to industrial application.

GM fish have been modified to avoid disease, increase reproductive numbers, and increase the quality and quantity of the meat. This has important implications in biodiversity in helping restore fish populations that are struggling due to global-warming and harms to biodiversity from overfishing and the like.

GMOs increase access to livestock and their by-products. ASF Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food".


Livestock and poultry have been modified with similar methods like fishes; especially successful were experimental modifications to growth hormone axis and myostatin. In livestock specifically milk production was the target of interest. Transgenic lactase in milk digested lactose and, thus, improved the symptoms of lactose intolerance, which is very frequent in Western population [51,52].

No fantastic impact here, but it does refer to increasing the quality of meat of livestock similarly to how we have in fish. Also if you think lactose intolerance is a big deal, this is probably a great card.



GMOs can integrate medical benefits into food. ASF Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food".


Transgenic plants belonging to the second and third generation of GMO have various potentially positive effects for the health of the consumer. One of the most interesting approaches is the production of direct therapeutic proteins by transgenic plants. Soybean proteins were mutated to produce an ovokinin analogue after digestion. Ovokinin as a hexapeptide is a potent but due to methodological problems rarely studied antihyper- tensive drug [54]. Similarly, other oligopeptides with known endocrine or paracrine functions could be transferred into plant proteins. Of course, the consumption of these GM plants must be restricted to therapeutic use under tight medical control.

The implications for biomedical application of GMO food opens an interesting door to this debate as it not only makes certain treatments more affordable, but also makes them less painful and more accessible.

November 2014 Pro: Developing nations


GMOs help developing nations GMOs are already being used extensively, Fj

Lamichhane, Sheetal. “Genetically Modified Foods- Solution for Food Security” International Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. 2014.

GM foods were first put on the market in the early 1990s. Between 1996 and 2011, the total surface area of land cultivated with GM crops had increased by a factor of 94, from 17000 square kilometers (4,200,000 acres) to 1,600,000 km2 (395 million acres). 10% of the world’s crop lands were planted with GM crops in 2010. In 2012, GM crops were planted in 28 countries; 20 were developing countries and 8 were developed countries, 2012 was the first year in which developing countries grew a majority (52%) of the total GM harvest. 17.3 million farmers grew GM crops; around 90% were small holding farmers in developing countries.



Case study: South Africa. DAT “GMOs for African Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.” Academy of Science of


In South Africa a study published in 2005 involving 368 small and resource-poor farmers and 33 commercial farmers, the latter divided into irrigated and dry-land maize production systems. The data indicated that under irrigated conditions, Bt maize resulted in an 11% higher yield (from 10.9 MT to 12.1 MT/ha), a cost savings in insecticides of US$18/ha equivalent to a 60% cost reduction, and an increased income of US$117/ha. Under rainfed conditions, Bt maize resulted in an 11% higher yield (from 3.1 to 3.4 MT/ha), a cost saving on insecticides of US$7/ha equivalent to a 60% cost reduction, and an increased income of US$35/ha (Gouse et al., 2005). Farmers are paying premium prices for the use of the technology because of increased productivity and efficiency gains (Brookes & Barfoot, 2008). South Africa is estimated to have increased farming income from biotech maize, soybean and cotton by US$383 million in the period between 1998 and 2007, with benefits for 2007 alone estimated at US$227 million (Brookes & Barfoot, 2009).

There is also ample evidence for GMO-driven profits in developed countries, but the biggest impacts occur in the developing world, where a figure like $227 million is far greater compared to GDP, annual incomes, population size, etc. Developing nations’ data on GMOs is a greater starting points for Pro teams.



Wide-scale implementation of GMO cotton benefits Indian Farmers. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


In 2008 alone, 1.2 million Indian farmers switched to Bt cotton, bringing the Bt share of India’s total cotton-growing area up to nearly 74%.194 Recent studies in Andhra Pradesh show that farmers there are now reaping the benefits of Bt cotton, with one study finding a 42% average increase in yields for farmers switching to Bt varieties.195 In addition, pesticide use has continued to decline among Bt cotton growers, as farmers in the early years of adoption were apt to over- apply pesticides “out of anxiety.”196 According to a study by the Uni- versity of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, “cultivation of Bt cotton considerably reduced the frequent health concerns of farmers, such as giddiness, nausea and itching caused by pesticide spraying in non- Bt cotton fields.”

This is plain cut and straight to the point. With large-scale implementation of GMO cotton in India we have two impacts. First, 42% increase in the yield production on average, and second, a reduced negative impact on the environment as long term wide-scale implementation reduces the application of pesticides.

Iron-enriched GMOs benefit health in developing nations. ASF Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food".


The “second generation” of seeds now being introduced offer processor, end-user and consumer specific benefits such as increased levels of protein, modified and healthier fats, modified carbohydrates, improved flavor characteristics and increased levels of desired phytochemicals. Modification of qualitative and quantitative characteristics, such as the composition of proteins, starch, fats or vitamins by modifications of metabolic pathway could increase the nutritional status of the foods and might help to improve human health by addressing malnutrition and under-nutrition. For example, iron deficiency causes anemia in pregnant woman and young children. Anemia has been identified as a contributing factor in over 20% of maternal deaths (after giving birth) in Asia and Africa [6]. Transgenic rice with elevated levels of iron has been produced using genes involved in the production of an iron-binding protein and in the production of an enzyme that facilitates iron availability in the human diet [7,8].



Benefits to Agricultural Practice AMS International Union of Nutritional Sciences. “Statement on Benefits and Risk.” 2014.

http://www.iuns.org/statement-on-benefits-and-risks-of-genetically-modified-foods-for-human-health-and-nutrition

Developments in agricultural biotechnology are being used to increase the productivity of crops, primarily by reducing the costs of production. These new crop varieties include insect resistance (cotton, maize), herbicide resistance (maize, soybean), delayed fruit ripening (tomato). The estimated global area of transgenic crops (predominantly with agricultural benefits) for 2001 is 52.6 million hectares grown by 5.5 million farmers in 13 countries. More than one quarter of the transgenic crop area in 2001 was grown in six developing countries. The number of farmers that planted GM crops increased from 3.5 million in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2001.

GMO cotton helped millions in China. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,

Human Health And Development: An Evidence-Based Study". June 1, 2005. http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/biotech_en.pdf

On average, the Bt cotton farmers in China reduced pesticide spraying for the Asian bollworm by 70%, producing a kilogram of cotton at 28% less cost than the non-Bt farmers (Huang et al. 2002b). These benefits have had a significant impact on the agronomic, environmental, health and economic situations of approximately 5 million resource-poor farmers over eight provinces. Similarly, farm- scale trials in China of GM rice containing genes which make them resistant to insect larvae that devastate rice crops showed 80% less pesticide use and yields increased by 6–9% (Coghlan 2005). In addition, farmers who grew the GM varieties suffered less pesticide-induced illness than those growing the old varieties (Coghlan 2005).

This shows that wide-scale implementation of GMO crops in China benefitted 5 million people living in poverty, as well as had a positive impact on the environment and food production/security.



GMO crops show net gains for those in South Africa. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,


A two-year study of the economic impact of Bt cotton adoption by the farmers in the Makhathini Flats of Kwa-Zulu Natal Province of South Africa showed that farmers not only experienced yield increases, but that the savings from reduced chemical applications outweighed the higher seed cost (Ismael et al. 2001). Between 1997 and 2001, the number of South African cotton farmers who adopted the planting of Bt cotton increased 16-fold (Bennett et al. 2003).

GMO crops reap financial gains for US farmers. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,


Several agro-economic studies have been commissioned since the introduction of seed derived from modern biotechnology in the USA. One report illustrates that the greatest yield increases were achieved with insect-resistant maize, while the greatest reduction of input costs was seen in herbicide- tolerant soybean (Gianessi et al. 2002). The economic benefits associated with the cultivation of Bt maize by farmers in the USA in 2001 were primarily the result of the decreased need for pesticides. The financial gain takes into account the seed-price premium paid by farmers for Bt maize seed. Benbrook (2002) argues that farmers in the maize belt forfeit a significant proportion of their farm income to biotechnology companies because of the seed-price premium.



More developing nations use GMOs than developed nations. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".

International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. 2012. http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/44/executivesummary/pdf/Brief%2044%20-%20Executive%20Summary%20-%20English.pdf

Of the 28 countries which planted biotech crops in 2012, 20 were developing and 8 were industrial countries. This compares with 19 developing and 10 industrial in 2011. Thus there are three times as many developing countries growing biotech crops as there are industrial countries. See a listing of countries and hectarages in Table 1 and Figure 1. The top 10 countries each grew more than 1 million hectares providing a broad-based worldwide foundation for diversified growth in the future; in fact, the top nine each grew more than 2 million hectares. More than half the world’s population, 60% or ~4 billion people, live in the 28 countries planting biotech crops.

This evidence shows real-world accessibility and use of GMOs in developing nations. It proves that they are not shut-out of the market in the status quo, and that over 60% of the world’s population lives in areas directly involved in the GM market. Moreover, looking at the breakdown of countries in the PDF you will see that 3 of the top 5, or 7 of the top 10 countries producing GMOs are developing nations (Brazil, Argentina, India, China, Paraguay, South Africa, and Pakistan.



Developing nations make up a larger portion of the GM market than developed nations. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


For the first time, developing countries grew more, 52% of global biotech crops in 2012 than industrial countries at 48%. This is contrary to the prediction of critics who, prior to the commercialization of the technology in 1996, prematurely declared that biotech crops were only for industrial countries and would never be accepted and adopted by developing countries. In 2012, the growth rate for biotech crops was at least three times as fast and five times as large in developing countries, at 11% or 8.7 million hectares, versus 3% or 1.6 million hectares in industrial countries. During the period 1996-2011 cumulative economic benefits were high in developing countries at US$49.6 billion compared to US$48.6 billion generated by industrial countries. For 2011 alone, economic benefits for developing countries were higher at US$10.1 billion compared with US$9.6 billion for developed countries for a total of US$19.7 billion.

To clarify that developing nations are also competitive in the GM market, it is important to note the level of contribution they have to trade. Here we see that they consist of the majority of GM trade, as well as feel more economic benefits from the trade. Developing nations had a half-billion USD benefit greater than developed nations in 2011. These numbers are only expected to increase, as the growth of GM use in developing nations is three times that of developed nations.

GM crops aid the impoverished in developing countries. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


To-date, biotech cotton in developing countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bolivia, Burkina Faso and South Africa have already made a significant contribution to the income of >15 million small resource-poor farmers in 2012; this can be enhanced significantly in the remaining 3 years of the second decade of commercialization, 2013 to 2015 principally with biotech cotton and maize.

This mostly talks about GMO bt-cotton, which is not food, however the implication both explicitly in this evidence, and logically, is that GM food crops can also have the same impact, i.e. maize. The reasons these impacts manifest are listed in the “Economic Impact of GMOs” section in this brief for the affirmative side.



Golden Rice helps developing nations Golden Rice helps fight blindness. ASF

Spady, Tyrone. “Pope Blesses Golden Rice”. American Society of Plant Biologists. January/February 2014. http://newsletter.aspb.org/2014/janfeb14.pdf

On November 7, 2013, Pope Francis gave his personal blessing to Golden Rice (GR). Why is this significant? Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is responsible for 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness and up to 2 million deaths each year. Particularly susceptible are pregnant women and children. Across the globe, an estimated 19 million pregnant women and 190 million children suffer from the condition. The good news, however, is that dietary supplementation of vitamin A can eliminate VAD. One way that holds particular promise is the administration via GR, which had been engineered to produce large amounts of vitamin A. A 2012 study by Tang et al. (http://bit.ly/1bc6FJx) published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that 100– 150 g of cooked GR provided 60% of the Chinese Recommended Intake of vitamin A. Estimates suggest that supplementing GR for 20% of the diet of children and 10% for pregnant women and mothers will be enough to combat the effects of VAD.

One cup of Golden Rice is 50% daily intake of Vitamin A. ASF

Purugganan, Michael. “Debunking Golden Rice myths: a geneticist's perspective” . International Rice Research Institute. July 28, 2014. http://irri.org/rice-today/debunking-golden-rice-myths-a-geneticist-s-perspective

Rice could substantially reduce the devastating impact of vitamin A deficiency because in many developing countries—the Philippines among them—the poorest families lack the means to buy the vegetables and fruits that contain this crucial nutrient. They can afford nothing more than plain white rice.

There is only one problem. Rice is not usually a source of vitamin A. While many fruits and vegetables have the genes to make this vitamin, neither rice nor any of its close wild relatives have these genes. Traditional breeding in rice is useless in the fight against this deadly vitamin deficiency. It would take genetic engineering to help solve the problem of making rice produce its own source of vitamin A.

Today, we are there. The dream of yellow rice—now dubbed Golden Rice—has gone from a rice breeder’s dream to actual rice plants that can be grown in fields.

Golden rice promises to help reduce the deaths and blindness that come with not getting enough vitamin A in poor communities around the world. As we try to improve the nutrition of poor families across the country, Golden Rice can help alleviate the health scourge of vitamin A deficiency. Studies have shown that one



cup of Golden Rice could provide around 50% of the recommended vitamin A that an adult needs for a day.

The reason this card is so nice is because it gives you inherency and weighing mechanisms, and some solvency. It tells you two important things. First it tells you that not only does this crop exist and can be grown, but also would be accessible to the target market of those living in poverty. Second, it tells you that these people do not have access to any consistent daily intake of Vitamin A, but this GMO can provide 50% daily intake per cup. It affects the people who need it most in a way that cannot be supplemented or replaced with an alternative.

Golden Rice is not big business, but rather made for public good. ASF

Purugganan, Michael. “Debunking Golden Rice myths: a geneticist's perspective” . International Rice Research Institute. July 28, 2014. http://irri.org/rice-today/debunking-golden-rice-myths-a-geneticist-s-perspective

Finally, there is the idea that Golden Rice is being developed to be sold by big biotechnology companies to profit from poor famers.

Again, let us be clear here: Golden Rice is a public project. While the company Syngenta helped develop Golden Rice, they have given it to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) for free—no costs, no fees, no royalties.

Golden Rice is now being bred by IRRI, in cooperation with the Philippine Rice Research Institute, and other public breeders around the world. The varieties that are developed will be turned over to government agricultural agencies in developing countries, which will then determine how to distribute them to farmers.

IRRI is not selling Golden Rice, and no big biotech company will make money out of it.

This makes the Golden Rice argument tricky to handle for most Neg teams because it preemptively kicks out of all the arguments that talk about GMOs being fiscal arguments or big business. This argument really shows the potential for global impacts to GMOs.



Impacts of Vitamin A deficiency in Tanzania. ASF Simbeye, Finnigan Wa. “Try golden rice to curb Vitamin A deficiency”. Daily News

Tanzania. April 23, 2014. http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/features/30638-try-golden-rice-to-curb-vitamin-a-deficiency

On average, the country loses 43,000 children and 700bn/- in revenue annually due to vitamin A deficiency, a recent report by Twaweza group says.

“Micronutrient deficiencies alone cost Tanzania 700bn/- per year. People need micronutrients to stay healthy.

Out of every 1,000 births, 3.1 children are born with Neural Tube Defects because of a lack of folic acid. And 4.2 million children and 4.3 of women are iron deficient,” says a Twaweza report quoting National Food Fortification Alliance (NFFA) report of 2009.

A country losing 700 billion Tanzanian shilling annually is equivalent to the country losing about $415 million every year.

Golden Rice comes at no cost to farmers in developing nations. ASF Potrykus, Ingo. "Lessons from the ‘Humanitarian Golden Rice’ project: regulation

prevents development of public good genetically engineered crop products". New Biotechnology Vol. 27, Num. 5. November 2010. http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv113/sv113-potrykus2.pdf

The concept of using the potential of genetics and GE-technology in a public sector project to fight a severe public health problem affecting poor societies was welcomed with much enthusiasm by the scientific community, the private sector, the media and the public, and Golden Rice has been featured in numerous international print media, including the cover of the Asian and US (but not the European) editions of TIME Magazine [10]. However, it also provoked heavy opposition by anti-GE-advocates, largely as the project undermined this opposition’s views that GE-technology was only for industrialised farmers in industrialised countries for multinational profit. Rather, Golden Rice is to be free of any charge to growers and consumers in poor developing countries, to address one of the great public health travesties of our time – vitamin A-deficiency.

If you go for specific crops in case, this card helps you kick out of negative dis-advantagess talking about increasing the economic gap and disenfranchising developing nations.



Golden Rice could have been available sooner if there was less GMO resistance. ASF Potrykus, Ingo. "Lessons from the ‘Humanitarian Golden Rice’ project: regulation


Expectations were high and it was generally expected that Golden Rice would be in the fields ‘soon’ [11]. On the Basis of the experience with traditional variety development with such a clear and single locus trait, experienced rice breeders were predicting that eight backcross generations (three years at IRRI for example, or even less if marker-assisted breeding were to be applied) would be sufficient to develop and register Golden Rice varieties [12]. The International Rice Research Institute, Philip- pines (IRRI), and other public rice research institutions in developing countries were keen to progress variety development and registration [1]. According to these expectations Golden Rice should have reached the farmers’ fields in Asia by 2002. It is now 2009 and it will take at least until 2012 before Golden Rice can be handed over to the farmers in the first Asian countries.

The resistance to GMO development caused a 10-year minimum delay in the delivery of Golden Rice to developing nations.



Lives saved projection from Golden Rice distribution in India. ASF Potrykus, Ingo. "Lessons from the ‘Humanitarian Golden Rice’ project: regulation


The definite impact of Golden Rice will be monitored in epidemiological studies following release to the farmers and consumption by vitamin A-deficient and rice-dependent populations. Because of regulation this will not be possible before 2013. Socio-economic studies, however, allow one to get an educated estimate already now, by performing state-of-the-art ex ante studies. Because solid data about human bioconversion and bio-availability of pro-vitamin A from Golden Rice have been generated [21,22], the predictions can be relatively precise. There has also been a series of economic ex ante studies with Golden Rice in different countries. In the following paragraph I refer to the detailed study on the putative impact of Golden Rice in India, published by the team of Professor Matin Qaim, Go �ttingen [23].

The annual burden of vitamin A-deficiency in India is characterised by the loss of 71,600 lives or 2,328,000 ‘DALYs’. (A DALY is a technical term used by economists to quantify, and allow comparison between the impacts of interventions and refers to a standardised disability-adjusted life year.) The potential annual impact of Golden Rice is presented in two scenarios, one ‘pessi- mistic’ and the other ‘optimistic’. Three years after this publication, we know that the optimistic scenario is a realistic one. According to these scenarios, Golden Rice could save up to 40,000 lives per year, or in DALYs, up to 1,382,000 healthy life years annually. The lives saved would represent 95% of those rice- dependent poor in danger of losing eyesight and life. As only half of the Indian poor depend upon rice and the other half upon wheat, Golden Rice could not save more than half of the 71,600. (For the others ‘Golden Wheat’ might be an option.)

These projections are accurate because they were done after seeing the feasibility of implementing Golden Rice on a large scale. If restrictions were less severe, we would be able to see a solid number of these projections manifesting today. Unfortunately anti-GMO campaigns are strong and we do not see the lives saved as projected, as the Golden Rice has not yet been capable of being distributed. The 40,000 lives annually, in conjunction with the 10-year delay noted in the previous piece of evidence totals to a 400,000 lives impact due to over-regulation of GMOs.



Golden Rice is a cheaper alternative to current Vitamin-A deficiency response programs. ASF

Potrykus, Ingo. "Lessons from the ‘Humanitarian Golden Rice’ project: regulation prevents development of public good genetically engineered crop products". New Biotechnology Vol. 27, Num. 5. November 2010. http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv113/sv113-potrykus2.pdf

The World Bank’s benchmark cost of saving one ‘disability- adjusted life year’, valued at $620–$1860 by the Bank, is $200. The actual costs for the, so far most effective, traditional intervention – the free distribution of vitamin A-capsules – is between $134 and $559. Golden Rice is expected to do the same thing for only $3. And this $3 cost would include all the money spent in ten years of proof-of-concept work, plus all the money spent on product development, deregulation, variety registration and social marketing. These unprecedented low costs are the consequence of the fact that there are no recurrent costs, once a variety has been released. This is the major reason why this intervention based on ‘bio- fortification’ is highly sustainable as well as cheap.

Once cleared for adoption by the national authorities, seeds of agronomically optimised and locally adapted Golden Rice varieties will be provided to the farmers by public seed distribution units or by licensed seed multiplications units, free of charge for the trait and within the framework of the humanitarian project. The farmer will be free to grow, harvest, sell, consume and store Golden rice without restrictions, including to use part of the harvest for the next sowing and to pass seeds on to neighbours. The rice farmers will continue to use their traditional farming practices and will not require any additional input in the form of agrochemicals or fertiliser. The costs of production will be the same as for any other variety of rice The yield of Golden Rice varieties is at least as good as other popular non-GE varieties and there is no off-taste which would discourage consumers from eating Golden Rice. The only difference is the yellow colour. Initial but in depth social marketing research has shown that households have no problem with the colour when they understand it is associated with good nutrition.

The most conservative estimate for the differential in treatment of vitamin A-deficiency from the current standard to Golden Rice is $131 per person. Not only does this make fighting vitamin-A deficiency more realistic than ever, but the farmers can retain, reproduce, spread, and sell the seed.



Scuba Rice helps farmers during floods. Floods are devastating to farmers in poverty. ASF

Almendral, Aurora. “Scientists Develop “Scuba Rice” That Can Stand Up to Climate Change”. Next City. March 14, 2014. http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/scientists-develop-lab-created-scuba-rice-that-can-stand-up-to-climate-chan

While a destructive flood or drought may only hit a rice field every one to three years, that year will set a farmer so far back that often they begin selling their assets — hand tools, plows, water buffalo — to replace the lost income.

“If they lose their land,” says Dr. Abdelbagi Ismail, a Sudanese scientist at the International Rice Research Institute outside Manila, “there’s no way for them to recover. One year of bad weather can take a farmer from being able to provide food to having nothing.”

It’s a pattern that plays out time and again in the Philippines. After Typhoon Haiyan hit the rice-growing region in the Central Visayas, an estimated 4,500 acres of rice fields were flooded or otherwise destroyed. But that’s only the most recent episode. Recent monsoons flooded the rice plains north of Manila, and drought in the central islands strained rice-growing communities.

With nothing left to sell but their labor, some farmers inevitably move to Manila, where they find a city already saturated with people struggling to eke out a living — and find a place to sleep. With skill sets ill-suited for urban life, many farmers end up in the vast slums of a city with some of the most densely packed acreage in the world. After a natural disaster, Dr. Ismail says, farmers “travel to Manila where they take very low paying jobs, and sink deeper into poverty.”

Note that this impact analysis is good for weighing because it contains irreversibility. Once a farmer sells their land, they are not able to continue growing crops and have little mean for income. That is a great bright-line to set, saying we must avoid farmers giving up land at all costs. Otherwise we allow these people to slip even further into poverty.



Rice composes major part of South-Asian diets. ASF Department for International Development. (UK) “Sowing the seeds of Scuba Rice”. DFID

and DFID Bangladesh. October 15, 2010. https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/sowing-the-seeds-of-scuba-rice

Rice is one of the world’s most important crops. One fifth of the world’s population, more than 1 billion people, depend on rice cultivation for their livelihoods. And for 520 million people in Asia, most of them poor or very poor, rice provides more than half of their calories.

However rice is vulnerable to climate change, especially flooding. Large areas of major rice-producing countries such as India and Bangladesh are flood prone and major flooding events are likely to increase.

Scuba Rice is effective in Bangladesh. ASF

Department for International Development. (UK) “Sowing the seeds of Scuba Rice”. DFID and DFID Bangladesh. October 15, 2010. https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/sowing-the-seeds-of-scuba-rice

Scuba rice was developed by the International Research Rice Institute (IRRI), which receives core funding from the Department for International Development.

Although rice thrives in wet conditions, it can’t survive if the whole plant is completely submerged. Like us, rice needs air to stay alive.

But scuba rice is special. It responds to complete submersion by effectively becoming dormant, saving energy until the floodwater recedes when it can continue growing again.

When Mostafa took part in IRRI’s field testing, he planted 2 hectares of his land with the scuba rice and the remaining land with his normal variety of rice.

Soon afterwards, the 15 day flood arrived. When the waters receded, Mostafa was amazed by what he saw. In the plots planted with scuba rice 95%-98% of the plants recovered. In the plots planted with a traditional variety, only 10%-12% of the plants survived.



Anecdotal Scuba Rice efficacy. ASF Almendral, Aurora. “Scientists Develop “Scuba Rice” That Can Stand Up to Climate

Change”. Next City. March 14, 2014. http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/scientists-develop-lab-created-scuba-rice-that-can-stand-up-to-climate-chan

Dr. Ismail specializes in breeding stress-tolerant rice for Asia and Africa. Outside the modernist labs and office buildings of IRRI, are fields of rice against the backdrop of Mount Makiling, a mountain range rimmed with coconut palms, whose sloping ridges echo the shape of a reclining woman. Men and women in wide-brimmed straw hats stoop over bright green grasses of young rice. Each gridded-out paddy is labeled with the scientific name of the variety being tested: IRRI 146 (NSIC Rc158), IRO7A253, PsBRC 18, and so on.

At one field recessed into the ground, Dr. Ismail shows me Ciherang, a popular Indonesian variety, and in the paddy immediately next to it, Ciherang+Sub 1. They flooded the field under a meter of water for 14 days to mimic a natural disaster, then drained it to see how the plants fared. Sub 1 is the strain bred with submergence-resistant genes, colloquially called scuba rice or submarino. In that plot, the plants were healthy, bright and growing in tidy rows. The adjacent plot with the traditional Ciherang was nearly entirely dead — a devastating sight outside of a lab setting.

The same fields that flood one year, however, can be at risk for drought or just plain bad irrigation the next. Ben Pamatmat, an assistant scientist in the branch of IRRI that works with the Philippine government, says competition over irrigation canals has been known to become so fierce that “farmers literally kill for water here.”



Social implications for Scuba Rice. ASF Almendral, Aurora. “Scientists Develop “Scuba Rice” That Can Stand Up to Climate

Change”. Next City. March 14, 2014. http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/scientists-develop-lab-created-scuba-rice-that-can-stand-up-to-climate-chan

According to Dr. Ismail, IRRI is now seeing how stress-tolerant rice varieties can transform farming communities. A subsistence farmer’s first priority, he explains, “is getting sufficient food for the year. Without that, they won’t think about anything else. Nothing else in important.” Health, education for their children, or strategies for making more money beyond subsistence are concerns that fall far behind immediate hunger. The flip-side of this is that once they can secure the year’s food, things like school attendance and maternal health begin to improve.

“With these new varieties, the farmers can now go into more commercialization,” Dr. Ismail says, “so you see the farmers changing from just the varieties that they only eat to [high-value crops] that they can sell. Tomatoes, okra or sunflower become very common.”

The implications for crops such as scuba rice are boundless. The claim being made by Dr. Ismail within the article is that one of the biggest reasons for poverty and a lack of education is being blind sided and unable to prioritize long-term solutions due to starvation and lack of stable food sources. If farmers were able to produce crops more consistently and to a greater degree and variety it would greatly help in the fight on poverty and social mobility.



Unethical Not to Use GM Food to Fight Poverty. PSM Dermody, Joe. "‘Unethical’ not to use GM crops in countries facing famine." . Irish

Examiner, 13 09 2013. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/agri-business/unethical-not-to-use-gm-crops-in-countries-facing-famine-244671.html>.

Scottish scientist Anne Glover, who was appointed as chief scientific adviser to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso in 2012, said it is unethical not to use crops produced with GM technology when other approaches have failed.

When GM technology was in its infancy, many people were concerned about the technology and in particular the fact that we were now able to manipulate plants in a targeted manner compared to the trial-and-error approach we used with conventional plant breeding,” Ms Glover told the EU news service EurActiv.

The European Academies of Science Advisory Council (EASAC) recently issued a report advising European countries to reconsider their bans on GMOs. The EASAC report suggests that controversies about the impact of GM crops have often been based on contested science.

“Food produced with GM technology is very common in other parts of the world, without any evidence that this has been harmful to the people that consumed it or to the environment at large,” said Ms Glover.

“We have a major challenge to feed a world of seven billion, soon nine billion people. GM is a valuable technology to have to help in addressing this. GM provides solutions to famine and malnutrition in less developed parts of the world — such as Vitamin-A enhanced golden rice — so it is unethical not to use the technology when other approaches have failed.”

UK environment minister Owen Paterson recently warned the EU’s agri-food sector that it risks being left behind on GM technology. Currently, the only two GM crops approved for cultivation in Europe are Monsanto’s Mon810 maize and BASF’s Amflora potato.

November 2014 Pro: Examples


Examples of Beneficial GMOs Plenish and Pioneer Bring Healthier Tastier Options AMS

Gunther, Mark. “GMO 2.0: Genetically Modified Foods with Added Health Benefits.” June 10, 2014. Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/jun/10/genetically-modified-foods-health-benefits-soybean-potatoes

Pioneer, the big seed company owned by DuPont, is bringing to the market a brand of genetically engineered soybean called Plenish that the company says will produce a healthier oil, free of transfats. Plenish oils have been designed to replace the unhealthy partially hydrogenated oils used to fry food and to keep cookies and crackers, crackers and chips from going stale.

Meantime, the JR Simplot Co, the US’s biggest potato processor, is seeking regulatory approval for genetically engineered potatoes branded as Innate. Simplot says the Innate potatoes will limit black spots from bruising, deliver improved taste and reduce the formation of acrylamide, a naturally occurring chemical that has been identified as a potential carcinogen and is created when potatoes are cooked at high temperatures.

(…)

While DuPont has poured millions into campaigns to oppose GMO labeling, the company and its allies in the soybean industry now want to spread the word about Plenish. Plenish could help soybean farmers recapture sales that were lost to canola and palm oil as concerns over transfats have grown. "Soybean oil went from about 80% of the food-oil market to something approaching 59%," Pioneer’s Sanders said.

Specific examples of genetically modified foods are a convincing way to show the judge the impact of GMOs and potential for improvement. This evidence can also help break up the tedium of repeated statistics and studies for a judge.

November 2014 Pro: Examples


GT soybeans in Argentina have led a low-till farming boon. DAT Burachik, Moises. “Experience from use of GMOs in Argentinian agriculture, economy

and environment.” Science Direct. New Biotechnology 5, Vol. 27. 11 May 2010. Accessed 10/8/2014. Web. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871678410004462

At the time of the commercial release of GTS, soybean was already an important crop in Argentina. Production was initially pushed by better land use through rotation (with maize), lower production costs5 and 6 and by high commodity prices in the mid-1990s. Soybean production came together with glyphosate from the beginning. Pre-sowing application of the herbicide helped to clear the field from weeds (mostly Johnson grass) and cleaned the soil for the further sowing of maize, where these weeds were more difficult to eliminate. Soybean–maize rotation was a very common practice in Argentina. However successful non-GM soybean in Argentine agriculture was, the new GM varieties delivered farmers a significant improvement in the agronomic practices, what stimulated an increased, enthusiastic adoption. Operations were drastically simplified as farmers discontinued the use of complicated mixtures of expensive and more toxic herbicides and switched to a low toxicity, single chemical, friendlier to the environment and to them. Moreover, set-aside land heavily infested with noxious weeds could be brought back to production.

To all these advantages to the farmer, it was also added that the use of GTS has shown a very convenient synergy with no-till farming, which became widely used (Argentina is one of the leading countries in the implementation of low- or no-till farming). It is well known that low- and no-till farming reduce both soil erosion and emission of greenhouse gases, thereby contributing to agricultural sustainability through a better conservation of soil organic matter and reducing the impact on climate change.

GTS is a GMO soybean variety engineered with a particular chemical resistance. This card brings together the climate, farm sustainability, and economics points into one convenient case study. This study is impactful, as Argentina is one of the top global users of genetic modifications in agriculture.

November 2014 Pro: Production must increase


Agricultural production must rapidly increase

Population growth demands increased production of food, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. In the future, Zilberman says, those advantages will become all the more significant. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world will have to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 just to keep up with population growth. Climate change will make much of the world's arable land more difficult to farm. GM crops, Zilberman says, could produce higher yields, grow in dry and salty land, withstand high and low temperatures, and tolerate insects, disease and herbicides.



Food Security and Helping Small Farmers Through GM Crops. PSM Qaim, Matim, and Shahzad Kouser. "Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security." .

PLOS. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0064879>.

The role of genetically modified (GM) crops for food security is the subject of public controversy. GM crops could contribute to food production increases and higher food availability. There may also be impacts on food quality and nutrient composition. Finally, growing GM crops may influence farmers’ income and thus their economic access to food. Smallholder farmers make up a large proportion of the undernourished people worldwide. Our study focuses on this latter aspect and provides the first ex post analysis of food security impacts of GM crops at the micro level. We use comprehensive panel data collected over several years from farm households in India, where insect-resistant GM cotton has been widely adopted. Controlling for other factors, the adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.

The third pathway relates to GM crop use by smallholder farmers in developing countries. Half of the global GM crop area is located in developing countries, but much of this refers to large farms in countries of South America. One notable exception is Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton, which is grown by around 15 million smallholders in India, China, Pakistan, and a few other developing countries [10]. Bt cotton provides resistance to important insect pests, especially cotton bollworms. Several studies have shown that Bt cotton adoption reduces chemical pesticide use and increases yields in farmers’ fields [17]–[20]. There are also a few studies that have shown that these benefits are associated with increases in farm household income and living standard [21]–[23]. Higher incomes are generally expected to cause increases in food consumption in poor farm households. On the other hand, cotton is a non-food cash crop, so that the nutrition impact is uncertain.

…income gains through Bt cotton adoption among smallholder farm households in India have positive impacts on food security and dietary quality. GM crops are not a panacea for the problems of hunger and malnutrition. Complex problems require multi-pronged solutions. But the evidence suggests that GM crops can be an important component in a broader food security strategy. So far, food security impacts are still confined to only a few concrete examples. The nutritional benefits could further increase with more GM crops and traits becoming available in the future. Appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks are required to ensure that the needs of poor farmers and consumers are taken into account and that undesirable social consequences are avoided.



Food security is deteriorating in the developing world. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,


Although the decline in food prices in developed countries has benefited the poor who spend a considerable share of their income on food, this trend has not had much impact on the majority in the developing world, with sub-Saharan Africa painting the gloomiest picture (FAO 2003). Due to the substantial price reduction in this commodity sector, cereals have become the staple foods in the diet of poor people (WHO 2000c). While yield increases in the major cereal crops (rice, wheat and maize) has meant more calorific intake of food, micronutrient malnutrition remains a serious problem (FAO 2003).

Regional analyses depict sub-Saharan Africa as the only region where both the number and proportion of malnourished children have consistently risen in the past three decades (FAO 2003). However, malnutrition in South Asia is also very high.

Here we note that even if there is food availability, it does not necessarily translate into an actual benefit for the people living in the developed nations, and they have no access to a healthy diet and still suffer from malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies. This problem has not stopped getting worse over the past 30 years in sub-Saharan Africa.

Our progress fighting world hunger has been stunted and we need a new approach. ASF Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Globally almost 870 million

chronically undernourished - new hunger report". United Nations. October 9, 2012. http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/161819/icode/

The vast majority of the hungry, 852 million, live in developing countries -- around 15 percent of their population -- while 16 million people are undernourished in developed countries. The global number of hungry people declined by 132 million between 1990-92 and 2010-12, or from 18.6 percent to 12.5 percent of the world's population, and from 23.2 percent to 14.9 percent in developing countries - putting the MDG target within reach if adequate, appropriate actions are taken. The number of hungry declined more sharply between 1990 and 2007 than previously believed. Since 2007-2008, however, global progress in reducing hunger has slowed and leveled off.

It’s nice that we have reduced global hunger by over 100 million people, however, our progress has leveled off and we now need a way to increase nutritional value and the yield size of crops.



Traditional breeding is insufficient for the growing population. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,


While evidence shows that GM crops can lead to significant productivity and health gains, they are nevertheless not a ‘magic bullet’ that will solve all problems in agriculture. Modern biotechnology must be applied to complement and expand the reach of conventional methods (Pingali 2001). It has been alleged that focusing on modern biotechnology may narrow the research agenda of many countries and deny them the opportunity to explore solutions that can be freely adopted, adapted and exchanged (UNECA 2002). For instance, where the cause of declining farm productivity can be attributed to poor soil fertility, the current technologies do not provide any remedies. On the other hand, almost half of the world’s potentially cultivable tropical land has acidic soil, caused by excessive soil aluminium (Herren 1999). The production of GM aluminium-tolerant crops would allow the productive cultivation of millions of hectares of acidic soil lands in tropical Asia and Latin America (Herrera-Estrella 1999). It should also be borne in mind that conventional breeding is still the technique most often used for achieving yield increases and for developing crops with resistance to diseases, insects and abiotic stresses (de la Fuente et al. 1997). Moreover, conventional breeding still contributes the bulk of new crop varieties used in general. It is, however, alleged that with the anticipated increase in the world population over the next 25 years, grain production will need to increase by 26 million tonnes per year. In addition to traditional breeding methods, it may be necessary to apply other techniques to achieve the required yield increases and yield stability of rice and other grains (Huang et al. 2002a).

In order to sustain the growth rate over the next 20 years in a way that will benefit the global population we must begin to cultivate land that is inaccessible in the timeframe at hand using traditional breeding methods. This means GMOs are practically necessary to use in conjunction with traditional breeding methods.

GM crops have increased in production for the last 17 years. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


A record 170.3 million hectares of biotech crops were grown globally in 2012, at an annual growth rate of 6%, up 10.3 million from 160 million hectares in 2011. 2012 was the 17th year of commercialization of biotech crops, 1996-2012, when growth continued after a remarkable 16 consecutive years of increases.



GMO use has increased 100-fold since 1996. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


2012 marked an unprecedented 100-fold increase in biotech crop hectarage from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 170 million hectares in 2012 – this makes biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in recent history – the reason – it delivers benefits.

It should be noted that this almost inherently means there is a direct tradeoff between farmland used for GMOs and farmland used for conventionally bred crops.

Adaptability of GMOs provides accessible crops for developing nations. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


Stacked traits are an important feature of biotech crops – 13 countries planted biotech crops with two or more traits in 2012. Encouragingly, 10 were developing countries. Around 43.7 million hectares equivalent to 26% of the 170 million hectares were stacked in 2012, up from 42.2 million hectares or 26% of the 160 million hectares in 2011.

This is important because it shows that we can expand our capability of growing food holistically, benefitting food security globally. We can grow a large number of crops in countries that were not able to have such a massive food output before.



GMOs grown in developing nations benefit food security. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


The five lead developing countries in biotech crops are China and India in Asia, Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, and South Africa on the continent of Africa, collectively grew 78.2 million hectares (46% of global) and together represent ~40% of the global population of 7 billion, which could reach 10.1 billion by 2100. Remarkably, Africa alone could escalate from 1 billion today (~15% of global) to a possible high of 3.6 billion (~35% of global) by the end of this century in 2100 – global food security, exacerbated by high and unaffordable food prices, is a formidable challenge to which biotech crops can contribute but are not a panacea.

Though GM crops cannot be a solution to food security independently, used in conjunction with other methods of farming can stabilize our population growth and access to food.

November 2014 Pro: African nations


Resistance to GMOs hurts African nations Those who present the argument in this light must tread carefully. This argument is highly turnable, but also highly potent. A weighing debate will commence as follows in most rounds. The Aff will say “Look at the benefits GMOs can bring to these nations. Clearly the benefits outweigh the costs, for if they used them we would make a fantastic opposition against world hunger.” But here comes the Neg and says “Ah, as true as your science may be, remember that in the real world we have politics, and you cannot say we will benefit these countries nationally, for only developed nations will use GMOs”. Be aware of that type of perspective debate in the rounds if this argument comes up. It is winnable on either side. The Aff will need to argue that a vote for the Neg only further entrenches the rigid thinking that GMOs are harmful, or that developing nations are on a brink point, (i.e. Kenya, India, Zimbabwe) where there current rate of production is not enough and they must cave to the benefits of GMOs. The Neg argues that the anti-GMO campaigns stemming from Western countries has scared developing nations to such a degree that we would only widen the economic gap between the two worlds, thus even further setting these nations back economically, technologically, and socially.

Western resistance to GMOs comes from a privileged economic perspective. ASF Mayer, Amy. "GMO Debate Influences Africa". Harvest Public Media. November 17,


The ongoing debate over the use of genetically modified crops for human food has its origins primarily in North America and Europe, but its reach is global. GM seeds —particularly corn and soybeans — are widely used by commodity farmers in the United States, but many European countries have banned the technology.

Wellesley College political science professor Robert Paarlberg (full disclosure: I took a course with Paarlberg at Wellesley 20 years ago) has looked at attitudes toward GMOs. He found the opposition to them from residents of wealthy countries does not stem from their fear of new risks the products create.

“Because scientists haven’t yet found any new risks,” he said in a phone interview. “The aversion comes, instead, from the absence of new benefits.”

It is a luxury, in a sense, that people in wealthy countries can reject a technology because they do not perceive a need for it, Paarlberg argues. Except for the farmers who plant the seeds and the seed companies that profit from the sales, he said, few Americans or Europeans notice benefits from genetically modified crops.

“GMO crops don’t look any better or smell any better or taste any better. They’re not any more nutritious,” Paarlberg said. “So consumers have been perfectly willing, not seeing any direct benefit, to take a highly precautionary view of the technology.”

He said that contrasts with the widespread acceptance of genetic engineering in medical applications.



“Where biotechnology does deliver new direct benefits to ordinary citizens, such as biological drugs from genetically engineered hamster cells,” Paarlberg said, “I find it interesting that here there’s no resistance at all, even in Europe, despite what is actually a significant presence of new risks as determined in clinical trials.”

Whatever the origins of the resistance, Paarlberg acknowledges that activist campaigns have kept out of the marketplace just about all of the fruits and vegetables, and all of the animals, that have been genetically engineered in the lab. He cites one exception.

What is interesting about Paarlberg’s comments to Mayer is that it warrants why we don’t see the health benefits and widespread nutritional benefits many studies talk about. The places that can afford to back this section of a market are vehemently against it because we have a stable natural agricultural base. This means that functionally, Western civilizations apprehension towards GMOs negatively impacts impoverished countries by not allowing this industry to develop.

Resistance to GMOs encourages famine in African countries. ASF Mayer, Amy. "GMO Debate Influences Africa". Harvest Public Media. November 17,


The whole debate over GMOs has become essentially a political and economic one that looks very different in rich countries than in poor ones. Paarlberg’s 2008 book "Starved for Science: how biotechnology is being kept out of Africa", explored why most countries in tropical Africa have restricted or prohibited the use of GMOs. In fact, he’s found some governments even ban research on the technology. In a now-famous incident 10 years ago, Zambia refused hunger relief containing GMO grains, a story at the center of Paarlberg's book. Partly, he explains, governments—especially in poor countries—must protect their European export markets.

“They may not really be fearful of food safety or biosafety issues, but it’s a dollars and cents issue for them,” Paarlberg said. “They don’t want to take any commercial export risk so they keep all GMOs out of their country.”

Though Kenya has a ban on GMOs, a farmer from that country who visited Iowa recently said a task force is reviewing the ban. Gilbert Bor, who grows corn and vegetables and has dairy cows—and is also a lecturer at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa Eldoret Campus in Kenya—said he’s hopeful the ban will be lifted.

The bans that African countries have on GMOs (which ultimately create a famine environment) are based on the conjunction of the “health consequences” narrative from the Western world and the export market they have to European countries. If European countries refuse to buy GMO crops, the African countries will take a massive economic hit, even if the availability of food domestically increases. Because of the potential adverse economic impact (due to the Western narrative of resistance to GMOs) African countries refuse to even research GMOs, let alone introduce them into their agriculture.



Denying GMO imports stagnates African economies DAT “GMOs for African Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.” Academy of Science of


Contrary to the expectations of opponents of GM foods, the results of modern comprehensive profiling of crop composition have shown a very close similarity between GM foods and their conventionally bred counterparts (Catchpole et al., 2005). Reputable organisations such as the WHO and the US National Academies of Science have issued numerous reports on the safety of GM foods. In June 2005, for instance, the WHO released a report entitled Modern Food Biotechnology, Human Health and Development, which has affirmed the safety of GM foods. In view of the findings, GM technology has huge potential for resolving the food and nutrition problems in Africa.

At present, the quality and yield of different varieties of the principal food crops grown and consumed in sub-Saharan Africa such as cassava, maize, yams, cocoyams, plantains, bananas, groundnuts, Irish potatoes, millet, beans, vegetables and tropical fruits are affected by several constraining factors including diseases of viral and fungal origin, poor soil and climatic conditions. In Cameroon, for example, several factors (Table 2.2) are major constraints in food production.

Based on current research trends in and successes with GM technology, these constraints can be eliminated. In addition, the same technology can be used to enhance the nutritional quality of locally grown foods such as protein, iron, zinc, vitamin A, iodine, etc.

From a policy viewpoint, this should not be a matter of choice but compulsory for Africa because the successes so far in resolving food production problems on the continent have largely not been concerned with conventionally grown food crops but with GM crops. If this technology is not used to resolve Africa’s food and nutrition problems, the continent will be dependent on world food trade since it is virtually an island in a sea of countries involved in GM food production (Figure 2.5). The prospects for the economies of those countries that find themselves in a situation of dependency are not encouraging.

A combination of poor soil conditions and reliance on the global market does not necessarily doom African countries. The problem lies in the growing global adoption of GMOs, which essentially squeezes the continent’s nation out of the market and drives up costs to import from an increasingly narrow selection of suppliers.



Developed nations don’t perceive the benefit of GMOs to the developing world. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Robert Paarlberg offers a simple explanation for why citizens of rich, developed countries remain so resistant to GM food technology: GM foods have offered no benefits to them.164 Europe and the United States have become so agriculturally productive that the marginal benefits of increasing productivity even more are seen as minimal, and easily outweighed by the social costs of industrialized agriculture—environmental pollution from pesticides and fertilizers, and loss of small family farms and the traditions they represent.165 Furthermore, the efficiency gains from GM crops are largely retained by farmers and seed companies, leaving consumers with little cost savings to offset the perceived risk.166 But while conservative food policies may make sense in Europe, where safe, nutritious food is abundant and affordable, the same policies may prove disastrous for the developing world.

Conservative, risk-adverse food policies are sensical when safe alternative crops are abundant (i.e. developed nations), this policy is detrimental to developing nations. The arguments in developed nations mostly stem from fiscal foundations such as production harms and loss of small-scale farms. These concerns are far outweighed by the implication of loss of life in developing nations. The main consumer resistance is grounded in the fact that consumers don’t reap the economic or yield benefits from GMOs in developed worlds, while the entire population can benefit in developing nations.



GMO cotton has benefitted Indian farmers. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Last year, India halted plans to commercialize what would have been its first GM food crop, an eggplant known as Bt brinjal.169 The Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, cited a lack of scientific consensus and intense public opposition among his reasons for the eggplant moratorium.170 Rajesh Kumar, an Indian farmer who grows brinjal, denounced the decision in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, asserting that the Minister had “bowed to political pressure from Greenpeace and other antibiotechnology organizations.”171 “If we are going to produce enough food for our people,” wrote Kumar, “farmers must have access to the same tools as growers in the developed world.”172

Blanket opposition to GM foods makes little sense in a country like India, where 21% of the population does not get enough food every day, and 46% of children are underweight.173 Moreover, India has been successfully growing GM cotton for the past nine years—a practice that “has spread quickly because it lowers input costs and increases productivity.”174 But in the heated and extremely polarized debate surrounding GM technology in India, conflicting assertions abound. According to Dr. A.S. Anand, of Karnataka’s Organic Farm- ing Mission, “Bt cotton hasn’t reduced the use of pesticides or chemicals and the yield is not better.”175 Can both sides be right? A closer look at early Indian adopters of Bt cotton can help to illumi- nate this problem.

In 2003, a group of agricultural economists conducted an independent survey of Bt and non-Bt cotton growers in four Indian states,176 following the end of India’s first official Bt cotton growing season.177 The study found that, on average, input costs were significantly higher per acre for the Bt cotton growers (lower pesticide costs were outweighed by the high price of GM seed), but the Bt cotton’s higher yields resulted in a much higher net average profit: 5,294 rupees per acre, compared with only 3,133 rupees per acre for conventional cotton.178

The study of India’s GMO cotton found that though the overall input costs of cotton were higher, the net benefit for GMO cotton farmers yielded profit 68% higher than that of conventional cotton farmers. This clearly helps farmers have an increased access to socioeconomic mobility as they now have more means to turn profit in developing nations.

November 2014 Pro: Economic impacts


Economic Impacts of GMOs

The introduction of GM crops boosts employment on manual farms. DAT Qaim, Matin. “The Benefits of Genetically Modified Crops—and the Costs of Inefficient

Regulation.” Resources For the Future. 2 April 2010. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.rff.org/Publications/WPC/Pages/The-Benefits-of-Genetically-Modified-Crops-and-the-Costs-of-Inefficient-Regulation.aspx

Where Bt crops have been grown in developing countries, the technology appears to often generate employment, because more workers are needed to harvest the significantly higher yields. One study in India suggests that Bt cotton produces 82 percent higher incomes for small-farm households compared with conventional cotton—a remarkable gain in overall economic welfare.

Recent research shows that direct and indirect effects of Bt cotton increase aggregate welfare by over $2 billion per year in India alone; a significant share of these gains go to rural households living below the poverty line. The annual gains of Bt cotton in China are also estimated in a range of $1 billion. Other developing countries where farmers use Bt cotton include Pakistan, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Mexico, and Argentina.

GM soybeans and corn, which are widely grown in North and South America as well as South Africa and a few other countries, also produce large aggregate welfare gains, currently estimated at $5 billion per year at the global level. Huge benefits are also projected for future GM crops that are more tolerant to drought or more efficient in nutrient use.

Given that there is uncertainty over the validity of health/safety evidence, raw economic data is a safer method of insulating Pro teams from having evidence challenged, questioned, and rebutted.



Increasing crop yields decreases global poverty. DAT Ivanic, M., & Martin, W. (2010). Poverty impacts of improved agricultural productivity:

Opportunities for genetically modified crops. AgBioForum, 13(4), 308-313.Accessed 10/5/2014. http://www.agbioforum.org.

When only the impacts of global productivity growth on producer profits are considered (the first subfigure of Figure 1), the average poverty rate is expected to rise by 0.5 percentage points, with significant variation among countries. The reason for the differences in producer return impacts is that producers are simultaneously affected by rising factor productivity (which reduces their costs) and by declining food prices and rising wages for hired labor (both of which lower their profits). While some producers, whose production is less factor-intensive, may see their revenues fall more than their costs, other producers benefit. On the other hand, consumers who face lower food prices and higher wages unambiguously benefit in this scenario (the second subfigure of Figure 1), with an average reduction in the poverty rate of 4.6 percentage points. A combination of these impacts, (shown in the third subfigure of Figure 1), show an average poverty rate reduction of 4.1 percentage points, and reductions in poverty in all but one country of the sample.

This World Bank simulation accounted for global rises in agricultural productivity to generate models of household incomes in every country surveyed. The study essentially showed that as yields improved, profit margins fall for producers while consumers across the board benefit—an intuitively obvious outcome.



The greatest global benefit of GMOs is in developing countries. DAT Ivanic, M., & Martin, W. (2010). Poverty impacts of improved agricultural productivity:

Opportunities for genetically modified crops. AgBioForum, 13(4), 308-313.Accessed 10/5/2014. http://www.agbioforum.org.

In the second scenario, we consider agricultural productivity increases that benefit only producers in developing countries. A key result of this simulation is that the average reduction in poverty of 4.7 percentage points is larger than the impact of a global increase in agricultural productivity, which means that agricultural productivity growth in developing countries is far more important for poverty reduction than that in developed countries. Another important observation is that while excluding developed countries from higher agricultural productivity has little impact on global poverty, it is better for producers in developing countries, who benefit at the expense of consumers from higher global food prices (Figure 2). These results highlight the importance for poverty reduction of increases in agricultural productivity in developing countries.

This card is crucial for weighing evidence when Pro teams run economic arguments. The study finds that the greatest net benefit in terms of global poverty reduction is for developing countries to accelerate agricultural productivity. Given that a main growth area of GM crops is strains adapted to harsh conditions in developing countries, this card allows Pro teams to prioritize the positive evidence in developing countries (e.g. Golden Rice) ahead of harms toward developed countries or muddled risk assessments of GMO crops put forth by Con teams.



Despite massive gains, GMOs still have unprecedented economic growth potential. DAT Adenle, Ademola A. “Are transgenic Crops Safe? GM Agriculture in Africa.” unu.edu.

United Nations University. 19 January 2012. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://unu.edu/publications/articles/are-transgenic-crops-safe-gm-agriculture-in-africa.html

The current regulatory approaches of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) can play an important role in the adoption of GM technology in developing countries, particularly in Africa. While the US can allow commercial release of GMO products based upon standard tests, in the EU, GMO products can be stopped based upon scientific uncertainty alone according to the “precautionary principle”.

This precautionary principle has become a political tussle: reports have shown that developing countries in Africa and elsewhere consider their trade relationships with the EU before adopting GM crops, due to the fear of losing market access. As a result, African governments tend to exhibit a “go slow approach” towards GM technology, reflected in delayed approval of biosafety laws and lack of a biosafety system in many African countries. This caution is not restricted to African countries; other developing countries are suffering a similar fate. Moreover, it is unclear what roles international organizations such as the World Trade Organization and the Convention on Biological Diversity are playing in mediating the disputes between the US and the EU.

At this point, the barrier to further adoption is hindrances to trade due to non-African governments’ regulations on GMOs. This means the Pro can stage an anti-regulatory advocacy to establish the point that even the current high economic gains due to GMOs are a small slice of the potential windfall for Africa.



Case study: Argentina. DAT Burachik, Moises. “Experience from use of GMOs in Argentinian agriculture, economy


As regards the economic benefits, many things should be taken into consideration. There are other issues involved in a rather complex way (e.g. high commodity prices, international markets and local economic growth). For these reasons, the economic measurements have estimated that the total gross benefits derived from the adoption of GM crop technology in the 1996–2006 period were of USD 19.7 billion for GTS (1996–2006), USD 482 million for Bt maize (1998–2005) and USD 19.7 million for insect-resistant cotton (1998–2005), making a total of USD 20.2 billion. In the case of soybean for the same period, the cost of re-stocking soil phosphorous consumed by the crop was estimated at USD 2.3 billion, giving a net gain of USD 17.4 billion [21].

Another important estimation is that of the farmers’ profit. It has been calculated that the farmers’ share of these benefits was 77% for soybean, 43% for maize and 86% for cotton [21]. Other studies [19] estimated that the farmer's income in the 1996–2006 period increased by USD 6.6 billion, and the revenues for 2006 alone were USD 1.3 billion.

Additionally, it was estimated that that the release of GTS has contributed to the creation of almost a million jobs (whole economy-wide), representing 36% of the total increase in employment over the 1996–2006 period.

As explained above, GM crop technology has been beneficial in more than one respect. When analysing the whole range of benefits, for the environment and for the economy, that this technological advancement has brought to Argentina, the reasons why this technology was so well received and had such a rapid adoption rate seem quite clear and straightforward.

GTS is an insecticide-resistance GM soybean crop.



Extra GMO regulations don’t have a negative impact. DAT Smith, Pamela, et al. “Genetically Modified Organisms, International Trade, and Policy.”

apec.umn.edu. University of Minnesota. 24 September 2013. Accessed 10/7/2014. Web. http://www.apec.umn.edu/prod/groups/cfans/@pub/@cfans/@apec/documents/asset/cfans_asset_457387.pdf

Fourth, a country’s portfolio of GMO regulations has an insignificant effect on the country’s comparative advantage in GMO intensive industries. The component regulations that comprise the portfolio also have an insignificant effects in the case of soybeans and maize. However, for cotton trade, traceability requirements have a positive effect on comparative advantage, and labeling policies and coexistence guidelines have a negative effect on comparative advantage. These positive and negative effects of select policies may offset one another, and thus explain why the portfolio of policies has a negligible effect.

There are several implications of these findings. As more countries allocate their relatively abundant land endowments to GMO intensive crops, they may experience an increase in their net exports to the rest of the world. This aggregate expansion of net exports could occur even in the presence of changes in bilateral trade patterns. Further, as more countries develop their institutional infrastructure for regulating GMOs, they may experience both positive and negative effects on their comparative advantage in trade. Regulations such as traceability requirements may improve transparency in markets where importers have divergent acceptance of GMOs, while policies such as labeling and coexistence guidelines may be costly enough to negatively effect countries’ net exports into the global market

While excess regulation is introduced to economies with the onset of GMO production, it’s erroneous for Con teams to create a link between this and any kind of economic slowdown, particularly in trade.



Specific Economic Benefits of GM Foods Pest Resistance Benefits from GM Foods AMS

Whitman, Deborah. “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” 2000. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php

Crop losses from insect pests can be staggering, resulting in devastating financial loss for farmers and starvation in developing countries. Farmers typically use many tons of chemical pesticides annually. Consumers do not wish to eat food that has been treated with pesticides because of potential health hazards, and run-off of agricultural wastes from excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers can poison the water supply and cause harm to the environment. Growing GM foods such as B.t. corn can help eliminate the application of chemical pesticides and reduce the cost of bringing a crop to market.

Economic Benefits of Herbicide Tolerance AMS Whitman, Deborah. “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” 2000. Accessed

10/5/2014. Web. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php For some crops, it is not cost-effective to remove weeds by physical means such as tilling, so farmers will often spray large quantities of different herbicides (weed-killer) to destroy weeds, a time-consuming and expensive process, that requires care so that the herbicide doesn't harm the crop plant or the environment. Crop plants genetically-engineered to be resistant to one very powerful herbicide could help prevent environmental damage by reducing the amount of herbicides needed. For example, Monsanto has created a strain of soybeans genetically modified to be not affected by their herbicide product Roundup ®6. A farmer grows these soybeans which then only require one application of weed-killer instead of multiple applications, reducing production cost and limiting the dangers of agricultural waste run-of.



GM Foods are More Resilient AMS Whitman, Deborah. “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” 2000. Accessed

10/5/2014. Web. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php · Cold tolerance-- Unexpected frost can destroy sensitive seedlings. An antifreeze gene from cold water fish has been introduced into plants such as tobacco and potato. With this antifreeze gene, these plants are able to tolerate cold temperatures that normally would kill unmodified seedlings.

(…)

· Drought tolerance/salinity tolerance-- As the world population grows and more land is utilized for housing instead of food production, farmers will need to grow crops in locations previously unsuited for plant cultivation. Creating plants that can withstand long periods of drought or high salt content in soil and groundwater will help people to grow crops in formerly inhospitable places.

Global economic benefit between 1996 and 2011 from GM foods. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


Economic gains at the farm level of ~US$98.2 billion were generated globally by biotech crops during the sixteen year period 1996 to 2011, of which 51% were due to reduced production costs (less ploughing, fewer pesticide sprays and less labor) and 49% due to substantial yield gains of 328 million tons. The corresponding figures for 2011 alone was 78% of the total gain due to increased yield (equivalent to 50.2 million tons), and 22% due to lower cost of production (Brookes and Barfoot, 2013, Forthcoming).

November 2014 Pro: GURT


Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT) Benefits

Suicide seeds protect biodiversity. ASF Li, Jing, Yu H, Zhang F, Lin C, Gao J, et al. (2013) “A Built-In Strategy to Mitigate

Transgene Spreading from Genetically Modified Corn”. PLoS ONE 8(12). December 6, 2013. http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081645&representation=PDF

Previously, we reported a built-in strategy for the containment of transgenes in rice [23]. This method was found to be effective in mitigating the spread of transgenes when this method was used in the development of insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant GM rice [25].

In the study, we demonstrated that the transgenic corn plants that contained the silenced nicosulfuron-detoxifying gene CYP81A9 were highly sensitive to nicosulfuron and could be selectively killed by spraying nicosulfuron at a regular application dosage. Because nicosulfuron is widely used for weed control in conventional cornfields, any transgenic corn plants that are developed by this method can be selectively decontaminated without extra effort or cost. Therefore, this transgene spreading control method is simple, preventive and could easily be incorporated into the regular weed control process.

Here we see that suicide seeds act as a response to the threats of biodiversity, and actually protect crops that are “natural yields”. Through the normal process of protecting a crop against weeds, farmers can also eliminate the GMO plant if they so desire.



Suicide seed benefits medical research. ASF Li, Jing, Yu H, Zhang F, Lin C, Gao J, et al. (2013) “A Built-In Strategy to Mitigate

Transgene Spreading from Genetically Modified Corn”. PLoS ONE 8(12). December 6, 2013. http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081645&representation=PDF

In addition to its application in regular transgenic corn, such as transgenic insect-resistant corn, this built-in containment strategy is especially useful for the development of transgenic plants as bioreactors [23,24]. Corn has many advantages for the large-scale production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins, which makes corn the widest used cereal for molecular pharming [3]. However, the risk of transgene spreading is relatively high because corn is a wind-pollinated plant. Due to the nature of the pharmaceutical or industrial proteins, it is particularly important to develop a reliable method for the containment of such transgenes. The method that is described in this report could be an ideal technology for minimizing the risk of contamination of such transgenic corn into food and feed supplies.

Developing corn that has this “kill-switch” gene in it can vastly help stabilize the genetic structure of the plants that scientists due research with in order to further develop pharmaceuticals.

GURT benefits developing nations. ASF Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology

Journal, 2014 (12). pp. 995 - 1005. July 17, 2014. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/pbi.12242/asset/pbi12242.pdf?v=1&t=i0w0q9t3&s=e3251d1e2416449b221d1f97ef8161b850053ef4

Harry Collins, at that time Vice President of the Technology Transfer Department of the Delta & Pine Land Co., in the article ‘New Technology and Modernizing World Agriculture’ distributed during the formal FAO meeting, held in Rome in October 1998, declared that ‘The centuries old practice of farmer saved seed is really a gross disadvantage to third world farmers who inadvertently become locked into obsolete varieties because of their taking the ‘easy road’ and not planting newer, more productive varieties’.

Here we see that when you have crops that force you to get the “new-updated” model it adds a competitive edge to the market that actually forces developing nations to be a part of the major trade industry in agriculture.



GURT incentivizes progressive market for food. ASF Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology


Willard Phelps, official spokesman of the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture (USDA), in an interview with New Scientist (March 29, 1998) declared that: ‘Our system is a way of self- policing the unauthorized use of American technology. It’s similar to copyright protection’, adding that: ‘This technology is designed to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries’. His words were echoed by Melvin J. Oliver, inventor of the technology, who, in March 1998, said: ‘My main interest is the protection of American technology. Our mission is to protect US agriculture, and to make us competitive in the face of foreign competition. Without this, there is no way of protecting the technology’. In fact, although intellectual property protection is granted at the local level in the form of patents or plant varietal protection (PVP), also ‘plant breeder’s rights’ (PBR), and at the international level by the UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) and by the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement (Article 27.3b2 ), the monitoring of patent right infringement by unauthorized use of seeds, if not impossible, is at least time-consuming and expensive. Moreover, there are several countries (for the most part developing countries) where plant varieties and/or biotechnological inventions are not protected or protected with an ineffective or very expensive intellectual property rights (IPR) system. In this sense, GURTs, giving a perpetual form of physical protection, would be an effective mechanism to bypass, either at local, national or international level, the intellectual property regulatory framework and other related judicial systems that provide, among the other things, an expiration date for the patents or the licenses (generally 20 years). This latter aspect would maintain the relevance for industrial/biotech research as the GURT technology would be protected during the life of the patent. Thus, the intellectual property protection granted by GURTs has a double target as it ensures that farmers cannot reuse saved seeds or exploit a valuable trait without purchasing a (patented) chemical and also prevents competitor biotech industries from using seeds in their own breeding programmes. Eventually, as suggested by Pendl- eton (2004), a company could use the prospect of the commercial use of GURTs in negotiations with governments or customers as leverage to achieve greater legal protections, better enforcement, or contractual concessions.

This card gives developing nations a huge upper hand in trade negotiations. It talks about how saving seeds and reusing seeds from a previous years crop is harmful to farmers in developing nations. So on one hand it encourages newer better crops and promotes fair business. On another level, these US based companies now have incentive to do business in developing nations. Because farmers would attempt to save seeds and regrow crops, companies would be less incentivized to sell to developing countries. GURT technology checks this and gives good business culture to include developing nations.



GURT tech creates adaptable crops. ASF Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology


The major agronomic benefits deriving from this technology are related to T-GURTs because they could be used to switch a desired trait on or off in favourable or unfavourable situations, such as drought and salt stress or pest attack (FAO, 2001a), whereas V-GURTs could be used to prevent preharvest sprouting (Budd, 2004; Pilger, 2002) and, according to Louwaars et al. (2002), when combined with apomixis, they could allow seed suppliers to produce seeds with hybrid vigour at reduced cost while protecting the investment.

Genetic use restriction technologies may increase competition by encouraging private companies to enter the market of self- fertilizing cultivars, especially in countries where seed saving is a common activity (FAO, 2002). Breeders would obtain their economic return through the sale of seeds. The resulting boosted investment in research and development in the plant breeding sector, favoured by the lower costs resulting from cover contracts and intellectual property laws (Smyth et al., 2002), could eventually increase productivity and (paradoxically) agricultural biodiversity where the breeders would be able to use a much wider gene pool or develop more varieties (Louwaars et al., 2002). Eaton and van Tongeren (2002) suggested that even governments may benefit from GURTs through reduced investment requirements for breeding and fewer enforcement costs for plant variety protection.

Moreover, against the increased costs to buy seeds (or chemicals to activate the seeds/traits), farmers could profit from the new (improved) varieties providing higher yield potentials and improved pest resistance (Mukherjee and Senthil Kumar, 2014). These benefits may also have a secondary positive impact on consumers, leading to lower food costs (Eaton and van Tongeren 2002).

Nevertheless, in the forecast realized by Goeschl and Swanson (2003) on the possible outcomes deriving from the application of GURTs in a 20-year horizon, it is suggested that the most developed countries would stand to benefit most, whereas the least developed countries would stand to lose (especially in the short term).

GURT allows for seeds to have multiple traits that help in adapting to less than ideal environments for growing. This includes droughts and floods, i.e. scuba rice. Certain chemicals can cause the plant to activate behaviors and traits and ultimately survive much more rigorous conditions. This in turn can lead to higher crop yields and the development of a wider variety of plants at a lower cost.

November 2014 Pro: Climate Change


Climate Change and GMO Production Climate Change and Role of Biotech Crop. PSM

Rotman, David, ed. "Why We Will Need Genetically Modified Foods." . MIT Technology Review. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/522596/why-we-will-need-genetically-modified-foods/>.

GM potatoes could also lead to a new generation of biotech foods sold directly to consumers. Though transgenic corn, soybeans, and cotton—mostly engineered to resist insects and herbicides—have been widely planted since the late 1990s in the United States and in a smattering of other large agricultural countries, including Brazil and Canada, the corn and soybean crops go mainly into animal feed, biofuels, and cooking oils. No genetically modified varieties of rice, wheat, or potatoes are widely grown, because opposition to such foods has discouraged investment in developing them and because seed companies haven’t found ways to make the kind of money on those crops that they do from genetically modified corn and soybeans.

Climate change is likely to make the problem far worse, bringing higher temperatures and, in many regions, wetter conditions that spread infestations of disease and insects into new areas. Drought, damaging storms, and very hot days are already taking a toll on crop yields, and the frequency of these events is expected to increase sharply as the climate warms. For farmers, the effects of climate change can be simply put: the weather has become far more unpredictable, and extreme weather has become far more common.

The central highlands of Mexico, for example, experienced their driest and wettest years on record back to back in 2011 and 2012, says Matthew Reynolds, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in El Batán. Such variation is “worrisome and very bad for agriculture,” he says. “It’s extremely challenging to breed for it. If you have a relatively stable climate, you can breed crops with genetic characteristics that follow a certain profile of temperatures and rainfall. As soon as you get into a state of flux, it’s much more difficult to know what traits to target.”

One advantage of using genetic engineering to help crops adapt to these sudden changes is that new varieties can be created quickly. Creating a potato variety through conventional breeding, for example, takes at least 15 years; producing a genetically modified one takes less than six months. Genetic modification also allows plant breeders to make more precise changes and draw from a far greater variety of genes, gleaned from the plants’ wild relatives or from different types of organisms. Plant scientists are careful to note that no magical gene can be inserted into a crop to make it drought tolerant or to increase its yield—even resistance to a disease typically requires multiple genetic changes. But many of them say genetic engineering is a versatile and essential technique.



Climate Change and Food Security: The Role of Biotechnology in Africa. PSM Quaye, Wilhemina. "Climate Change and Food Security: The Role of Biotechnology.

"International Relations and Security Network, 31 12 2013. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?id=174856>.

Food security and global environmental change are interrelated and there is growing concern that while global environmental change complicates achievement of food security, increasing demand for food further degrades the environment [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. Climate change may affect food systems in several ways, ranging from direct effects on crop and livestock production to changes in markets and food prices [16]. Potential effects of changes in climate on crop yields have been assessed by researchers [17, 18, 19, 20]. Climate change and other global environmental changes such as changes in water availability, land cover, altered nitrogen availability and cycling (all strongly influenced by human activities), have increased concerns about achieving food security especially for poor people [21].

Climate change and its potential implications for agricultural water use creates increasing uncertainty for planning. It can significantly increase production risk and rural vulnerability, particularly in regions that already suffer from chronic soil and water resource scarcity or high exposure to climatic extremes, such as droughts and flooding. All of these can lead to poverty and hunger [22]. The effects of climate change on agriculture may depend not only on changing climate conditions, but also on the agricultural sector’s ability to adapt through changes in technology and demand for food, coupled with management of water availability, soil quality, and crop selection [23]. Adapting to climate change will require on-going review of its impact on population growth, land and water use, the effectiveness of water demand-and- supply programs, and the capacity of emerging technologies to deal with challenges.

Africa will have to pursue biotechnology applications that reduce waste from food and animal production, by altering animal metabolic processes to improve the environmental impact of animal waste management and disposal. These environmental benefits may also promote greater acceptance of biotechnology in animal and food production [30]. As climate change alters the geographic distribution of water and soil nutrients, changes in regional climate patterns caused by long-term global warming will affect the potential range of many infectious diseases. The climates of some regions will become more suitable to transmit disease agents. Human behavioral adaptations and food interventions through the use of biotechnology can mitigate many adverse impacts. Another important risk of climate change is its impact on the evolution and emergence of infectious disease agents. Ecosystem instabilities brought about by climate change and stresses, such as land-use changes, species dislocation, and increasing global trade and travel, will influence the genetics of pathogenic microbes through mutation and horizontal gene transfer. This will give rise to new interactions among hosts and disease agents. Such changes foster the emergence of new infectious diseases and the need for new food products. Changes in production practices, redistribution of natural resources, and disease emergence and proliferation have demographic impacts as well.



The use of “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) has the potential to offer real benefit in agriculture, food quality, food nutrition and health [34]. GMOs are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology. Biotechnology applications have been used to control Striga in maize fields, Maruca pod borer in insect resistant cowpea and disease resistant in banana (control banana bacterial wilt). Other examples of biotechnology applications are the production of drought tolerant maize (to reduce impact of drought), nitrogen efficient rice (improve response to nitrogen), saline tolerant rice (to extend paddy production) and bio-fortified sorghum (to improve human nutrition). Biotechnology applications have also been used in mycotoxin control (to lower peanut and maize aflatoxins), tomato resistant to the yellow leaf curl virus and cassava industrialization through mechanized cassava operations. In terms of crop yield, there is a wide gap between sub Sahara Africa and the rest of the world for some selected crops like banana, maize, rice and sorghum. Efficient use of biotechnology can help bridge this gap.

Africa’s Consolidated Plan of Action (CPA) for Science, Technology and Innovation (2006-2010) had biotechnology, biodiversity and indigenous knowledge cluster as one of its 13 programmes. These 3 made up the African Biosciences Initiative (ABI) which created 4 bioscience network centers to drive the development of biotechnology and other biosciences in Africa.



Climate Change in South Africa and Food Security. PSM Saskia von, Diest. "WHAT ELSE IS CLIMATE CHANGE CHANGING? Food safety &

security and the role of Biotechnology ." . South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement, n.d. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.pub.ac.za/files/biotech climate change.pdf>.

The supply of energy is already limited in South Africa, but as the cost of energy increases, so do the safe transport, processing and storage of food. This makes food more expensive and limits the number of people who are able to afford a healthy variety of fresh food. It is accepted that poor nutrition leads to poor health and eventually to disease, which could place even greater pressure on the health care sector in South Africa.

Benefits of biotechnology to combat the effects of climate change “Biotechnology” has many meanings, but probably the simplest definition is when humans use living organisms for their benefit. Genetic modification is an example of how biotechnology can be used to help solve the problems associated with climate change and food security. Scientists are working to produce genetically modified crops, like maize or potatoes, to use less water, or to be made resistant to droughts, while still keeping the qualities of the crop that consumers are used to, such as taste, colour, shape and smell. This could mean that less water would be needed in certain farming areas where water is a serious limitation.

Similarly, genetically altered crops that are less vulnerable to certain pests and diseases would limit crop losses and reduce the amount of chemicals used to control these pests and diseases. This technology could be used mainly for staple foods to alleviate hunger. It could also be used to reduce malnutrition by growing more nutritious crops. Feeding livestock with more nutritious crops could also improve the nutritional value of animal food products, like meat, milk or eggs. Improving the health of consumers and preventing certain nutrition-related illnesses through food would help society. Lastly, research into sustainable biofuels (fuels made from biomass and potentially more environmentally-friendly than oil) could reduce the need to burn fossil fuels.



GM Crops, Global Warming, and Carbon Emission. PSM J.P. "Frankenfoods reduce global warming." . The Economist, 04 03 2013. Web. 1 Oct

2014. <http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2013/03/gm-crops-and-carbon-emissions>.

At a time when agricultural experts are getting hot under the collar about an Indian village whose claims to be smashing rice-growing records have been extolled here and debunked here, it is useful to have a cool global appraisal of the state of genetically-modified (GM) crops, traditionally seen as most likely source of a new green revolution or (alternatively) as a disaster in embryo.

This year’s ISAAA report tries to calculate the effects of GM crops on the environment. It says they saved the equivalent of 473m kilograms of pesticides in 2011 (because GM makes crops resistant to pests); saved 109m hectares of new land being ploughed up (GM crops are usually higher-yielding so less land is required for the same output) and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 23 billion kg of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Greens won’t believe these claims and will probably point out that ISAAA gets money from Monsanto and other GM companies. But that is not a good enough reason to dismiss them (and anyway ISAAA also gets money from governments and the UN). The underlying claim that GM crops reduce carbon emissions seems strong.



GM Crops and Reduction of Green House Gas. PSM Aldhous, Peter. "New generation of GM crops could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by

more than grounding all the aircraft in the world." . Reed Business Information, 07 01 2008. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.soyatech.com/news_story.php?id=6269>.

There is a growing realization that climate change will present a serious challenge for farmers – and that could mean big profits for companies that can help them adapt to environmental stress. This article examines the new generation of genetically modified (GM) crops which are emerging in response to a changing climate.

The first of this new generation of GM crops will be varieties of maize which can survive periods of drought. The first commercial varieties could become available soon after 2010 and drought-tolerant versions of other plants are not far behind.

As sea levels continue to rise and contaminate agricultural land, salinity is already a huge problem worldwide. As such, the author asserts, salt-tolerance is another trait in the researchers' sights.

Nitrogen fertilizer, used in commercial farming, releases nitrogen oxide, an extremely potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere – contributing more to global warming than all the world's cars, ships, planes and trains combined. As such, scientists argue that the solution comes in the form of crops genetically modified to require less fertilizer.

Drought-tolerant versions of other plants are not far behind. "We're looking for ways to leverage what we find in maize into other crops," says Marc Albertsen of Pioneer Hi-Bred International in Johnston, Iowa.

Salt tolerance is another trait in researchers' sights. When groundwater is used to irrigate thirsty crops in dry regions, any salt it carries builds up in the soil. Salinity is already a huge problem worldwide, and as sea level continues to rise, coastal agricultural land may become increasingly contaminated with sea water. So salt-tolerant crops could make a big difference.



Food Security and Capricious Weather Conditions. PSM Tait, Joyce, and Guy Barker. "Global food security and the governance of modern

biotechnologies." EMBO Press, 15 07 2011. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://embor.embopress.org/content/12/8/763.full>. Food security has become an issue of serious concern because global food supplies are threatened by systemic collapse. Increasing demand for food caused by global population growth, changing lifestyles in developing countries, climate change and competition with biofuels are combining to create a ‘perfect storm’ (Godfray et al, 2010). Moreover, short-‐term weather pattern changes leading to floods and droughts and associated fires in key grain-‐producing areas of the world encourage speculation in agricultural commodities and cause wild price fluctuations. Drastic price hikes for staple foods during the past few years have triggered famine and revolts in developing countries, where people are hardest hit (Henn, 2011).

However, European countries find it difficult to respond constructively to these challenges, given their divergent opinions on how to address food-‐security issues, particularly in terms of whether and how science and technology should be part of the solution. Available technologies, particularly GM, are making a large contribution to global food production. Outside the EU, the cultivation of transgenic crops is expanding rapidly. The increase from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 148 million in 2010 makes biotech crops the fastest-‐adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture, now covering 10% of land that is used for crops on Earth (James, 2010). Depending on the crop and the farming system, GM crops are already contributing to increased yields, greater ease and predictability of crop management, a reduction in pesticide use and fewer post-‐harvest crop losses (National Research Council, 2010).



Value of Salt Resistant Biotech Crop and Its Application to GM. PSM Roy, Stuart. "Salt resistant crop plants." . Science Direct, n.d. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0958166913007192>. Soil salinity is a major constraint to agriculture. To improve salinity tolerance of crops, various traits can be incorporated, including ion exclusion, osmotic tolerance and tissue tolerance. We review the roles of a range of genes involved in salt tolerance traits. Different tissues and cells are adapted for specific and often diverse function, so it is important to express the genes in specific cell-types and to pyramid a range of traits. Modern biotechnology (marker-assisted selection or genetic engineering) needs to be increasingly used to introduce the correct combination of genes into elite crop cultivars. Importantly, the effects of introduced genes need to be evaluated in the field to determine their effect on salinity tolerance and yield improvement. The deleterious effects of salt stress on agricultural yield are significant, mainly because crops exhibit slower growth rates, reduced tillering and, over months, reproductive development is affected [2]. The ultimate aim of salinity tolerance research is to increase the ability of plants to maintain growth and productivity in saline soils relative to their growth in non-saline soils — that is, to reduce effects of salinity on growth and yield.

Discoveries of mechanisms of salinity tolerance now need to be applied to crops to improve crop performance in the field. One way that this can be done is by using conventional breeding, accelerated by the use of molecular markers linked to the tolerance trait being introgressed, MAS. If variation in a particular gene is insufficient within the relevant germplasm or if the gene is only found in a model plant species [ 79•], then alteration of the trait using GM technologies can be deployed. It is essential that those experiments involving GM plants have not only greenhouse evaluation of the salinity tolerance of the plant but field evaluation as well. A plant that shows salinity tolerant in the greenhouse may not necessarily have improved grain yield in the field. Only a few studies (e.g. [ 80•• and 81]) have evaluated the performance of GM plants for any abiotic stress tolerance mechanism in the field.



Reductions in deforestation from GM food requirements benefits biodiversity. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


Biotech crops are a land-saving technology, capable of higher productivity on the current 1.5 billion hectares of arable land, and thereby can help preclude deforestation and protect biodiversity in forests and in other in-situ biodiversity sanctuaries. Approximately 13 million hectares of biodiversity – rich tropical forests, are lost in developing countries annually. If the 328 million tons of additional food, feed and fiber produced by biotech crops during the period 1996 to 2011 had not been produced by biotech crops, an additional 108.7 million hectares (Brookes and Barfoot, 2013, Forthcoming) of conventional crops would have been required to produce the same tonnage. Some of the additional 108.7 million hectares would probably have required fragile marginal lands, not suitable for crop production, to be ploughed, and for tropical forest, rich in biodiversity, to be felled to make way for slash and burn agriculture in developing countries, thereby destroying biodiversity.

The use of GM foods from 1996 – 2011 had an opportunity gain of 268 million acres in developing countries due to the tradeoff in land required to grow GM crops compared to conventionally grown crops.



GM crops mitigate agricultural impact on environment. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


Conventional agriculture has impacted significantly on the environment, and biotechnology can be used to reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture. Progress to-date includes: a significant reduction in pesticides; saving on fossil fuels; decreasing CO2 emissions through no/ less ploughing; and conserving soil and moisture by optimizing the practice of no till through application of herbicide tolerance. The accumulative reduction in pesticides for the period 1996 to 2011 was estimated at 473 million kilograms (kgs) of active ingredient (a.i.), a saving of 8.9% in pesticides, which is equivalent to an 18.3% reduction in the associated environmental impact of pesticide use on these crops, as measured by the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) – a composite measure based on the various factors contributing to the net environmental impact of an individual active ingredient. The corresponding data for 2011 alone was a reduction of 37 million kgs a.i. (equivalent to a saving of 8.5% in pesticides) and a reduction of 22.8% in EIQ (Brookes and Barfoot, 2013, Forthcoming).

GM use has reduced the negative impact of pesticides on the environment by over 18% between 1996 and 2011. This is not saying we have reversed the impact of pesticide use, but rather have avoided a harm that would be 18% greater in the status quo. This impact is similar to an opportunity cost argument, but is more of an opportunity benefit.

Current GM crop research is aimed at alleviating water insecurity. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


Increasing efficiency of water usage will have a major impact on conservation and availability of water globally. Seventy percent of fresh water is currently used by agriculture globally, and this is obviously not sustainable in the future as the population increases by almost 30% to over 9 billion by 2050. The first biotech maize hybrids with a degree of drought tolerance are expected to be commercialized by 2013 in the USA, and the first tropical drought tolerant biotech maize is expected by ~2017 for sub-Saharan Africa. Drought tolerance is expected to have a major impact on more sustainable cropping systems worldwide, particularly in developing countries, where drought is more prevalent and severe than industrial countries.



GM crops benefit soil carbon sequestration and our atmosphere. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


The important and urgent concerns about the environment have implications for biotech crops, which contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gases and help mitigate climate change in two principal ways. First, permanent savings in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions through reduced use of fossil-based fuels, associated with fewer insecticide and herbicide sprays; in 2011, this was an estimated saving of 1.9 billion kg of CO2, equivalent to reducing the number of cars on the roads by 0.8 million. Secondly, additional savings from conservation tillage (need for less or no ploughing facilitated by herbicide tolerant biotech crops) for biotech food, feed and fiber crops, led to an additional soil carbon sequestration equivalent in 2011 to 21.1 billion kg of CO2, or removing 9.4 million cars off the road. Thus in 2011, the combined permanent and additional savings through sequestration was equivalent to a saving of 23 billion kg of CO2 or removing 10.2 million cars from the road (Brookes and Barfoot, 2013, Forthcoming).

This is a one-year impact on the environment. The higher the level of expansion that GMO production has, the greater its positive impact on the environment becomes.

November 2014 Pro: Farmer Suicide


GMO and Alleged Claims of Suicides GM Genocide. PSM

J.L.P, . "GM genocide?." . The Economist. Web. 1 Oct 2014. <http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2014/03/gm-crops-indian-farmers-and-

suicide>. The notion seems plausible: farmers take out higher debts on the promise that GM seeds will be a bonanza and then lose everything when the harvest fails. There is genuine distress: farmers are indeed killing themselves. Their cause has been adopted by high-profile campaigners such as Britain’s Prince Charles and India’s Vandana Shiva, who blames the spate of deaths on Monsanto, an American biotech firm. There have been blockbuster films, such as “Summer 2007”; the rural-affairs editor of The Hindu, a newspaper, won an international press award for his writing on the subject. The farmers' deaths played a part in the recommendation by a panel of India's Supreme Court to impose a 10-year moratorium on field trials of GM crops in the country.

There is only one trouble: there has been no spate of suicides. Ian Plewis, of the University of Manchester, in Britian, has looked at suicide rates in the cotton-growing areas of India, which are usually regarded as among the worst-hit. He finds that the suicide rate among male farmers in the nine main cotton-growing states was just under 30 per 100,000 in 2011. That is about the same as suicide rates among farmers in France and Scotland, so Indian farmers do not seem unusual. The rates are slightly lower than among men in those states who do not work on farms, so Indian cotton farmers are slightly less likely to commit suicide than their non-farming neighbours. Nor is there any sign that suicides rates changed significantly after 2002, when GM cotton began to be introduced. Overall, Indian suicide rates are not especially high. Officially, they are just over 10 per 100,000, slightly more than Germany and less than half China’s, though of course, the official figures might be underestimates.

The idea that GM cotton drives farmers to suicide has become received wisdom. But it is wrong.



Empirical suicide vs. GMO adoption data. DAT Entine, Jon. “Vandana Shiva, Anti-GMO Celebrity: ‘Eco Goddess’ or Dangerous

Fabulist?” Forbes. 29 January 2014. Accessed 10/7/2014. Web. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/01/29/vandana-shiva-anti-gmo-celebrity-eco-goddess-or-dangerous-fabulist/

Looking from a statistical perspective (if a cursory glance isn’t satisfactory proof), it’s impossible to find any correlation between Bt cotton adoption (whose alleged failures supposedly led to a spate of suicides) and farmers’ suicide rates in India. Ignoring cotton statistics for a moment, we even see a progressive lowering of the suicide rate for the most recent period the graph contains.



Farmers’ suicide-inducing debts came from predatory banking practices, not failed crops. DAT

Kloor, Keith. “The GMO-Suicide Myth.” issues.org. Issues in Science and Technology. 5 February 2014. Accessed 10/7/2014. Web. http://issues.org/30-2/keith/

What we know is that many of the farmer suicides have been concentrated in five of India’s 28 states. (Anti-GMO activists call this the “suicide belt.”) At the conference, Anoop Sadanadan, a political economist at Syracuse University, identified the role of Indian banking policies, rather than the alleged GMO crop failure, in contributing to the suicides. In a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Developing Areas, he argues that “the increase in suicides among Indian farmers is an unanticipated consequence of the bank reforms the country undertook since the early-1990s. In particular, the entry of foreign and new generation private banks has made banking in India competitive and led to fewer loans to agriculture and farmers. With increased competition, banks saw lending to the farm sector as unprofitable and unreliable.”

Banking practices vary across India. Sadanadan found that states with the highest incidence of farmer suicides were those that offered the least institutional credit to farmers. This forced small farmers into the hands of private lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates (as high as 45%). In those states where farmers had better access to institutional credit and farm insurance, there were markedly fewer suicides. Indian banks also offer credit to farmers with irrigated land, as this makes farming more viable. “Irrigation does drive bank lending,” Sadanadan said at the panel. “In states where there is greater irrigation, they [banks] lend money to the farmer.”

In his upcoming paper, Sadanadan writes that he also found “no evidence to suggest that the cultivation of a particular crop was related to suicides in India.” Some states with high agrarian suicide rates do not include cotton farmers. “Further, cotton was cultivated in some 10 other states that did not witness high incidence of farmer suicides,” he writes.

It’ll be helpful, when dealing with suicide claims, for Pro teams to have a legitimate reason for the suicides, rather than leaving a dangling question on a potentially significant point in a debate.

November 2014 Pro: Food to fuel


GM Food is GM Fuel GM sugar increases efficiency of biofuel. ASF

Bullis, Kevin. "Genetically Modified Bacteria Produce 50 Percent More Fuel" MIT Tech Review. October 3, 2013.http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519791/genetically-modified-bacteria-produce-50-percent-more-fuel/

Researchers at UCLA have opened a path to cheaper and cleaner biofuels by using genetic engineering to fundamentally change how certain organisms process sugar.

Conventional biofuels are either too expensive to compete with fossil fuels or they release so much carbon dioxide that they’re hardly worth making—or both.

The UCLA advance, which increases the amount of biofuel that can be made from sugar by 50 percent, could make it cheaper to produce biofuels from a variety of sources, especially biomass such as wood chips and grass. The U.S. biofuels industry is in desperate need of such advances—even though Congress has mandated that a certain amount of biofuel from biomass be blended with gasoline, high costs and other factors have limited production, leading the EPA to repeatedly waive the requirement.

GM sugar used for energy has a smaller carbon footprint. ASF Bullis, Kevin. "Genetically Modified Bacteria Produce 50 Percent More Fuel" MIT Tech

Review. October 3, 2013.http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519791/genetically-modified-bacteria-produce-50-percent-more-fuel/

In conventional biofuels production, sugar derived from sources such as corn and biomass is fed to yeast, which ferments it to produce ethanol. But the fermentation process wastes a third of the carbon atoms that make up sugar; rather than being used to make ethanol, the carbon is released in the form of carbon dioxide.

The UCLA researchers cobbled together genes from a variety of organisms to create an alternate way to process sugar that doesn’t emit any carbon dioxide, and uses all of the carbon in sugar to make biofuel. They created genetically modified E. coli bacteria to demonstrate the process, but they say the same genetic pathway could be incorporated into other organisms, including yeast.

“Anytime you use fermentation, you lose one-third of the carbon to carbon dioxide. We can retain that carbon, reduce the carbon footprint of ethanol production, and make more money,” says James Liao, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA.

The GMOs used in the process of turning sugar to fuel has a unique advantage on our carbon footprint in the world, reducing our negative impact on the environment in relation to biofuel production by one third.



GM corn for biofuel is under precaution to avoid cross-contamination. ASF Allen, Nick. "Genetically modified corn grown fuel rather than food". The Telegraph.

August 16, 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/8703519/Genetically-modified-corn-grown-for-fuel-rather-than-food.html

The corn, called Enogen and developed by the Swiss company Syngenta, is being grown on 5,000 acres in Kansas. Growing will later expand to states including Iowa and Nebraska.

Syngenta has called it a "breakthrough product" that will allow US ethanol producers to generate more gallons of ethanol from their existing facilities, while also reducing carbon emissions.

It says precautions will be taken to avoid cross-contamination with food corn.

There are specific regulations here to avoid cross-contamination, along with increases in the productivity of current facilities.

GMOs made for biofuel are safe for consumption. ASF Pollack, Andrew. "U.S. Approves Corn Modified for Ethanol". The New York Times.

February 11, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/business/12corn.html?_r=0 The Agriculture Department said the corn met the statutory requirements for approval, in that it was not a pest that would harm plants. The Food and Drug Administration had previously found the corn safe to eat.

The Agriculture Department said the food processors should work with Syngenta to address their concerns. “We are pleased that these segments of industry continue to dialogue with Syngenta on research and testing efforts,” the department said in a press release.

The corn approval is the third recent one in which the Agriculture Department has had to weigh the risks of the spread of a genetically engineered trait.



GMOs increased ethanol production 8%. ASF Pollack, Andrew. "U.S. Approves Corn Modified for Ethanol". The New York Times.

February 11, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/business/12corn.html?_r=0

The National Corn Growers Association applauded the corn’s approval.

The corn contains a synthetic gene derived from micro-organisms that live near hot-water vents on the ocean’s floor. The enzyme is stable at the high temperatures used in making ethanol. The liquid amylase now used by ethanol plants is made in other micro-organisms.

Syngenta said that use of its corn increased ethanol production by 8 percent and reduced natural gas consumption 8 percent in a test at an ethanol plant in Oakley, Kan.


Con Evidence

January 2014 Con: Unintended effects


GMOs may have unintended effects Genetics is incredibly complicated, Fj

Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American. August 20, 2013.

Not all objections to genetically modified foods are so easily dismissed, however. Long-term health effects can be subtle and nearly impossible to link to specific changes in the environment. Scientists have long believed that Alzheimer's disease and many cancers have environmental components, but few would argue we have identified all of them.

And opponents say that it is not true that the GM process is less likely to cause problems simply because fewer, more clearly identified genes are switched. David Schubert, an Alzheimer's researcher who heads the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., asserts that a single, well-characterized gene can still settle in the target plant's genome in many different ways. “It can go in forward, backward, at different locations, in multiple copies, and they all do different things,” he says. And as U.C.L.A.'s Williams notes, a genome often continues to change in the successive generations after the insertion, leaving it with a different arrangement than the one intended and initially tested. There is also the phenomenon of “insertional mutagenesis,” Williams adds, in which the insertion of a gene ends up quieting the activity of nearby genes.

Opponents also point out that the kinds of alterations caused by the insertion of genes from other species might be more impactful, more complex or more subtle than those caused by the intraspecies gene swapping of conventional breeding. And just because there is no evidence to date that genetic material from an altered crop can make it into the genome of people who eat it does not mean such a transfer will never happen—or that it has not already happened and we have yet to spot it. These changes might be difficult to catch; their impact on the production of proteins might not even turn up in testing. “You'd certainly find out if the result is that the plant doesn't grow very well,” Williams says. “But will you find the change if it results in the production of proteins with long-term effects on the health of the people eating it?”



Scientific community still doesn’t completely understand regulatory switches, Fj Cho, Renee. “The Intensifying Debate Over Genetically Modified Foods” Columbia

University’s Earth Institute. July 30, 2013. In a recent interview, Thierry Vrain, a former research scientist with Agriculture Canada, Canada’s federal department of agriculture, and a pro-GM food scientist until 2002, said that genetic modification “is based on a very naïve understanding of genetics. It is based on the one gene/one protein hypothesis.” However, when the Human Genome Project was completed in 2002, scientists realized for the first time that almost every gene can make more than one protein, and that 98 percent of DNA is comprised of regulatory switches that are not yet understood. When a foreign gene is inserted into a plant genome, said Vrain, scientists have no control over where it goes —and the inserted gene, now under the regulatory sequences of the whole genome, is altered and makes rogue proteins, potentially different from those expected.



GMOs can cause birth defects. ASF Aris, Aziz. Leblanc, Samuel. "Maternal and Fetal Exposure to Pesticides Associated to

Genetically Modified Foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada". Reproductive Toxicology. February 13, 2011. https://www.uclm.es/Actividades/repositorio/pdf/doc_3721_4666.pdf

GLUF was detected in 18% of nonpregnant women’s blood and not detected in maternal and fetal blood. As for GLYP, the non detection of GLUF may be explained by the absence of exposure, the efficiency of elimination or the limitation of the method of detection. Regarding the non-detection of certain chemicals in pregnant women compared with non pregnant women, it is assumed that the hemodilution caused by pregnancy may explain, at least in part, such non-detection. On the other hand, 3-MPPA (the metabolite of GLUF) was detected in 100% of maternal and umbilical cord blood samples, and in 67% of the nonpregnant women’s blood samples. This highlights that this metabolite is more detectable than its precursor and seems to easily cross the placenta to reach the fetus. Garcia et al. [37] investigated the potential teratogenic effects of GLUF in humans found and increased risk of congenital malformations with exposure to GLUF. GLUF has also been shown in mouse embryos to cause growth retardation, increased death or hypoplasia [18]. As for GLYP, it is interesting to note that the GLUF concentrations used in these tests are very high (10 ug/ml) compared to the levels we found in this study (53.6 ng/ml). Hence, our data which provide the actual and precise concentrations of these toxicants, will help in the design of more relevant studies in the future.

On the other hand, Cry1Ab toxin was detected in 93% and 80% of maternal and fetal blood samples, respectively and in 69% of tested blood samples from nonpregnant women. There are no other studies for comparison with our results. However, trace amounts of the Cry1Ab toxin were detected in the gastrointestinal contents of livestock fed on GM corn [38–40], raising concerns about this toxin in insect-resistant GM crops; (1) that these toxins may not be effectively eliminated in humans and (2) there may be a high risk of exposure through consumption of contaminated meat.

This study isolates food as the contributor for the chemicals in the blood system. The chemicals that come from the diet in the area result in birth defects, and in high doses may result in death.



GMOs contain Bt toxins. ASF Smith, Jeffrey M. "Can Genetically-Engineered Foods Explain the Exploding Gluten

Sensitivity?" Institute for Responsible Technology. September 2013. http://responsibletechnology.org/media/images/content/Exploding-Gluten-Sensitivity_.pdf?key=36686282

Here, we will present evidence that strongly suggests that one significant addition to the American diet—genetically modified (GM) food— is a major contributor to gluten sensitivity reactions, and also interferes with complete and rapid recovery. Also called genetically modified organisms (GMOs), these are crops that have had foreign genes inserted into their DNA, usually from bacteria or viruses, to confer a particular trait. There are nine GM food crops currently being grown for commercial use; the six major ones are soy, corn, cotton (used for cooking oil), canola (also used for cooking oil), sugar beets (used for sugar production), and alfalfa (used as animal feed). All six are engineered to be herbicide tolerant, i.e. to survive spray applications of weed killer. They thus contain high residue levels of these extremely toxic, endocrine-disrupting and DNA-damaging agrichemi- cals. Some corn and cotton varieties are also equipped with genes that produce a toxic insecticide call Bt-toxin (from Bacillus thuringiensis soil bacteria). There are also zucchini, yellow squash, and papaya varieties that have viral genes designed to help them ward off certain viral infections.

The consumer GMOs in America contain toxins, specifically Bt, which has numerous negative side effects to one’s health.



The GMO Gluten-Sensitivity Trigger AMS “GMOs Linked to Gluten Disorders Plaguing 18 Million Americans-report.” RT.

November 26, 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://rt.com/usa/gmo-gluten-sensitivity-trigger-343/

Genetically modified foods such as soy and corn may be responsible for a number of gluten-related maladies including intestinal disorders now plaguing 18 million Americans[.]

The report […] cites authoritative data from the US Department of Agriculture, US Environmental Protection Agency records, medical journal reviews as well as international research.

“Gluten sensitivity can range in severity from mild discomfort, such as gas and bloating, to celiac disease, a serious autoimmune condition that can, if undiagnosed, result in a 4-fold increase in death,” said Jeffrey M. Smith, executive director of IRT in a statement released on their website.

In soy, corn, cotton (oil), canola (oil), sugar from sugar beets, zucchini, yellow squash, Hawaiian papaya, and alfalfa, “Bt-toxin, glyphosate, and other components of GMOs, are linked to five conditions that may either initiate or exacerbate gluten-related disorders,” according to Smith.

It’s the BT-toxin in genetically modified foods which kills insects by “puncturing holes in their cells.” The toxin is present in ‘every kernel’ of Bt-corn and survives human digestion, with a 2012 study confirming that it punctures holes in human cells as well.

The GMO-related damage was linked to five different areas: Intestinal permeability, imbalanced gut bacteria, immune activation and allergic response, impaired digestion, and damage to the intestinal wall.

The huge jump in childhood food allergies in the US is in the news often[1], but most reports fail to consider a link to a recent radical change in America’s diet. Beginning in 1996, bacteria, virus and other genes have been artificially inserted to the DNA of soy, corn, cottonseed and canola plants. These unlabeled genetically modified (GM) foods carry a risk of triggering life-threatening allergic reactions, and evidence collected over the past decade now suggests that they are contributing to higher allergy rates.



Food Safety Tests Are Inadequate To Protect Public Health AMS Institute for Responsible Technology. “Genetically Engineered Foods May Cause Rising

Food Allergies—Genetically Engineered Soybeans.” 2007. http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/health-risks/articles-about-risks-by-jeffrey-smith/Genetically-Engineered-Foods-May-Cause-Rising-Food-Allergies-Genetically-Engineered-Soybeans-May-2007

Scientists have long known that GM crops might cause allergies. But there are no tests to prove in advance that a GM crop is safe.[2] That’s because people aren’t usually allergic to a food until they have eaten it several times. “The only definitive test for allergies,” according to former FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl, “is human consumption by affected peoples, which can have ethical considerations.”[3] And it is the ethical considerations of feeding unlabeled, high-risk GM crops to unknowing consumers that has many people up in arms.

The UK is one of the few countries that conducts a yearly evaluation of food allergies. In March 1999, researchers at the York Laboratory were alarmed to discover that reactions to soy had skyrocketed by 50% over the previous year. Genetically modified soy had recently entered the UK from US imports and the soy used in the study was largely GM. John Graham, spokesman for the York laboratory, said, “We believe this raises serious new questions about the safety of GM foods.”[4]

Critics of GM foods often say that the US population is being used as guinea pigs in an experiment. But experiments have the benefit of controls and measurement. In this case, there is neither. GM food safety experts point out that even if a someone tried to collect data about allergic reactions to GM foods, they would not likely be successful. “The potential allergen is rarely identified. The number of allergy-related medical visits is not tabulated. Even repeated visits due to well-known allergens are not counted as part of any established surveillance system.”[5] Indeed, after the Canadian government announced in 2002 that they would “keep a careful eye on the health of Canadians”[6] to see if GM foods had any adverse reactions, they abandoned their plans within a year, saying that such a study was too difficult.



Impact of Gluten Sensitivity Trigger AMS “GMOs Linked to Gluten Disorders Plaguing 18 Million Americans-report.” RT.

November 26, 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://rt.com/usa/gmo-gluten-sensitivity-trigger-343/

“Even with minimal exposure, glyphosate can significantly reduce the population of beneficial gut bacteria and promote the overgrowth of harmful strains,” the report found.

Dr. Tom O’Bryan, internationally recognized expert on gluten sensitivity and Celiac Disease, says that “the introduction of GMOs is highly suspect as a candidate to explain the rapid rise in gluten-related disorders over the last 17 years.”

Internist, Emily Linder, offered some backup for the report’s findings. She removed GMO from her patients’ diets, finding that recovery from intestinal diseases was faster and more complete.

“I believe that GMOs in our diet contribute to the rise in gluten-sensitivity in the US population,” Linder said in the release.



Genetic Engineering May Provoke Increased Allergies To Soy AMS Institute for Responsible Technology. “Genetically Engineered Foods May Cause Rising


The classical understanding of why a GM crop might create new allergies is that the imported genes produce a new protein, which has never before been present. The novel protein may trigger reactions. This was demonstrated in the mid 1990s when soybeans were outfitted with a gene from the Brazil nut. While the scientists had attempted to produce a healthier soybean, they ended up with a potentially deadly one. Blood tests from people who were allergic to Brazil nuts showed reactions to the beans.[7]It was fortunately never put on the market.

The GM variety that is planted in 89% of US soy acres gets its foreign gene from bacteria (with parts of virus and petunia DNA as well). We don’t know in advance if the protein produced by bacteria, which has never been part of the human food supply, will provoke a reaction. As a precaution, scientists compare this new protein with a database of proteins known to cause allergies. The database lists the proteins’ amino acid sequences that have been shown to trigger immune responses. If the new GM protein is found to contain sequences that are found in the allergen database, according to criteria recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and others, the GM crop should either not be commercialized or additional testing should be done. Sections of the protein produced in GM soy are identical to known allergens, but the soybean was introduced before the WHO criteria were established and the recommended additional tests were not conducted.

If this protein in GM soybeans is causing allergies, then the situation may be made much worse by something called horizontal gene transfer (HGT). That’s when genes spontaneously transfer from one species’ DNA to another. While this happens often among bacteria, it is rare in plants and mammals. But the method used to construct and insert foreign genes into GM crops eliminates many of the natural barriers that stop HGT from occurring. Indeed, the only published human feeding study on GM foods ever conducted verified that portions of the gene inserted into GM soy ended up transferring into the DNA of human gut bacteria. Furthermore, the gene was stably integrated and it appeared to be producing its potentially allergenic protein. This means that years after people stop eating GM soy, they may still be exposed to its risky protein, which is being continuously produced within their intestines.



Genetic Engineering Damaged Soy DNA, Creating New (Or More) Allergens AMS Institute for Responsible Technology. “Genetically Engineered Foods May Cause Rising


Although biotech advocates describe the process of genetic engineering as precise, in which genes—like Legos—cleanly snap into place, this is false. The process of creating a GM crop can produce massive changes in the natural functioning of the plant’s DNA. Native genes can be mutated, deleted, permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their levels of protein expression. This collateral damage may result in increasing the levels of an existing allergen, or even producing a completely new, unknown allergen within the crop. Both appear to have happened in GM soy.

Levels of one known soy allergen, trypsin inhibitor, were up to 27% higher in raw GM soy. In addition, although cooking soybeans normally reduces the amount of this protein, the trypsin inhibitor in GM varieties appears to be more heat resistant. Levels in cooked GM soy were nearly as high as those found in raw soy, and up to seven times higher when compared to cooked non-GM soy.[8] This suggests that this allergen in GM soy may be more likely to provoke reactions than when consumed in natural varieties.

Another study verified that GM soybeans contain a unique, unexpected protein, not found in non-GM soy controls. Moreover, scientist tested the protein and determined that it reacted with the antibody called IgE. This antibody in human blood plays a key role in a large proportion of allergic reactions, including those that involve life-threatening anaphylactic shock. The fact that the unique protein created by GM soy interacted with IgE suggests that it might also trigger allergies.

The same researchers measured the immune response of human subjects to soybeans using a skin-prick test—an evaluation used often by allergy doctors. Eight subjects showed a reaction to GM soy; but one of these did not also react to non-GM soy. Although the sample size is small, the implication that certain people react only to GM soy is huge, and might account for the increase in soy allergies in the UK.



Soy Linked To Peanut Allergies AMS Institute for Responsible Technology. “Genetically Engineered Foods May Cause Rising


There is at least one protein in natural soybeans that has cross-reactivity with peanut allergies.[10]That means that for some people who are allergic to peanuts, consuming soybeans may trigger a reaction. While it is certainly possible that the unpredicted side effects from genetic engineering soybeans might increase the incidence of this cross-reactivity, it is unlikely that any research has been conducted to investigate this. GM soy was introduced into the US food supply in late 1996. We are left only to wonder whether this had an influence on the doubling of US peanut allergies from 1997 to 2002.

The absence of solid studies documenting the affects of GMOs on peanut allergies is a serious problem, especially given this source.



GMO corn causes cell damage. ASF Smith, Jeffrey M. "Can Genetically-Engineered Foods Explain the Exploding Gluten


When considering the role of GMOs in “punching holes in the gut,” the most obvious candidate is the GM corn designed to produce Bt- toxin. That’s because the toxin is designed to create holes. It’s not supposed to create holes in human cells. Rather, it is supposed to limit its destructive effects by targeting certain insect species, in which it breaks open small pores in the cells of their digestive tract and kills them.16

When Bt-corn was introduced into our diet in 1996, the biotech companies and their supporters in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (which categorized these corn plants as registered pesticides) promised that the toxin was only dangerous to certain insects—it had no effect on humans or mammals. This assumption, however, was directly contradicted by several peer-reviewed published studies, and even by the statements of the EPA’s Science Advisory Panel.17

The study most clearly related to the risk of leaky gut was published in February 2012.18 Researchers “documented that modified Bt toxins [from GM plants] are not inert on human cells, but can exert toxicity.” In concentrations that are generally higher than that produced in average Bt corn, Bt-toxin disrupts the membrane in just 24 hours, causing fluid to leak. The authors note, “This may be due to pore formation like in insect cells.” Thus, the main assumption used as the excuse to allow pesticide-producing corn into our diet appears to be totally false. Bt-toxin does interact with human cells and may be boring small holes in our intestinal walls.

The other primary assumption touted by regulators was that Bt-toxin would be fully broken down by the digestive processes in our stomach. But a 2011 Canadian study conducted disproved that one as well. They discovered that 93% of the pregnant women tested had Bt-toxin from genetically engineered corn in their blood. And so too did 80% of their unborn fetuses.19 (Page 3-4)

This is good to support claims that the affirmative side’s research is biased and doesn’t paint a holistic picture. It shows that research is still young, and we need to acknowledge that maybe even the research procedures and methodology are inefficient at this point. We clearly see harms to our human structure, despite initial studies that EPA approval was based on.



GMOs lead to pesticides reproducing inside of us. ASF Smith, Jeffrey M. "Can Genetically-Engineered Foods Explain the Exploding Gluten


In spite of numerous claims by the biotech industry that it would never happen, research confirmed that part of the DNA “transgene” inserted into GMO crops can actually transfer into the DNA of our gut bacteria.20 Published in Nature Biotechnology in 2004 by a team of British scientists, they found that part of the gene from the herbicide-tolerant Roundup Ready (RR) soybean had integrated into the DNA of the intestinal flora of three out of seven subjects tested. The transfer of the RR gene had occurred before the subjects came to the research facility, apparently from consuming GM soy in some previous meal(s). The percentage of subjects with the integrated GM genes may have been higher if the study had been conducted in the United States. This was done in the UK, however, where the intake of GM soy is but a fraction of that eaten in North America.

In the original, longer paper about this research was an important fact—confirmed by the authors of the study to be true (that, for some reason never made it into the published version): the gut bacteria that contained part of the Roundup Ready gene were not killed when exposed to Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate. In other words, the gut bacteria were herbicide-tolerant. This suggests (but doesn’t yet prove) that the transferred genes from GMOs continue to function after they have integrated into our gut bacteria. If so, we may have GM proteins continuously being produced inside our intestines long after we stop eating GMOs. (Page 4-5)

Not many studies exist on the long-term effects of GMOs. Those that do seem to say that not only are they bad for us, but they literally change the DNA of certain parts of our body. In this example, our guts can become resistant to herbicides and produce GMO cells that were part of the plant.



GMOs cause digestive issues. ASF Smith, Jeffrey M. "Can Genetically-Engineered Foods Explain the Exploding Gluten


As discussed above, Bt-toxin was found to poke holes in human cells. It is certainly possible that this can disrupt the digestive capability of the gut lining, as well as lower CCK levels. A study on mice also looked at the impact of Bt-toxin on the microvilli and discovered a real problem.

Using both natural Bt-toxin from bacteria, as well as that produced in an experimental GM crop (potato), the toxin damaged the microvilli of mouse intestines (ileum). Some microvilli were broken off and dis- continuous; others were shortened.21 This is very similar to the type of damage that gluten proteins cause to the intestines.

The high levels of glyphosate-based herbicides in Roundup Ready crops may also directly damage the structure and function of the gut wall. A study on glyphosate exposure in carnivorous fish revealed remarkable adverse effects throughout the digestive system,22 including “disruption of mucosal folds and disarray of microvilli structure” in the intestinal wall, along with an exaggerated secretion of mucin throughout the alimentary tract.

This exacerbates the problem of gluten-allergies in America. This argument is great to think of through an economic lens. Who stands to gain from this? The companies in the food industry and health industry that get to mark up “gluten-free” products. As the prevalence for gluten allergies increases, do does the market for gluten-free products.



Detection of Harmful Chemicals from GM Foods in Animals and Humans AMS Environmental and Analytical Toxicology. “Detection of Glyphosate Residues in Animals

and Humans.” 2014. http://omicsonline.org/open-access/detection-of-glyphosate-residues-in-animals-and-humans-2161-0525.1000210.pdf

Glyphosate (N-phosphonomethyl glycine) is registered as herbicide for many food and non-food crops as well as non-crop areas where total vegetation control is desired. The predominating uses of glyphosate, in descending order, are stubble management, pre-sowing application and pre-harvest application (desiccation).

(…)

Glyphosate is also used to prevent weeds in fields with glyphosate resistant genetically modified (GM) crops like soybean, rapeseed, corn, etc. Since 1996 the amount and the number of genetically engineered crops dramatically increased worldwide. It is estimated that 90% of the transgenic crops grown worldwide are glyphosate resistant. The rapidly growing problem of glyphosate-resistant weeds is reflected in steady increases in the use of glyphosate on crops. Steams, leaves and beans of glyphosate resistant soy are contaminated with glyphosate. Moreover, due to the intensive use of glyphosate it was frequently detected in water, rain and air. Chang and coworkers detected glyphosate concentrations in air and rain up to 2.5 µg/L in agricultural areas in Mississippi and Iowa. In Europe GM soybean for food and feed was admitted in 1996. All animals and humans eating this soy chronically incorporate unknown amounts of this herbicide. Residues of glyphosate in tissues and organs of food animals fed with GM feed (soybean, corn, etc.) are not considered or neglected in legislation.

(…)

Glyphosate residue could reach humans and animals through feed and excreted in urine. Presence of glyphosate in urine and its accumulation in animal tissues is alarming even at low concentrations. Unknown impacts of glyphosate on human and animal health warrants further investigations of glyphosate residues in vertebrates and other non-target organisms.

This study documents the passage of glyphosate to humans and animals through GM foods. The harms of Glyphosate have been documented by several studies and range from gastronomical problems to potential nervous system damage.



Harms of Glyphosate AMS Environmental and Analytical Toxicology. “Detection of Glyphosate Residues in Animals

and Humans.” 2014. http://omicsonline.org/open-access/detection-of-glyphosate-residues-in-animals-and-humans-2161-0525.1000210.pdf

Glyphosate also interferes with cytochrome P450 enzymes which include numerous proteins able to metabolize xenobiotics. This may also act synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. (…) Furthermore, genotoxic activity, teratogenic activity, and disturbance of the normal gut bacterial community due to glyphosate are reported. Glyphosate showed cytotoxic effects on different cells in vitro , and Barbosa et al. , proposed that glyphosate may have contributed to the Parkinsonism due to its chemical similarity with glycine, a co-factor required for activation of the N-methyl-d-aspartase (NMDA) receptor, which controls excitatory actions in the central nervous system and is also involved in memory and learning.

Glyphosate Harms AMS Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. “Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450

Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases.” January 15, 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®, is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is the “textbook example” of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.



GMOs contain herbicidal chemicals. ASF Thongprakaisang, Siriporn. Thiantanawat, Apinya. Rangkadilok, Nuchanart. Suriyo,

Tawit. Satayavivad, Jutamaad. "Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors". Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal. June 14, 2013. P129-130. http://www.salsila.co.il/image/users/237364/ftp/my_files/1-s20-S0278691513003633-main.pdf?id=12800209

Glyphosate, N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine, is widely used as an active ingredient of herbicide products to control weeds in cropped and non-cropped fields around the world. In addition, glyphosate formulations have been used extensively in genetically modified glyphosate-resistant plants (Acquavella et al., 2004). The herbicidal activity of glyphosate is rather specific on the targets with the inhibition of the shikimate pathway which only presents in plants and micro-organisms (Solomon et al., 2007). Glyphosate is considered as a non toxic herbicide because of its low LD50 (the concentration that caused 50% deaths); >4g/kg (WHO, 1994). However, the reproductive toxicities of glyphosate have been extensively studied in both animals and human. Up to now, the endocrine disrupting effects of glyphosate were not observed in the in vivo but the in vitro studies and the epidemiological studies have still conflicted in those findings due to their differences in the experimental designs, methodology and confounding factors (Brake and Evenson, 2004; Dallegrave et al., 2007; Daruich et al., 2001; Mandel et al., 2005; Marc et al., 2004; McDuffie et al., 2001). The synergistic effects of glyphosate and surfactants in its herbicide formulations have been concerned especially the endocrine disrupting activity (Richard et al., 2005). Most studies found that the adjuvants or surfactants in most formulations were more toxic and could enhance the toxic effects of glyphosate (Gasnier et al., 2009; Marc et al., 2004; Walsh et al., 2000). Glyphosate at concentrations used in agriculture (21–42 mM) was found to be toxic to human embry- onic and placental cells (Benachour et al., 2007; Richard et al., 2005). Roundup, a popular formulation could disrupt the synthesis of hormones in the mouse MA-10 Leydig tumor cell line (Benac- hour et al., 2007; Walsh et al., 2000). Glyphosate has been shown to disrupt the animal cell cycle in urchin eggs based on its surfac- tant carrying in commercial formulation (Marc et al., 2004). Re- cently, it was reported that at lower non-toxic concentrations of Roundup and glyphosate (<1 lg/L), the main endocrine disruption is a testosterone decrease by 35%. Most potential adverse health effects were reported on the commercial glyphosate formulations. The expression of estrogen-regulated genes relating to tumor for mation and tumor growth in hormone dependent human breast cancer MCF-7 cells were reported to be disrupted (Hokanson et al., 2007). Furthermore, synergistic effects between glyphosate and estrogen (17b-estradiol or E2) have been demonstrated. Gly- phosate was reported to have a disrupting effect on estrogen receptor alpha (ERa) and beta (ERb) transcriptional activities in HepG2 cells transiently transfected with ERE-TK-Luciferase and on androgen receptor (AR) in MDA-MB453-kb2 cells (Gasnier et al., 2009). These toxic effects were reported to be more frequent with glyphosate-based herbicides than that with glyphosate alone.

In organisms designed to be consumed by the market we see chemical levels that are causing a hormonal disbalance, leaving people to be more susceptible to breast cancer. Even if the level of toxicity of the glyphosate itself wouldn’t be bad, the other chemicals in the GMO accent and enhance the negative effects of glyphosate on the human body.



The presence of GMO chemicals increases risk for breast cancer. ASF Thongprakaisang, Siriporn. Thiantanawat, Apinya. Rangkadilok, Nuchanart. Suriyo,

Tawit. Satayavivad, Jutamaad. "Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors". Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal. June 14, 2013. http://www.salsila.co.il/image/users/237364/ftp/my_files/1-s20-S0278691513003633-main.pdf?id=12800209

The hormone-dependent T47D and hormone-independent MDA-MB231 cell lines were studied both in completed medium and estrogen withdrawal medium to differentiate the effects of glyphosate from endogeneous estrogen. E2 at a concentration range from 10�12 to 10�6 M was used as a positive control. The cell viability was observed by using MTT cell viability assay. The results showed that T47D and MDA-MB231 cells exhibited different patterns of responses to glyphosate (Fig. 1). Glyphosate caused the proliferative effects of T47D approximately 15–30% in the absence of E2 condition (Fig. 1B). This effect was about a half of E2 response which is the most potent agonist in hormone dependent ER-positive breast cancer cell. Meanwhile, glyphosate had no effect on the growth of MDA-MB231 cells both in the absence or presence of E2.

The glyphosate that is present in GMOs causes a disbalance in the estrogen levels of humans. T47D is a cancerous cell that spreads depending on human hormone levels. The disbalance caused by the presence of glyphosate causes a 15-30% increase in the ability for T47D to spread within a person.

GMOs lead to birth defects. ASF

Antoniou, Michael. "Is the public being kept in the dark?" Earth Open Source. June 2011. http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/Roundup-and-birth-defects/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5.pdf

Germany’s DAR concludes from the industry dossier of studies, “Glyphosate does not cause teratogenicity”. But Germany immediately goes on to qualify its conclusion, saying that higher doses of glyphosate caused “reduced ossification and a higher incidence of skeletal and/or visceral [internal organ] anomalies” in rats and rabbit foetuses.50 In reality, at odds with Germany’s reassuring conclusion, the details of the DAR contain convincing evidence of glyphosate’s teratogenicity.

Germany adds that in the industry studies, glyphosate given at high doses reduced the number of viable foetuses produced by rats and rabbits.51 Decreased numbers of viable foetuses are often consistent with increased incidence of malformations, as many mal-developed foetuses are spontaneously aborted.

The skeletal “anomalies” found in these early industry studies are consistent with Carrasco’s findings. But Germany dismisses them on the claimed grounds that the doses at which the effects were found were so high as to be toxic to the mothers (maternally toxic doses).



Genetically Engineered Foods May Pose National Health Risk. PSM Smith, Jeffrey. "Genetically Engineered Foods May Pose National Health Risk." .

Institute for Responsible Technology, n.d. Web. 3 Oct 2014. <http://www.responsibletechnology.org/resources/newsletter-archive/Genetically-Engineered-Foods-may-Pose-National-Health-Risk-August-2004>.

In a study in the early 1990's rats were fed genetically modified (GM) tomatoes. Well actually, the rats refused to eat them. They were force-fed. Several of the rats developed stomach lesions and seven out of forty died within two weeks. Scientists at the FDA who reviewed the study agreed that it did not provide a "demonstration of reasonable certainty of no harm." In fact, agency scientists warned that GM foods in general might create unpredicted allergies, toxins, antibiotic resistant diseases, and nutritional problems. Internal FDA memos made public from a lawsuit reveal that the scientists urged their superiors to require long-term safety testing to catch these hard-to-detect side effects. But FDA political appointees, including a former attorney for Monsanto in charge of policy, ignored the scientists' warnings. The FDA does not require safety studies. Instead, if the makers of the GM foods claim that they are safe, the agency has no further questions. The GM tomato was approved in 1994. The safety studies conducted by the biotech industry are often dismissed by critics as superficial and designed to avoid finding problems. Tragically, scientists who voice their criticism, as well as those who have discovered incriminating evidence, have been threatened, stripped of responsibilities, denied funding or tenure, or fired. For example, a UK government-funded study demonstrated that rats fed a GM potato developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, partial atrophy of the liver, and inhibited development of their brains, livers and testicles. When the lead scientist went public with his concerns, he was promptly fired from his job after 35 years and silenced with threats of a lawsuit. Rats fed GM corn had problems with blood cell, kidney and liver formation. Mice fed GM soy had problems with liver cell formation and pancreatic function, and the livers of rats fed GM canola were heavier. Pigs fed GM corn on several Midwest farms developed false pregnancies or sterility. Cows fed GM corn in Germany died mysteriously. And twice the number of chickens died when fed GM corn compared to those fed natural corn.

Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50 percent. Without follow-up tests, we can't be sure if genetic engineering was the cause, but there are plenty of ways in which genetic manipulation can boost allergies. A gene from a Brazil nut inserted into soybeans made the soy allergenic to those who normally react to Brazil nuts.GM soy currently consumed in the US contains a gene from bacteria. The inserted gene creates a protein that was never before part of the human food supply, and might be allergenic. Sections of that protein are identical to those found in shrimp and dust mite allergens. According to criteria recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), this fact should have disqualified GM soy from approval. The sequence of the gene that was inserted into soy has inexplicably rearranged over time. The protein it creates is likely to be different than the one intended, and was never subject to any safety studies. It may be allergenic or toxic. The process of inserting the foreign gene damaged a section of the soy's own DNA, scrambling its genetic code. This mutation might interfere with DNA expression or create a new, potentially dangerous protein. The most common allergen in soy is called trypsin inhibitor. GM soy contains significantly more of this compared with natural soy.



Contamination, Social Fabric, and Pest Resistance. PSM Holdrege, Craig. "The Trouble with Genetically Modified Crops." . The Nature Institute,

n.d. Web. 3 Oct 2014. <http://www.natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic11/gmcrops.htm>. In January, the Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser spoke in Albany, NY. The talk was arranged by the Regional Food and Farm Project in Albany and co-sponsored by The Nature Institute. Craig was asked to introduce Percy and had the opportunity to speak with him before the talk.

When farmers save their own seeds, they know what they are dealing with. The seeds have a history. But even when farmers buy seeds from a seed company, they expect a certain quality. The spread of GM crops brings—especially for those farmers who choose not to plant them—a whole new set of problems. Within the last eight years the annual acreage of GM crops grown worldwide has increased from zero to 140 million acres—that's four times the area of New York State. Most of this acreage (about 110 million acres) is in the United States. But the acreage figures are ambiguous, since the crops do not stay put in the fields where they were first planted, as Schmeiser's case illustrates. Seeds and especially pollen can be transported through the air, landing in other farmers' fields. The seeds can then grow up among conventional or organic crops and the pollen can pollinate non-GM crops as well as weedy relatives. There is now evidence of widespread contamination. For example, two years ago a Canadian scientist sprayed herbicide on twenty-seven varieties of pedigree canola grown from seed that was not supposed to be genetically modified for herbicide resistance. Nearly half of the plots—fourteen varieties—had plants in them that survived. These plants were genetically modified, herbicide-resistant plants whose had somehow found their way into the commercial varieties (Manitoba Co-operator, August 1, 2002). In February 2004, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a study showing a high degree of contamination of conventional soybeans, corn, and canola by GM crops.

There is a social issue involved in the spread of GM agriculture that Schmeiser described in his Albany talk. He spoke about the trust between farmers and how they help each other out in times of need. With the advent of GM crops, licensing fees, and the containment problem, social and personal barriers arise between farmers. One farmer suspects the other of using proprietary seed without paying and calls the industry hotline; another sees his fields being contaminated by some (often unknown) farm in the neighborhood. The fabric of the agricultural community, which has been deteriorating for decades with the onslaught of industrial agriculture and its ever larger and fewer farms, only unravels more with the advent of GM crops. Those farmers using GM pesticide-producing crops (Bt crops) have been able to reduce the amount of insecticides they spray, since the whole crop has become a pesticide. When certain insect larvae begin feeding on the plant, they die. There is, however, one caveat in the calculations concerning reduced insecticide use: they don't take into account the amount of pesticides that the plant itself is making; only what the farmer buys and sprays is counted. If we factored in the plant-produced insecticide (no one has done this yet), it is questionable whether we would find a reduction in pesticide use.



Case studies: A hard look at GM crops. PSM Gilbert, Natasha. "Case studies: A hard look at GM crops." . NPG Nature Publishing

Group, 01 05 2013. Web. 3 Oct 2014. <http://www.nature.com/news/case-studies-a-hard-look-at-gm-crops-1.12907>.

Jay Holder, a farming consultant in Ashburn, Georgia, first noticed Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) in a client’s transgenic cotton fields about five years ago. Palmer amaranth is a particular pain for farmers in the southeastern United States, where it outcompetes cotton for moisture, light and soil nutrients and can quickly take over fields.

Since the late 1990s, US farmers had widely adopted GM cotton engineered to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, which is marketed as Roundup by Monsanto in St Louis, Missouri. The herbicide–crop combination worked spectacularly well — until it didn’t. In 2004, herbicide-resistant amaranth was found in one county in Georgia; by 2011, it had spread to 76. “It got to the point where some farmers were losing half their cotton fields to the weed,” says Holder.

Some scientists and anti-GM groups warned that GM crops, by encouraging liberal use of glyphosate, were spurring the evolution of herbicide resistance in many weeds. Twenty-four glyphosate-resistant weed species have been identified since Roundup-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996. But herbicide resistance is a problem for farmers regardless of whether they plant GM crops. Some 64 weed species are resistant to the herbicide atrazine, for example, and no crops have been genetically modified to withstand it.

On balance, herbicide-resistant GM crops are less damaging to the environment than conventional crops grown at industrial scale. A study by PG Economics, a consulting firm in Dorchester, UK, found that the introduction of herbicide-tolerant cotton saved 15.5 million kilograms of herbicide between 1996 and 2011, a 6.1% reduction from what would have been used on conventional cotton2. And GM crop technology delivered an 8.9% improvement to the environmental impact quotient — a measure that considers factors such as pesticide toxicity to wildlife — says Graham Brookes, co-director of PG Economics and a co-author of the industry-funded study, which many scientists consider to be among the field’s most extensive and authoritative assessments of environmental impacts.

The question is how much longer those benefits will last. So far, farmers have dealt with the proliferation of resistant weeds by using more glyphosate, supplementing it with other herbicides and ploughing. A study by David Mortensen, a plant ecologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, predicts that total herbicide use in the United States will rise from around 1.5 kilograms per hectare in 2013 to more than 3.5 kilograms per hectare in 2025 as a direct result of GM crop use3.



U.S. Farmers Report Widespread GM Crop Contamination. PSM Biron, Carey. "U.S. Farmers Report Widespread GM Crop Contamination." . Inter Press

Service, 3 03 2014. Web. 4 Oct 2014. <http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/farmers-address-u-s-data-gap-gm-crop-contamination/>.

A third of U.S. organic farmers have experienced problems in their fields due to the nearby use of genetically modified crops, and over half of those growers have had loads of grain rejected because of unwitting GMO contamination.

Of U.S. farmers that took part in a new survey, the results of which were released on Monday, more than 80 percent reported being concerned over the impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on their farms, with some 60 percent saying they’re “very concerned”.

The findings come as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken the unusual step of extending the public comment period for a controversial study on how GM and non-GM crops can “coexist”. During a major review in 2011-12, the USDA Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21) concluded that it lacked sufficient data to decide on the extent to which GM contamination was happening in the United States, or to estimate the related costs incurred by organic and other non-GM farmers.

“The USDA said they didn’t have this data, but all they had to do was ask,” Oren Holle, a farmer in the midwestern state of Kansas and president of the Organic Farmers’ Agency for Relationship Marketing (OFARM), which assisted in the new study’s production, told IPS.

“Our very strong feeling is that the introduction and propagation of the genetically modified products that are coming out under patent at this point have not had the regulatory oversight that they should have, and need to involve a far broader section of stakeholders. USDA has been extremely lax and, in our opinion, that’s due to the excessive influence of the biotech industry in political circles.”

“The USDA’s focus on coexistence and crop insurance is misplaced,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said Monday, referring to an AC21 recommendation that GM contamination problems be dealt with through a federal insurance scheme set up to lessen the impact of natural disasters.

“The department must recognise the harm that is already being done to organic and non-GMO farmers and put the responsibility squarely where it belongs – with the biotech companies … Now USDA can no longer claim ignorance about this problem.”

Even as contamination reports continue to grow, the U.S. government’s most recent response, drawn from the AC21 recommendations, has been to encourage “good stewardship” practices and communication between neighbouring farmers. Yet non-GM farmers say that, in practice, this has meant substantial outlays of both time



and money in order to safeguard their crops – and virtually no corresponding responsibility on the part of farmers using genetically modified crops.

Other farmers resort to waiting to plant their crops until after their neighbours’ GM crops have pollinated. Yet this delay, too, imposes a financial burden of several thousand dollars per year.

“I’m getting tired of maintaining these miles of buffers,” one farmer wrote in response to the new survey, complaining about the heavy use of herbicides typically associated with GM crops. “How about the guy that sprays up to the fence be liable for the damage that is done?”

Saving Corn from GMO Contamination. PSM Roseboro, Ken. "Plant breeder works to save organic corn from GMO contamination.”

August 28 2014. The Organic & Non-GMO Report. http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/september-2014/plant-breeder-save-organic-corn-from-GMO-contamination.php

GMOs are prohibited in organic production under the USDA National Organic Program, but there are no regulations in place to protect farmers against accidental contamination from the pollen of GM corn. Organic and non-GMO farmers have suffered economic losses when their corn tested positive for GMOs and was rejected by grain buyers. A recent survey of organic farmers from 17 states, predominantly in the Midwest, shows 67 percent planned to delay planting corn this year so their crops would pollinate later than their neighbors’ GM corn, at an average cost of $16,000. The problem is also impacting heirloom seed companies; Missouri-based Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has lost one-half of its heirloom varieties to GMO contamination.

Kutka is working with another corn breeder, Dave Christensen, to breed the pollen-blocking trait into a Painted Mountain Corn variety that grows in the harsh dry mountainous regions of the West. Another corn breeder, Major Goodman at North Carolina State University, is developing pollen-blocking organic corn varieties for Southern growing regions.

Organic Ready corn won’t be the first pollen-blocking corn variety on the market. Iowa-based Blue River Hybrids has been selling PuraMaize organic corn hybrid varieties for the past three years. Similar to Organic Ready corn, PuraMaize contains the pollen-blocking Ga1S trait.

Tests on PuraMaize corn harvested in 2012 and 2013 found that it was effective in reducing cross-pollination and contamination from GM corn. Samples from both years’ harvest tested negative for GMOs “at the operational limit of 0.05 percent.”

PuraMaize is a patented trait that Blue River licensed from Nebraska-based Hogemeyer Hybrids, which was later purchased by Pioneer Hi-Bred. Kutka and other corn breeders such as Margaret Smith at Cornell University and Major Goodman have opposed the patent, saying the Ga1S trait has been used for decades.



Farmers Fight to Save Organic Crops. PSM Lilliston, Ben. "Farmers Fight to Save Organic Crops." . The Progressive, n.d. Web. 5 Oct

2014. <http://www.progressive.org/news/2007/07/5087/farmers-fight-save-organic-crops>.

For the last four years, Nebraska organic farmer David Vetter has been testing his corn for a new kind of pollution. Situated right in the middle of corn country, Vetter's 280-acre farm is small compared to those of his neighbors. All around him are farmers growing genetically modified corn. And that poses a problem. Corn is an open-pollinating crop. Wind and insects can carry pollen from a few yards to several miles.

Last year, Vetter's organic corn tested positive for genetic contamination. "We've been letting customers who buy in bulk know the situation," says Vetter. "Right now, most of it is still sitting in storage on the farm."

Susan Fitzgerald and her husband operate a 1,300-acre farm outside Hancock, Minnesota. Last year, Fitzgerald's 100 acres of organic corn showed evidence of genetic contamination, as did her neighbor's organic corn crop. The pollen had traveled more than 120 feet from another neighbor's farm. Instead of selling her organic corn for approximately $4 a bushel, she had to sell her crop on the open market for $1.67.

In April, The Wall Street Journal tested twenty food products labeled "GMO free" and found that sixteen of them contained at least traces of genetically modified ingredients; five had significant amounts. One of the companies testing positive, albeit with trace amounts, was Nature's Path Foods, the largest organic cereal company in the world.

"We have found traces in corn that has been grown organically for ten to fifteen years," Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path Foods, told The New York Times in June. "There's no wall high enough to keep that stuff contained."

Jim Riddle, Secretary of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), encourages farmers to test all organic seeds to ensure they are free of genetically modified ingredients before planting. Thus far, most organic seeds have not tested positive for this type of contamination. But the American Seed Trade Association recently asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish a tolerance level of 1 percent genetic contamination for seed that is labeled nonmodified.

"It is a pretty good clue that the seed companies can't manage what they are doing when they ask for a tolerance level," says Vetter. "They've come right out and admitted that they can't guarantee non-GMO seed."



GM is a Liability to the Farmers and Consumers. PSM Mayer, Sue. "GM crops are a liability not asset." . BBC News, n.d. Web. 6 Oct 2014.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5389208.stm>. The recent row over an unapproved variety of GM rice entering the food chain should act as a warning, argues Sue Mayer, director of GeneWatch UK. In this week's Green Room, she says GM crops are still more of a liability than an asset.

The announcement in August 2006 that an unapproved variety of genetically modified (GM) rice had been found at low levels in US long-grain rice sent shock waves through the food industry.

Bayer Crop Science's GM LL601RICE had last been grown in field trials in 2001 and was not intended for commercialisation.

Although two other varieties of Bayer's GM rice have been given approval for commercial growing and use as food, neither of these are yet being grown.

All of these varieties of GM rice have been modified to be tolerant to Bayer's herbicide, Liberty (glufosinate), so farmers can use the weed-killer without harming the crop. How the contamination arose remains a mystery and awaits the outcome of a US Food and Drug Administration inquiry. The recent rice episode follows a very similar incident in 2005 when an experimental and unapproved variety of Syngenta's GM maize, Bt10, was found to have been grown mistakenly for four years. Errors in the laboratory and poor quality control had led to the mix up.

In 2000, another GM maize, Starlink, made by Aventis (now owned by Bayer), was found in the human food chain when it had only been given approval for animal feed because of concerns about possible allergenicity. Farmers had not known or had not been able to keep Starlink separate from other varieties of maize.

The reason these GM contamination incidents have such far reaching effects is that they have affected commodity crops which are being traded internationally. A GM crop does not only require approval in the country where it is being grown; most importing countries also require GM crops to undergo a safety assessment before they are allowed in.

Whether these particular GMOs are harmful or not, their presence in the food chain demonstrates the inability of the industry to maintain separation between GM and non-GM lines.

Bayer, Syngenta and other companies are developing unquestionably more potentially dangerous GM crops that have altered nutritional characteristics, produce therapeutic drugs or industrial chemicals. Like LL601RICE and Bt10 maize, these experimental lines do not exist officially and there are no tests available for them. To reduce the risk, governments and companies will have to screen crops from high risk countries that grow and trial GM crops. However, because companies maintain much information about the nature of their experimental GM crops as "confidential business information", screening will only be possible for the genes that are commonly introduced as markers, so the risk of contamination remains.



Fear of GMO and Potential Contamination in Nearby Fields. PSM Poulter, Sean. "GM contaminated crop grown in blunder sparks fears gene will spread to

other fields." . Mail Online, 19 12 2008. Web. 6 Oct 2014. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1098476/GM-contaminated-crop-grown-

blunder-sparks-fears-gene-spread-fields.html>. A crop of oilseed rape contaminated with GM seeds has been illegally grown on a Somerset farm. Critics of the controversial technology worry that the error could threaten significant genetically-modified pollution of fields, weeds and honey. It seems that seeds sown on a Somerset farm last year were tainted with genes from a GM plant, probably because of cross-contamination in the U.S.

The food and farming department Defra identified the error when the crop was harvested this summer and a link was drawn to another contamination incident involving the same seed in Scotland. Critics say the GM alert provides further evidence of the lack of proper controls surrounding the growing of GM crops and the safety of this food. The GM trait in the oilseed rape is designed to protect the plant against heavy spraying with weedkillers developed by Monsanto, the American biotechnology giant.

If this trait is transferred to related wild plants it could pass on this same chemical resistance, creating so-called superweeds. It is known that GM pollen from crop trial sites can be carried up to 16 miles by bees. There have been cases where honey has been contaminated with the result it is illegal to sell it. The GM seeds involved in the Somerset contamination incident involved only a small part of a much bigger oilseed rape crop that was being grown by Monsanto on a seed production site.

The variety involved is known as GT73, which is authorised to be sold as human and animal feed in the EU but not to be grown here. Friends of the Earth said the contamination was only the latest of a number of incidents involving the planting of crops and sale of food containing illegal GM DNA.

Its senior food campaigner, Clare Oxborrow, said: 'It's extremely worrying that once again contaminated and potentially unsafe GM seeds have been grown illegally in the UK.

'Local farmers and beekeepers face serious financial consequences if their crops or honey are found to be polluted. 'The Government must take urgent action to track down any contaminated crops, seeds or honey, and fully compensate for any financial losses. 'It must also beef up monitoring systems to ensure illegal GM seeds are detected and dealt with to prevent them being set loose in the environment.' Once GM genes are present in the environment it is extremely difficult to remove them.



Potential Harms to Women and Babies AMS Aris, Aziz and Leblanc, Samuel. “Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to

genetically modified foods in Eatern Townships of Quebec, Canada.” 2011. https://www.uclm.es/Actividades/repositorio/pdf/doc_3721_4666.pdf

Genetically modified plants (GMP) were first approved for commercialization in Canada in 1996 then become distributed worldwide. Global areas of these GMP increased from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 134 million hectares in 2009, an 80-fold increase. This growth rate makes GMP the fastest adopted crop technology. GMP are plants in which genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally....Combining GMP with pesticides-associated GM foods (PAGMF) allows the protection of desirable crops and the elimination of unwanted plants by reducing the competition for nutrients or by providing insect resistance. There is a debate on the direct threat of genes used in the preparation of these new foods on human health, as they are not detectable in the body, but the real danger may come from PAGMF. Among the innumerable PAGMF, two categories are largely used in our agriculture since their introduction in 1996: (1) residues derived from herbicide-tolerant GM crops such as glysophate (GLYP) and its metabolite aminomethyl phosphoric acid (AMPA), and gluphosinate ammonium (GLUF) and its metabolite 3-methylphosphinicopropionic acid (MPPA) and (2) residues derived from insect-resistant GM crops such as CrylAb protein.

(…)

Since the basis of better health is prevention, one would hope that we can develop procedures to avoid environmentally induced disease in susceptible population such as pregnant women and their fetuses. The fetus is considered to be highly susceptible to the adverse effects of xenobiotics.

(…)

To our knowledge, this is the first study to highlight the presence of pesticides-associated genetically modified foods in maternal, fetal and nonpregnant women’s blood. 3-MPPA and Cry1Ab toxin are clearly detectable and appear to cross the placenta to the fetus.



Complete Genes Pass from GM Foods to Human Blood Analysis of 1000 Human Samples Reveals Plant DNA AMS

Yale School of Public Health. “Complete Genes May Pass from Food to Human Blood.” July 30, 2013. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0069805

Our bloodstream is considered to be an environment well separated from the outside world and the digestive tract. According to the standard paradigm large macromolecules consumed with food cannot pass directly to the circulatory system. During digestion proteins and DNA are thought to be degraded into small constituents, amino acids and nucleic acids, respectively, and then absorbed by a complex active process and distributed to various parts of the body through the circulation system. Here, based on the analysis of over 1000 human samples from four independent studies, we report evidence that meal-derived DNA fragments which are large enough to carry complete genes can avoid degradation and through an unknown mechanism enter the human circulation system. In one of the blood samples the relative concentration of plant DNA is higher than the human DNA. The plant DNA concentration shows a surprisingly precise log-normal distribution in the plasma samples while non-plasma (cord blood) control sample was found to be free of plant DNA.

This study is one of the most frequently mentioned harms of GM-foods. Although a valuable source, Con teams should understand the study before making the argument. The full study is available at the given link.

January 2014 Con: Pro research biased


Pro-GMO Research is biased Scientists are afraid of losing funding, Fj


Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media. These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for the field. Says Williams: “Whether it's conscious or not, it's in their interest to promote this field, and they're not objective.”

Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations. Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid publishing their findings out of fear of repercussions. “If it doesn't come out the right way,” he says, “you're going to get trashed.”

Scientific dissent has become demonized, Fj


There is evidence to support that charge. In 2009 Nature detailed the backlash to a reasonably solid study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA by researchers from Loyola University Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. The paper showed that GM corn seemed to be finding its way from farms into nearby streams and that it might pose a risk to some insects there because, according to the researchers' lab studies, caddis flies appeared to suffer on diets of pollen from GM corn. Many scientists immediately attacked the study, some of them suggesting the researchers were sloppy to the point of misconduct.

January 2014 Con: Pro research biased


Small-scale farmer yield reports used in studies are potentially biased. DAT Gouse, Marnus “Aspects of biotechnology and genetically modified crops in South

Africa.” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Harvard University. June 2005.Accessed 10/8/2014. Web. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/southafricagouse.pdf

In 2001/2002 Monsanto introduced Bt white maize to small-scale farmers through workshops in nine areas in four provinces in South Africa. Farmers who wished to try out the new seeds received two small bags of white maize seed. One of the bags contained 250grams of CRN 4549 seed, also known as Yieldgard, insect-resistant or Bt maize seed, while the other bag contained 250grams of the isoline conventional variety (CRN 3549 that is genetically identical to CRN 4549 except that it does not contain the Bt gene). As Monsanto supplied only a small quantity of seed to each farmer, farmers still had to buy and plant their own seed of choice, or use their own saved maize seeds. In the second season (2002/2003) small-scale farmers had to, as usual, buy maize seed based on their experience of the previous season.

The University of Pretoria studied the first three seasons of Bt white maize production by small-scale farmers in South Africa (Gouse & Kirsten, 2004). The first season rendered some interesting results with 175 small-scale farmers across 6 sites reporting yield increases between 21 and 62 percent and an average of 32% with Bt maize above the conventional isoline. It is however thought that these findings might have been influenced by some preconceived yield increase perceptions by small-scale farmers due to the workshops and free seed samples. Unfortunately for the study and unfortunately for many small-scale farmers, only a limited number of farmers were able to buy Bt seed for the 2002/2003 season due to a limited seed supply and an increased demand for Bt seed by large-scale farmers. The 2002/2003 season saw an impressive demand for Bt seed from various sites (Transkei for instance ordered 4,5 tons of Bt seed), but in only two sites in KwaZulu Natal (KZN) were a significant number of subsistence farmers able to purchase Bt white maize seed. Despite a lower than normal rainfall and stalk borer pressure in 2002/2003, small-scale farmers in KwaZulu Natal enjoyed a statistically significant yield increase of 16% due to better stalk borer control with Bt maize. Bt maize adopting farmers were better off than farmers who planted conventional hybrids, despite the additional technology fee. In 2003/2004 no significant difference between the yields of Bt and conventional maize seed could be found due to drought, a very low stalk borer infestation level as well as damage to maize ears caused by late rain, which complicated measuring and comparing yields.

This card actually admits that GMO crops produced better yields in some years. A larger issue, however, is of reporting yields; they are often self=reported for subsistence farmers when studies are conducted. Given that companies like Monsanto run workshops and distribute seed samples, the farmers are more inclined to report inflated yield figures for GMO crops due to an induced placebo effect.

January 2014 Con: Don’t increase yields


GMOs do not increase yields

Yield Drag, Fj Philpott, Tom. “Do GMO Crops Really Have Higher Yields?” Mother Jones. February 13.

2013. And in a new paper (PDF) funded by the US Department of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin researchers have essentially negated the "more food" argument as well. The researchers looked at data from UW test plots that compared crop yields from various varieties of hybrid corn, some genetically modified and some not, between 1990 and 2010. While some GM varieties delivered small yield gains, others did not. Several even showed lower yields than non-GM counterparts. With the exception of one commonly used trait—a Bt type designed to kill the European corn borer—the authors conclude, "we were surprised not to find strongly positive transgenic yield effects." Both the glyphosate-tolerant (Roundup Ready) and the Bt trait for corn rootworm caused yields to drop.

Then there's the question of so-called "stacked-trait" crops—that is, say, corn engineered to contain multiple added genes—for example, Monsanto's "Smart Stax" product, which contains both herbicide-tolerant and pesticide-expressing genes. The authors detected what they call "gene interaction" in these crops—genes inserted into them interact with each other in ways that affect yield, often negatively. If multiple genes added to a variety didn't interact, "the [yield] effect of stacked genes would be equal to the sum of the corresponding single gene effects," the authors write. Instead, the stacked-trait crops were all over the map. "We found strong evidence of gene interactions among transgenic traits when they are stacked," they write. Most of those effects were negative—i.e., yield was reduced.



GMOs have uncertain benefits, Fj Smale, Melinda et al. “Bales and Balance: A Review of the Methods Used to Assess the

Economic Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers in Developing Economies” International Food Policy Research Institute. 2006.

We assess 47 peer-reviewed articles that have applied stated economics methods to measure the farm-level impacts of Bt cotton in developing agriculture from 1996. We focus on methods, although findings are also contrasted and compared in qualitative terms. The central research question assessed by the articles reviewed is: what are the current and potential advantages of transgenic cotton with respect to yield, pesticide use, input cost, revenue and/or profits at the farm-level, by farm type, and geographical region? We find that, while the evidence is promising, the balance sheet remains inconclusive in part because of some methodological limitations and in part because institutional and political context, which is mutable and often ignored, shapes economic impacts, especially over the longer-term. Most often, the contextual factors that influence whether a new variety succeeds or fails are more critical than whether yield advantages can be demonstrated in on-farm trials.

Genetically modified crops are less efficient under typical conditions. DAT Azadi, Hossein, and Peter Ho. “Genetically modified and organic crops in developing

countries: A review of options for food security.” Biotechnology Advances 28 (2010) 160–168. University of Michigan. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/labs/gmfood_video/gm%20review%202010.pdf

In spite of all strong claims from some biotech industry and scholars, there is indeed no indication that biotechnology could and will compensate for shortcomings of industrial agriculture. Compared to high-tech untested in-farm solutions as the unique solution to food security problems that biotech companies are pushing the farmers to apply, OF has many advantages. The majority of GM crops do not make higher yields' sense and necessarily need some optimal circumstances which cannot be found in the conditions of smallscale farmers. For example, a study by Benbrook (1999), the former director of the Board on Agriculture at the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that genetically engineered Roundup Ready soybeans do not increase yields. The study reported a broad review over 8200 university trials in 1998 regarding R.R.S. (Roundup Ready soybeans yield). The result showed that the yield was 7–10% less than similar conventional varieties. The study also found that the farmers used herbicide on R.R.S. even 5–10 times more than on conventional ones. The only reason that the farmers preferred this manipulated variety was because of the simple management of their large chemically-intensive farms.



Study Finds Genetically-Modified Crops Have Forced Farmers To Use Way More Pesticides. PSM

Kelly, Michael. "Study Finds Genetically-Modified Crops Have Forced Farmers To Use Way More Pesticides." . Business Insider, 03 10 2012. Web. 3 Oct 2014. <http://www.businessinsider.com/study-gm-crops-cause-more-pesticides-2012-10>.

Genetically engineered (GM) crop technologies are triggering a rise of "superweeds" and hard-to-kill insects that are forcing farmers to use larger amounts of hazardous pesticides, according to a new study reported on by Carey Gillam of Reuters.

The study, titled "Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use in the U.S. – the first sixteen years," found that pesticide use has increased by 404 million pounds from the time GM crops were introduced in 1996 through 2011. The paper's author, Washington State University research professor Charles Benbrook, found that the amount of herbicides required to deal with superweeds near GM crops has grown from 1.5 million pounds in 1999 to about 90 million pounds in 2011.

"Resistant weeds have become a major problem for many farmers reliant on [genetically-engineered] crops, and are now driving up the volume of herbicide needed each year by about 25 percent," Benbrook said in a press release. Benbrook's analysis, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sciences Europe, is thought to be the first published estimate of the impacts of genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant crops on pesticide use. Its conclusion is that the findings undermine oft-repeated claims that today’s genetically-engineered crops reduce pesticide use. Monsanto spokesman Thomas Helscher told Reuters that the company is "looking at this. Our experts haven't been able to access the supporting data as yet." Science writer Carl Zimmer tweeted that the study requires scrutiny, citing an article on BIOfortified that said Benbrook failed to "distinguish between different pesticides" and failed to "consider non-biotech traits that could increase pesticide use."

Benbrook also found that "Bt" corn and cotton—crops engineered to be toxic to certain insects—has led to a recent rise of insects resistant to the crop toxin so even though insecticide dropped 28 percent from 1996 to 2011, it is now on the rise. "Things are getting worse, fast," said Benbrook told Reuters. "In order to deal with rapidly spreading resistant weeds, farmers are being forced to expand use of older, higher-risk herbicides. To stop corn and cotton insects from developing resistance to Bt, farmers planting Bt crops are being asked to spray the insecticides that Bt corn and cotton were designed to displace." This study doesn't touch on the toxicity of pesticides, only that pesticide use has gone up. The toxicity question was recently explored in a widely-debated study of rats.

January 2014 Con: Economic/diplomatic harms


The Economic and Diplomatic Harms of GMO Trade American biotech exports harm relations with China. DAT

“Food Fight.” The Economist. 14 December 2013. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.economist.com/news/china/21591577-fierce-public-debate-over-gm-food-exposes-concerns-about-america-food-fight

Public unease about genetic modification is common around the world. In China, alongside rising concerns about food safety, it has taken on a strongly political hue. Chinese anti-GM activists often describe their cause as patriotic, aimed not just at avoiding what they regard as the potential harm of tinkering with nature, but at resisting control of China’s food supply by America through American-owned biotech companies and their superior technology. Conspiracy theories about supposed American plots to use dodgy GM food to weaken China abound online.

They are even believed by some in the government. In October an official video made for army officers was leaked on the internet and widely watched until censors scrubbed it. “America is mobilising its strategic resources to promote GM food vigorously,” its narrator grimly intoned. “This is a means of controlling the world by controlling the world’s food production.”

Peng Guangqian, a retired major-general and prominent think-tanker, echoed these sentiments in an article published by official media in August. He said America might be setting a “trap”. The result, he said, could be “far worse than the Opium War” between Britain and China in the 1840s that Chinese historians regard as the beginning of a “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign powers.

The real nature of GMO technology shipped from the United States—likely and overwhelmingly benign—is secondary to its negative impact not just with the Chinese people but, more importantly, the Chinese government. Given the increasing need for cooperation and diplomatic wrangling between the two nations, distrust benefits neither side. We see a net harm to both sides from even a one-sided deterioration of trust.



American GM crop farmers are harmed by the volatility of international policies DAT Charles, Dan. “When China Spurns GMO Corn Imports, American Farmers Lose

Billions.” NPR.org. 31 July 2014. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/31/336833095/when-china-spurns-gmo-corn-imports-american-farmers-lose-billions

A couple of years ago, American farmers began planting a new type of genetically engineered corn invented by the seed company Syngenta. This GMO contains a new version of a gene that protects the corn plant from certain insects. Problem is, this new gene isn't yet approved in China, and Chinese officials didn't appreciate it when traces of the new, as-yet-unapproved GMOs started showing up in boatloads of American grain.

The crackdown began in November 2013. China began rejecting shiploads of corn when officials detected traces of the new gene. By February of this year, U.S. exports of corn to China had practically ceased.

At the time, some American grain exporters said that there was little to worry about. The Chinese move, they said, probably was intended to slow down imports temporarily in order to make sure that China's farmers got a decent price for their own corn harvest. As evidence, they pointed to the fact that China continued to accept imports of DDGS, which also contain traces of the unapproved gene. The U.S. sent $1.6 billion worth of DDGS to China last year.

Well, last week, China expanded the ban to DDGS, shocking many traders. The price of DDGS plunged.

According to the National Grain and Feed Association, the Chinese ban on corn and corn products may end up costing American farmers, ethanol producers and traders a total of about $3 billion.

DDGS is a conventionally-produced corn-based feedstock. The trouble is that even if GM stocks are benign and scientifically shown as beneficial, the net impact is negative until recipient nations change their policies. Given the reticence of China to accept genetically modified products from the United States, American farmers reliant on exports bear the burden of foreign countries’ trade policies, with little positive trade-off involved.



China Rejects U.S. Hay Exports Because of GM Alfalfa Contamination. PSM

Sarich, Christina. "China Rejects U.S. Hay Exports Due to GM Alfalfa Contamination." . Natural Society, 03 10 2014. Web. 5 Oct 2014. <http://naturalsociety.com/gm-alfalfa-found-hay-exports-china/>.

The Chinese used to be quite confident that their hay was GMO free, but all that is about to change. Hay exported to the country from the U.S. is currently in quarantine due to the detection of GMO traits, specifically of genetically modified alfalfa, according to a USDA spokesperson.

This isn’t a singular occurrence, either. Last year, a Washington State grower’s hay was rejected after it tested positive for GMO alfalfa. This doesn’t sit well with China, since all imported hay is supposed to be GMO-free. If the trend continues, they could boycott all US grown hay completely. They aren’t willing to feed their livestock hay grown with Round Up Ready traits – yet for some reason, many US farmers still are.

The current threshold of acceptance is 5% GMO by Chinese importers, but this could be tightened to 0.2%, and growers would be hard pressed to meet these standards with unintended cross-pollination along with the shady practices of GM companies who often grow ‘test’ fields of GM crops without regulatory approval.

The Chinese need hay, but they may look to other sources if they can’t rely on the U.S. to provide exports that are GM-free. After all, we know China isn’t afraid to reject GMOs from the U.S. or even burn shipment of GMO crops - the country has done it on multiple occasions.

According to the spokesperson, the USDA has been working with authorities and the U.S. alfalfa industry to find out why ‘certified’ alfalfa has GM traits and to come to an agreement.

However, many industry officials are frustrated by the lack of information and the slow progress related to changing GMO testing sensitivity in hay, says Harry Kreeft, plant pathologist and nematologist with Western Laboratories in Parma, ID who conducts GMO and other testing for the Ag industry. “Right now, everybody is absolutely grabbing at the dark,” explains Kreeft, “We don’t get any information from the USDA. We don’t get any information from the Chinese side. Our customers have no clue what’s going on.”



Impact of GM Contamination in the Global Organic Sector of the Economy. PSM Hewlett, KL. "The Economic Impacts of GM Contamination Incidents on the Organic

Sector." . 16th IFOAM Organic World Congress, n.d. Web. 6 Oct 2014. <http://orgprints.org/12027/1/The_Economic_Impacts_of_GM_Contamination_Incidents_on_the_Organic_Sector.pdf>.

This paper examines the economic impact of GM co-existence on the global organic sector to date through GM contamination of organic food and crops. A total of 15 GM contamination incidents in the organic sector are identified, occurring either from cross-pollination from GM crops being grown in the area or due to contamination in the post-harvest supply chain. The financial losses incurred by organic farmers and food companies due to GM contamination are considerable, through lost markets, lost sales, lower prices, negative publicity, withdrawal of organic certification and product recalls. It is important that co-existence regimes address all of these impacts, with the GM sector being held accountable. One of the main concerns of the organic sector is the impact of GM contamination on their businesses and ability to continue farming organically. Organic production is more costly so it is essential that produce can be sold as ‘organic’ to get the higher prices needed to recoup their costs. GM contamination of organic products is therefore a serious issue for retailers and the organic sector, due to its impacts on the trust in organic produce. UK Ministers have publicly promised to protect the organic sector against the impacts of GM crops, as it is valued by the UK Government for its environmental benefits. However, the organic sector is concerned that the UK Government and European Commission have not recognised the full economic damages that can occur through the marketplace, instead focusing on whether legal standards on GM levels are breached. There are now many cases of serious impacts of GM contamination of organic crops and food around the world and these are not or only partially related to legal standards.

Oilseed rape 2002+: Canadian organic farmers sue over contamination of oilseed rape seed by cross-pollination. In Canada, 73% of the oilseed rape area is now GM, resulting in almost complete contamination of non-GM seed stocks. The lack of clean seed has forced farmers in Saskatchewan to all but abandon organic oilseed rape production. They now pursuing a class action lawsuit against the biotechnology companies to seek compensation for the millions of dollars of damage to businesses.

Maize 2005: Cross-pollination of Spanish maize by GM crops has caused financial and genetic diversity losses. GM contamination was found in organic maize crops on five separate organic farms in Aragon and Catalonia. The contaminants were Bt176 and MON810, at levels of 0.15% to 12.6%. In all cases, organic certification was withdrawn and farmers suffered economic losses. Two of the incidents involved local varieties of seeds: these varieties have now been lost. 2005: Wide contamination of organic maize by cross-pollination in Aragon. Tests of fields and grain silos found MON 810 in 50% of the samples, at levels of 0.03% - 1.9%. Unable to sell the maize as organic, farmers suffered financial losses.iii



2004: Cross-pollination cost organic farmers in Aragon more than €4,000. Samples were taken from three organic maize crops. All were contaminated: one with Bt176 at 34% despite being over 500m from a GM field, and all with MON 810 at levels of 0.1% - 0.5%. Organic certificates were withdrawn and one farmer reported that the incident had cost him €4,000 due to the lower market price for GM maize.iv

2003: GM contamination of maize by cross-pollination led to end of organic production in Navarra. A tiny amount of GM maize was being grown in the region, but tests revealed that two organic fields contained Bt176 at above 0.05%. Organic status was withdrawn but neither farmer had any right to compensation and, as a result, almost all farmers in Navarra have ceased production of organic maize.

2001: GM contamination of maize by cross-pollination could cost US organic farmers c.$90 million/year. Across the USA, organic farmers are being affected by lower prices or loss of sales due to GM contamination from neighbouring farms. It is estimated that contamination of the total organic maize crop would total a potential lost income of over $90 million annually for organic farmers.vi Organic and Identity Preserved grain elevators in North Dakota and Minnesota regularly test their deliveries for presence of GMOs, and have to turn away 2 - 5 % of all grain due to GM contamination.



GM Crops Disrupt Global Food Trade. PSM Myles, Robert. "GM crop contamination disrupts global food trade." . Digital Journal, 16

03 2014. Web. 6 Oct 2014. <http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/food/gm-crop-contamination-disrupts-global-food-trade/article/376592>.

Rome - Increased production of genetically modified crops worldwide has caused a sharp rise in the number of incidents where low levels of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been found in food and feedstuffs traded between nations, disrupting trade. These are the findings of a new survey by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO took soundings from 75 countries on questions concerning low levels of GM crops in the international food and animal feed trades. Between 2002 and 2012, 198 such incidents were reported with the FAO reporting a “steep acceleration” after 2009. Between 2009 and 2012, 138 out of the 198 total incidents were reported.

Difficulties are caused by some countries working on the basis that shipments of food and foodstuffs are unacceptable if GMOs are found at a level where detection is possible, i.e. very low or “trace” levels. Other countries make decisions based on the acceptable level of GMOs for a particular commodity. The position is further complicated since what's an acceptable level of GMOs in the country of export may differ from that permitted in the importing country.

As yet, there is no international agreement defining universal, acceptable, low-level GMOs entering the food chain.

The ground-breaking survey revealed that the highest number of incidents involved linseed, rice, maize and papaya. Shipments with low levels of GM crops originated mainly from the US, Canada and China, although other countries were involved to a lesser extent. When unacceptable levels of GMOs are found in shipments, such shipments are usually destroyed or returned to sender.

“The incidents have led to trade disruptions between countries with shipments of grain, cereal and other crops being blocked by importing countries and destroyed or returned to the country of origin,” said the FAO in a news release.



The market for GMOs is unresponsive to those living in poverty and excludes them. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,


Global food productivity is undergoing a process of rapid transformation as a result of technological progress in the fields of communication, information, transport and modern biotechnology. A general observation is that technologies tend to be developed in response to market pressures, and not to the needs of the poor who have no purchasing power. As agriculture is the main economic activity of rural communities, optimizing the levels of production will generate employment and income, and thus uplift the wealth and well-being of the community. Improving agricultural production in developing countries is fundamental to reducing poverty and increasing food security. ��Investment to raise agricultural productivity can be achieved through the introduction of superior technologies such as better-quality seeds, crop rotation systems etc. (USAID 1992). It is argued, however, that the adoption of earlier agricultural technologies has led to the emergence of more virulent strains of pests, pathogens and weeds, soil deterioration and a loss of biodiversity (UNDP 2003). The Green Revolution, in particular, focused on wheat and rice — not much attention was paid to staple crops such as sorghum, cassava or millet. Also, the seeds and fertilizers required to grow the higher-yielding varieties were expensive and therefore not accessible to all.

The fact that GMOs come from privatized markets inherently mean that the trends we have seen in the agricultural market thus-far, such as crossbreeding higher yield strains, will remain true and disenfranchise the poor, increasing the economic gap between people and nations.



Tracking GMOs over national boundaries is impossible. DAT Fitting, Elizabeth. “Importing corn, exporting labor: The neoliberal corn regime, GMOs,

and the erosion of Mexican biodiversity.” academia.edu. Agriculture and Human Values. 2006. Accessed 10/7/2014. Web. https://www.academia.edu/1249805/Importing_corn_exporting_labor_The_neoliberal_corn_regime_GMOs_and_the_erosion_of_biodiversity_in_Mexico

One of the most significant effects of NAFTA in Mexico was the increase in corn imports from the United States, the world’s largest producer and exporter of the crop. Between 1994 and 2000, imports from the United States grew from 14% to 24% of the total consumption of corn in Mexico. In 2000, Mexico was the second largest importer of US corn and 21% of corn grown in the United States was Bt corn, a transgenic variety with genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus Thuringiensis. This bacterium produces insecticide toxins which kill the European and Southwestern corn borers (Ackerman et al., 2003). Mexico imports roughly six million metric tons of US corn annually, up to one third of which is transgenic (Dyer and Yun˜ez- Naude, 2003).

The campaigns against GM crops have exposed a regulatory gap between GM crop field trials and the import of GM corn for food, feed, and industrial uses. While scientific field trials of GM crops have been regulated in Mexico since the late 1980s, GM corn has been imported in recent years without adequate regulation or monitoring. The United States does not require its distributors to separate GM corn from other varieties so that, once in Mexico, imported corn has been difficult to track or control due in part to the nature of informal seed exchange between cultivators and gene flow between cornfields.

While the domestic consumer market is tightly regulated in developed countries (with the US being the example here), there is a gap in regulation for exports, especially of lower-level (not for consumers) crops. This can lead to violations of national scientific and legislative policies in recipient countries.



Asymmetric GMO regulation makes trade a high risk. DAT Heminthavong, Khamla. “Low-Level Presence of Genetically Modified Crops in Imports:

Proposed Domestic Policy.” Library of Parliament Research Publications. Parliament of Canada. 28 August 2013. Accessed 10/8/2014. Web. http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/2013-79-e.htm

2.1 National Policies on Genetically Modified Crops

Currently, most countries enforce some form of zero-tolerance policy for unapproved GM ingredients. These are some examples:

In Canada, the smallest presence of an unapproved GM product on the market constitutes non-compliance. Should one of these products be detected, the competent authorities would immediately take action to resolve the situation.4

The European Union does not tolerate any unapproved GM product. When a trace amount of such a product is detected on inspection, the imported shipments are rejected and any GM products that have already crossed European borders are pulled off the market. However, in 2011, the European Union relaxed its measures by accepting a maximum concentration of unapproved GM products of 0.1% for feed.

In Switzerland, traces of unapproved GM material of up to 0.5% are tolerated in food if the GM crop in question is already authorized in another country where comparable procedures are followed.

In the United States, regulatory agencies do a case-by-case risk assessment of the GM material and take proportionate measures.5

2.2 Economic Impact

Where there is zero tolerance for unapproved GM crops, incidents involving LLP of these products can have a significant economic impact, as confirmed through numerous studies. Here are some examples:

According to a study commissioned by the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union, an LLP incident involving transgenic soybeans sourced from the United States and not approved in the European Union could entail costs of between 5 and 46 million euros.6

In 2009, the European Union detected the presence of Triffid, a GM flax variety that was deregistered in 2001, imported from Canada. Following this discovery, the EU closed its borders to Canadian flax for a few months. The ban had a significant impact on Canadian farmers, resulting in a loss of approximately $30 million.7



The Harms of GMO Donations to Developing Countries Importing GMO foodstocks puts in developing countries in a high-risk bind. DAT

Azadi, Hossein, and Peter Ho. “Genetically modified and organic crops in developing countries: A review of options for food security.” Biotechnology Advances 28 (2010) 160–168. University of Michigan. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/labs/gmfood_video/gm%20review%202010.pdf

In their book “Seeds of Contention”, Pindstrup-Andersen and Schibler (2001), provide a more balanced view of GM crops in the developing countries (Borch and Rasmussen, 2005). They argue that GM crops may be one element in the solution to poverty and hunger in the developing countries and that people in these countries should have knowledge about benefits and risks and the freedom to make their own decisions about whether or not to grow and consume these crops (Closter et al., 2004). Moreover, GM crops can contribute in designing new foods with specific health protective properties, but given the relatively poor state-of-the-art with respect to knowledge on working mechanisms, joint research in epidemiology, nutrition, and food toxicology is first needed in order to select relevant compounds and to demonstrate their beneficial action (Kuiper et al., 2002). Particularly, in the rapidly emerging economies, such as China, agro-biotechnological innovations in developing economies should be introduced with caution. On the one hand, these countries dispose of the technological and scientific capacity to launch major GM development programmes. However, they often lack the state capacity and civil society forces to effectively consider, monitor and enforce bio-safety policies, on the other hand. In this context, Zhao and Ho (2005) have coined the term “developmental risk society” — a society in which government and science confronted with major development issues, might more easily disregard technological risks due to the absence of sufficient countervailing forces.

Donation and trade arrangements between developing and developed countries (e.g. the United States to western African nations) run the risk of turning the recipients into such developmental risk societies. Given the higher risks and lower level of precaution mentioned in the card, complications souring relations between countries are more likely to arise and more likely to have greater degrees of severity.



Decision-making on GMOs in developing countries is inhibited by lack of information. DAT Azadi, Hossein, and Peter Ho. “Genetically modified and organic crops in developing

countries: A review of options for food security.” Biotechnology Advances 28 (2010) 160–168. University of Michigan. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/labs/gmfood_video/gm%20review%202010.pdf

Regarding the right to know, not only consumer awareness, but more importantly, also their understanding of GM technology is critical. In this regard, there is a major concern that in the developing countries, access to information might be significantly more difficult than in the developed. A recent survey testing Chinese consumers' understanding of GM food is a case in point. In the survey, it was found that less than one fifth (18%) of the sample could give correct answers to the questions: “is it false to say that non-GM soybeans do not have genes?” and “is it false to say that eating GM food may change one's genes?” Most respondents (68%) were also unable to name any GM crop. Among those who could, one half could mention only one GM crop. Lastly, a majority did not believe that GM crops could cause damage to other crops or the ecology: 38% answered they did not, 29% “maybe, but nothing important”, and only 13% said they did (Ho et al., 2006).

The flow of GMOs is typically creation and research in developed countries and shipment to developing countries. The implication here is that the citizens of developing countries are stripped of the liberty of choice due to a lack of information, which is typically compounded by lax or confusing local labeling protocol.



Conflict over GMOs has eroded trust between the United States and African nations. DAT Zerbe, Noah. “Feeding the famine? American food aid and the GMO debate in Southern

Africa.” Food Policy 29 (2004) 593–608. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://faculty.washington.edu/jhannah/geog270aut07/readings/GreenGeneRevolutions/Zerbe%20-%20GMOs%20in%20food%20aid.pdf

Rather than address the challenges raised regarding genetically modified food in the region, the initial response of the US aid agencies was to dismiss critics of biotechnology and genetically modified food as ignorant and uninformed. Following Zambia’s decision to reject GM food aid, an anonymous official at the US State Department lashed out, arguing ‘‘Beggars can’t be choosers’’ (Weiss, 2002, A12). The US Ambassador to the World Food Program, Tony Hall, argued that Zambia’s decision to reject US food aid was a crime against humanity. He accused ‘‘well fed’’ European experts of being selfish, arrogant luddites who were endangering the lives of millions of Africans out of sheer ignorance (Hall, 2002). The discourse emerging in Washington and echoed across a number of UN agencies created the impression that choice facing African governments was either to accept GM food aid or let their populations starve.

As opposition to GM food aid increased, however, the US State Department attempted to instill a more conciliatory tone in the discussion. It sought to ‘‘educate’’ food aid recipients on the safety of GMOs, producing fact-sheets which argued that GM food meets rigorous food safety standards and had been consumed by Americans since 1996 without incident. But the State Department continued to refuse to provide cash rather than in-kind aid or to mill food aid before distribution (US Department of State, 2002). It argued that sufficient supplies on non-GM food aid were not available: the United States does not segregate GM and non-GM grains, and sufficient stockpiles were not available outside of the United States. It also rejected the idea of milling grain before distribution, arguing that the costs associated with milling maize were too high.

Donator counties (e.g. the United States) typically hold effectively full control over what gets donated to recipient countries. The problem is that even if a recipient country knows the content of goods (in this case, GMOs), the donator winds up trampling both the sovereignty of the recipient nation and the integrity of its scientific/regulatory inquiry. From diplomatic and political standpoint, this is unacceptable.



Importing American GMOs jeopardized agricultural trade in African nations. DAT Zerbe, Noah. “Feeding the famine? American food aid and the GMO debate in Southern

Africa.” Food Policy 29 (2004) 593–608. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://faculty.washington.edu/jhannah/geog270aut07/readings/GreenGeneRevolutions/Zerbe%20-%20GMOs%20in%20food%20aid.pdf

But the decision to accept unmilled GM maize represented a more general threat as well. The economies of Southern Africa, particularly Zambia and Zimbabwe, have developed close ties to European markets, and the bulk of agricultural exports from the region are destined for the EU. European consumers have repeatedly expressed distaste for genetically modified foodstuffs. And they have the money to pay a premium for organic agriculture. The potential cultivation of genetically modified seed (especially maize), either accidentally through spills or cross-pollination or through intentional cultivation of such crop varieties by Southern African farmers eager to replant their fields after the drought, endangered regional exports of non-GM crops to Europe. Yet US policy makers initially seemed to be oblivious to concerns about export markets, and the need for the governments of the region to maintain a degree of economic viability and vitality after the crisis.

USAID had failed to anticipate any challenge to the inclusion of GM food in aid shipments. Indeed, at the height of the crisis, the assistant administrator for USAID, Roger Winter, conceded that, ‘‘We were not aware that this [GM food aid] suddenly was going to emerge as such a heavy impediment to a timely response in the region’’ (Robinson, 2002: np). USAID argued that Mozambique and Zambia had, like much of Latin America, accepted US food aid shipments for years without challenge. Similarly, the US Department of Agriculture argued that it was impossible to predict the policies of recipient states regarding GM food aid because of non-transparent decision- making structures and processes (GAO, 2003, p. 30). But challenges to trade in biotech crops had been raised at both the national and regional level. Zimbabwe, for example, had raised concerns regarding the potential adverse environmental and trade impact of biotech products as early as 2001, and both the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Organization of African States (OAS) had actively been developing a strong regulatory framework for biotech crops for over five years.

It’s important for teams on both sides to consider non-U.S. perspectives, as illustrated by this card. Particularly with trade, it’s important to look at the “endgame” for a particular good. In the case of Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the end destination for crops was Europe, meaning that glib insistences of GMO donations from the United States could have crippled agricultural trade, to no fault of the original recipient countries.



Farmers should get insurance for GMO crops Farmers Worried About GMO Should Get Insurance. PSM

Laskawy, Tom. "Are you a farmer worried about GMO contamination? USDA says ‘get insurance’." Grist, 30 11 2012. Web. 5 Oct 2014. <http://grist.org/food/are-you-a-farmer-worried-about-gmo-contamination-usda-says-get-insurance/>.

One of the big debates in agriculture right now involves “coexistence” between farmers who use genetically modified or GMO seeds and those who don’t. This is far more than an academic debate; in question is the risk of “contamination” of conventional or organic crops by GMO crops. The wind, insects, and even the farmers themselves can inadvertently cause this type of cross-pollination, and it puts organic farms at risk of losing their organic status and conventional farmers at risk of losing sales to countries that don’t allow imports of GMO foods. The risk of such “transgenic” contamination has grown along with the market share of biotech seeds developed by Monsanto and DuPont — to the point that around 90 percent of corn, 90 percent of soy, and 80 percent of cotton grown in the U.S. is genetically modified.

Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is stepping in. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, a USDA advisory board released a report [PDF] recommending that the government offer a special form of crop insurance for farmers concerned about GMO contamination.

The USDA advisory group, called AC21 (short for the Advisory Committee on 21st Century Agriculture), is meant to represent the industry as a whole. The group included participants from all sectors of agriculture: large, small, conventional, and organic, including executives, farmers, and researchers. In reality, however, around three-quarters of the participants represent groups or organizations affiliated with big agribusiness, such as the American Farm Bureau, the National Corn Growers Association, and the American Soybean Association. And while USDA Chief Tom Vilsack had the good sense not to put a Monsanto representative on the board, DuPont, another major biotech firm, managed to get its top lawyer appointed. The board participants themselves recognized this problem. In one of several extended comments attached to the report, boardmember Charles Benbrook of the Organic Center declared that it “does not embody significant compromise” and “dodges key issues.”

In short, no bridging the agriculture chasm here.

And that’s a big problem — not just because we need sustainable agriculture to feed a growing population on a warming planet, but also because we’re starting to see the first signs of a coming crisis in industrial agriculture.

The stalemate that occurred with the AC21 report is merely another symptom of this larger crisis of understanding and knowledge among those who control our food system. Farmers, however, know there’s a problem. And many might opt for alternatives if the USDA stood up and gave them a real choice. As one farmer who had turned to the new herbicides to save his failing genetically modified crops told the Star Tribune: “I don’t like seeing all this crap going on the land. But I am forced to do it to survive.” Forced to poison the land to grow food? That’s not a choice anyone should have to make.

January 2014 Con: Long-term harms


Long-Term GMO Harms Often Can’t Be Foreseen

It’s impossible to verify the safety of a synthetic crop in lab settings. DAT Garthwaite, Josie. “Beyond GMOs: The Rise of Synthetic Biology.” The Atlantic. 25


Indeed, we’re only beginning to unravel the ecological implications of the technology. Experts consulted for a recent report from the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Synthetic Biology Project say potential risks demanding more research range from the creation of “new or more vigorous pests and pathogens” to “causing irreparable loss or changes in species diversity or genetic diversity within species.”

But assessing these risks in the real world is complex. While some engineered traits “will clearly have great benefit to the environment with little risk, each gene or trait must be assessed on a case by case basis,” said plant geneticist Pamela Ronald, who directs the Laboratory for Crop Genetics Innovation at the University of California, Davis. Experimental organisms are typically be tested in a lab or confined field trials, which may be inadequate to foretell the co-evolution and interplay of a full ecosystem. According to the Wilson Center report, some of the most advanced models in use today for eco-evolutionary dynamics falter beyond a 10-year time frame.

“We don’t know how these organisms will interact with pollinators, soil systems, other organisms,” Perls said. And a self-replicating organism with synthetic DNA, released into an ecosystem could swap genes with wild counterparts. “We need to expect escape; and when that happens, we need to be prepared to deal with it,” she said.

Even if current research on emerging synthetic (GMO) products is conducted properly and legitimate, it is limited by the logistics of time’s passage. The benefits are already known (GMO products are developed toward a specific advantage from start to finish), but the harms have not had time to emerge.

January 2014 Con: Long-term harms


Regulatory agencies are too understaffed to study long-term impacts. DAT Suppan, Steve. “From GMO to SMO: how synthetic biology evades regulation.” iatp.org.

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. 7 August 2014. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://www.iatp.org/documents/from-gmo-to-smo-how-synthetic-biology-evades-regulation

The U.S. (White House) Office of Science and Technology Policy ruled in 1992 that regulators may evaluate risks only on a case-by-case basis and only in terms of products, and not the process applied to produce multiple products. So they could examine, for example, synbio vanilla, but not the process used to produce it. Synthetic biology company strategy is to make synbio versions of foods that the Food and Drug Administration already considers to be Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS), in which the process is not of “regulatory concern.”

Because U.S. regulatory agencies are chronically understaffed and under-budgeted, this product-by-product review requirement all but mandates deregulation by staff overwhelmed by commercialization applications. Indeed, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS), the chief regulator for agricultural GMOs, “has not denied any petition for deregulation on the basis that the genetically engineered plant has a greater plant pest risk than its conventional counterpart.” Furthermore, APHIS requires no post-market surveillance of the deregulated transgenic “events.” However, since SMOs do not have a conventional comparator, how will U.S. regulators justify the deregulation of SMOs?

Between a lack of resources and legal gray area, synbio (synthetic biology) crops can escape initial risk assessment, continued risk analysis, or both. More important than the loss of safety is the loss of guaranteed safety when this happens: the erosion of consumer trust and security is fundamentally a more worrisome impact.

January 2014 Con: Regulatory problems


Regulatory Problems

Governmental bodies are unequipped to deal with increasing numbers of bioproducts. DAT Garthwaite, Josie. “Beyond GMOs: The Rise of Synthetic Biology.” The Atlantic. 25


While many people involved with synthetic biology say existing regulation of engineered plants—generally split in the United States among the EPA, FDA, and USDA—will extend adequately to synbio, others see a need to shore up oversight. Policy analysts with the J. Craig Venter Institute, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the University of Virginia, for example, concluded earlier this year that the shift to synthetic biology could leave “many engineered plants without any premarket regulatory review,” because the USDA’s authority depends on a technique that’s outdated for many applications. And the increasing number and diversity of microbes expected to be engineered for commercial use, the authors warned, will challenge the “EPA’s resources, expertise, and perhaps authority to regulate them.”

This card presents a values proposition: do we prioritize prevention or adaptation? Security or economic productivity? The precedent is typically the former in both instances, and this is the foundation for the regulatory structures utilized by the developed world.



Regulatory financing of GMOs is grossly inefficient DAT Qaim, Matin. “The Benefits of Genetically Modified Crops—and the Costs of Inefficient

Regulation.” Resources For the Future. 2 April 2010. Accessed 10/4/2014. Web. http://www.rff.org/Publications/WPC/Pages/The-Benefits-of-Genetically-Modified-Crops-and-the-Costs-of-Inefficient-Regulation.aspx

Governments have responsibility for ensuring that foods are safe for consumption and that new agricultural inputs do not damage the environment or harm agricultural production. Most countries require GM products be approved before they may be grown, consumed, or imported. Because approval processes are not internationally harmonized, they have become a major barrier to the spread of GM crops and technologies. For example, the European Union has not yet approved some of the GM corn technologies used in the United States and Argentina, which obstructs trade not only in technologies but also in commodity and food markets.

Often, the regulators are extremely cautious and require extended regulatory trials over many years. The arduous testing comes at a cost: one estimate puts private compliance costs for approval of a new Bt corn technology in just one country at $6 million to $15 million. Beyond the direct regulatory costs are the indirect costs of forgone benefits—preventing the use of safe products.

Such high regulatory costs slow down overall innovation rates. They also impede the commercialization of GM technologies in minor crops and small countries, where markets are not large enough to justify the fixed-cost investments. Expensive regulations discourage small firms, thereby contributing to the further concentration of the agricultural biotech industry.

The premise of adopting GMOs rests on conservation in various forms: conservation of energy, physical resources, time, money. Because of the regulatory hurdles they face, GMOs cannot fulfill at least the monetary aspect of this framework (and potentially others, depending on how onerous the regulations are).



Case study: Bt corn. DAT Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas. “Measuring the Costs of Biosafety Regulation and the

Potential Impacts on Biotechnology Research and Development.” gmo-safety.eu. n.d. Accessed 10/4/014. http://www.gmo-safety.eu/pdf/biosafenet/Kalaitzandonakes.pdf

The issue isn’t necessarily the high cost of regulation, in isolation. Adapting to regulation is a cost in every industry. It becomes an issue when coupled with other factors, such as the disputable effectiveness of the regulation (see the rest of this section) and the relative nascence of the biotechnology sector, where overwrought regulation is more capable of holding back innovation.



Some GMOs also can potentially enter the market completely unregulated. DAT Suppan, Steve. “From GMO to SMO: how synthetic biology evades regulation.” iatp.org.

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. 7 August 2014. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://www.iatp.org/documents/from-gmo-to-smo-how-synthetic-biology-evades-regulation

A recent report, co-funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, defines a “key challenge” for the U.S. pre-market regulation of synbio products: “Synthetic biology and other new genetic engineering techniques will likely lead to an increase in the number of genetically engineered plants that will not be subject to review by USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture], potentially resulting in the cultivation of genetically engineered plants for field trials and commercial production without prior regulatory review for possible environmental or safety concerns.”17 Although this report includes some options for regulating synthetic biology within existing legislative authorities, U.S. congressional resistance to passing strong environmental legislation of any type probably precludes the passage of new authority for synbio specific regulation.

An evaluation of targeted gene modification (TagMo) technologies, sometimes grouped under synthetic biology, notes “TagMo might also be used to introduce foreign genes [into plants] without using traditional DNA recombinant techniques. As a result, TagMo might fall outside existing US and EU regulatory definitions and scrutiny.”18 A briefing paper for European policymakers by the New Breeding Technologies Platform provides an elaborate legal taxonomy of post-transgenic modification techniques to justify why they should not be regulated under EU laws as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).19

The major impact is a violation of a crucial precedent in developed countries: that agricultural markets are sustained entirely by products that are fully-regulated from a safety perspective. There is a genuine possibility in the GMO development timeline for products to escape regulation on technical exceptions due to inefficient legislatures (see: US Congress) failing to update anachronistic regulatory policies.

January 2014 Con: Harms of GURT


The Harms of GURT GURT hurts agrarian stability. ASF

Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2014 (12). pp. 995 - 1005. July 17, 2014. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/pbi.12242/asset/pbi12242.pdf?v=1&t=i0w0q9t3&s=e3251d1e2416449b221d1f97ef8161b850053ef4

The main arguments put forward against GURTs, particularly against terminator technology, are the impacts on biodiversity, sustainable agricultural development, and farmers’ access to and use of genetic resources through the inability to save and re-sow seeds.

Regarding the impact on agrobiodiversity, the first concern is that the introduction of new, uniform, GURT-protected varieties would replace the adapted or selected (possibly less productive) autochthonous cultivars and wild relative species, resulting in the erosion of genetic diversity in fields, adverse effects on local germplasms (or at least the landraces), and effects on the coevolution of crops at the farm level (FAO, 2001a; Visser et al., 2001). This would be at odds, for example, with the European directive 2008/62/EC aimed at protecting seed varieties of agricultural crops threatened by genetic erosion and providing that ‘landraces and varieties which are naturally adapted to local and regional conditions and threatened by genetic erosion (conservation varieties) should be grown and marketed even where they do not comply with the general requirements as regards the acceptance of varieties and the marketing’ of seeds.

Because GURTs allow for species to grow at a higher rate in a more sustainable fashion with higher crop yields it can make other wild species suffer and essentially push them out of existence. The productive differential would ultimately hurt wild species, and can even effect the interaction between GURT species and natural species on farms.



GURT has negative spillover effects. ASF Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology


Genetic use restriction technologies-transformed crops may also produce low quantities of autotoxic compounds with negative impacts on nontarget organisms, induce competition with wild species, and eventually, as food/feed, transfer allergenicity and antibiotic resistance (Working Group on Article 8(j), 2006);. Similarly, the chemicals used to treat the seeds each year may have negative impacts on the environment where a massive use of antibiotics such as tetracyclines, although harmless to humans and plants, may have a detrimental effect on soil ecology, particularly on microflora and fauna, and increase the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (Mariani, 2001; Muk- herjee and Senthil Kumar, 2014). Moreover, Giovannetti (2003b) suggested that it cannot be excluded that suicide genes could be suddenly activated at different times and in different parts of the plant other than the seed, with disastrous effects on ecosystems and life itself, whereas the application of GURTs that would prevent the formation of pollen in plants could have a detrimental ecological impact on some pollen feeding insects.

GURT requires chemicals and can harm both wild species and the ecology of the soil in which wild crops are grown. Ultimately we also see different bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, which makes it harder to grow certain crops in the long run.



GURT is bad for the economic standing of developing nations. ASF Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology


From a socioeconomic point of view, GURTs would limit the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization provided by the Nagoya Protocol of the Convention on Biological Diversity (and by Article 10 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture) because of the increased dependency on ‘industrial’ costly seeds and chemical inducers that would create a companies’ monopoly over markets (with an unbalanced distribution of benefits) and a subsequent reduction of the so-called ‘food sovereignty’. Moreover, the 2003 report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on the potential impacts of GURTs on smallholder farmers, indigenous and local communities and farmers’ rights listed various possible negative impacts including:

1. reduction and limitation of traditional seed exchange practices and participatory plant breeding; 2. reduction of the traditional knowledge and innovation capacity for informal crop genetic improvement, local agrobiodiversity protection and food security; 3. displacement of local farming systems and the social, cultural and spiritual dimensions associated with them. A very common issue is that this technology would favour large multinational corporations and would have a negative impact on the employment of small farmers (Mukherjee and Senthil Kumar, 2014). In addition, according to Gar_ı (2002), GURTs would tend to concentrate breeding efforts and options, rather than widen- ing them, setting limits to the effective adherence to the international policy framework on plant genetic resources and thus restricting poor farmers’ access to new varieties and technologies and preventing them from making crosses to develop valuable and locally adapted varieties. Eventually, the introduction of GURT-transformed crops could be counterproductive for companies that export to the European market, which is traditionally hostile to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) (IIPTA, 2012).

Because of privatization, it is expected that long-term implementation of GURT hurts poor farmers in multiple ways. On the surface level, farmers now have an additional cost in buying activation chemicals and new seeds every year. Moreover it prevents the competitive market or private trade of seeds and produce between farmers, and prevents farmers from informal genetic crop improvement. It hinders any ability for a local biodiversity project, thus negatively impacting food security and stability. This is crucial in places like Zimbabwe and Tanzania. GURT encourages privatized focused industry rather than cheap wide accessibility, thus cutting out the lowest-class of people, usually farmers in developing nations. Finally, developing nations tend to export to Europe, which has a huge resistance to GMOs. Ultimately this would hurt their market exports and reduce their capacity to sell crop yields as well.



GURT opens the door for higher risk of mutated plants. ASF Lombardo, Luca. "Genetic use restriction technologies: a review". Plant Biotechnology


Some drawbacks are related to the real effectiveness of GURTs in preventing gene flow, but more generally to the real feasibility of these mechanisms. Whereas partial V-GURT efficiency, that is, causing the reduction of the germination rate, would be enough to force farmers to buy seeds from companies each year (Sang et al., 2013), the prevention of flower or seed development and the inducible expression of the GM trait would require a 100% effective application of a chemical inducer to prevent the escape of a nonfunctioning transgene via both seed and pollen. In fact, some seeds may not respond or may not take up enough inducer to activate the recombinase, thereby producing fertile GM plants (Lemaux, 2009; Van Acker et al., 2007) able to transmit the inserted trait and causing exactly the opposite effect to the one intended.

Other technical issues have been raised regarding the escape of genes over generations, the mutation of genes, the accidental switching on of sleeper genes, the instability of the promoters and the horizontal flow of genetically modified pollen to nontarget organisms (e.g., birds, insects and soil biota) (FAO, 2002; Working Group on Article 8(j), 2006);. It is further possible that inducer-blocked/activated expression of a GURT trait could naturally or artificially (either voluntarily or involuntarily) occur in response to related compounds (Pendleton, 2004; Working Group on Article 8(j), 2006).

In practice it is hard to ensure that 100% of crop retains enough chemical inducer to activate the genes inserted to make a plant infertile. This means that genes from these GMOs can actually be reproduced and introduced into the natural crops and wild environment. If wild species retained some of these traits, such as a toxin for proteins within the organism, it can have detrimental effects on biodiversity.



GURT cuts developing countries out of the market. ASF Goeschl, Timo. Swanson, Timothy. "The development impact of genetic use restriction

technologies: a forecast based on the hybrid crop experience". Cambridge University Press. 2003. http://www.feem-web.it/ess/ess07/files/goeschl8_ln.pdf

Figures 2 and 3 show the yield histogram and yield statistics for all 86 developing countries analysed in this paper under the baseline scenario and that of widespread use of GURTs in the year 2020. These figures sumarize the overall impact of GURTs relative to a continuation of the current regime.

In the absence of changes to the current IPR regime, the average yield in developing countries will be 23.1 tons per hectare at that point in time. If GURTs were adopted, average yields will be about 8 per cent (or about 2 tons) lower. By contrast, average yields in developed countries after widespread adoption of GURTs are forecast to exceed the baseline by more than 10 per cent by 2020. It is only after another 20 years, i.e. in the year 2040, that developing countries’ average yields under GURTs overtake those under the baseline regime.

If developing nations adopted GURTs, by 2020 they would have an 8% decrease in crop yields while developed nations would have a 10% increase, making an increasing gave of 18% relative to the status quo. Developing nations would not catch up to their current production rates until the year 2040. This is the reality of privatization of agricultural ability in markets.



Developing countries struggle to maintain production of GMOs in short term. ASF Goeschl, Timo. Swanson, Timothy. "The development impact of genetic use restriction

technologies: a forecast based on the hybrid crop experience". Cambridge University Press. 2003. http://www.feem-web.it/ess/ess07/files/goeschl8_ln.pdf

Another aspect are the distributive effects of GURTs between developing countries. One indicator of this is the coefficient of variation in yields across developing countries. In the baseline scenario, this coefficient is 0.42; in the case of GURTs it rises to 0.52, indicating that under GURTs differences in agricultural productivity will increase rather than decrease. At the general level then, the two principal conclusions are therefore that GURTs tend to lead to an initially flatter growth curve and hence lower yields in developing countries over a 20 year period on average and that the variance in yields, i.e. distributive disparity, will rise. The increasing variance in developing country yields merits further examination since it suggests that individual countries will experience very different results of an adoption of GURTs. To do this we selected three developing countries out of the 86 countries sampled in order to illustrate some of the diversity of outcomes. These countries are China, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. They were selected on the basis that all crops included in the sample are grown there, thus providing better data and that they represent the widely divergent experiences among developing countries for reasons of different agro-ecological conditions, infrastructure, and effectiveness of public agricultural research and extension. Table 2 reports the country specific parameters that enter into the simu- lations. Yields in the initial period are below developed countries’ yields by the average yield gap in non-hybrids. Across these six crops, China has the lowest average shortfall in yields relative to developed countries with a 15 per cent gap, while Ethiopia has a little over half the yields of developed countries. Tanzania does particularly poorly with a gap of about 75 per cent. What is also important for the simulation is the country’s long- term deviation from the yield growth rate in developing countries across the six crops. These data are generated by the estimation of equation (2) on a crop and country-specific basis. These findings show that there is no holistic view that can be applied to developing nations that result in positive yield predictions. Because developing nations vary so greatly across their agricultural terrains and agricultural policies three countries were selected at random that were producing the same product. The trend showed that developing countries holistically do lag behind developed nations production within the first 20 years, anywhere from 15-75%. What is important to note is that this card acknowledges after 20 years there is supposed to be an increase in yields that will cause it to recover overall. What is important to note when discussing this is that while developed nations are regaining their yield numbers, developed nations did not suffer the same, and began benefiting from the increase in yield numbers much soon, thus holistically increasing the market gap and disenfranchising developing nations from the market. This means that the short-term detriment severely outweighs the long-term increase because developed nations experience a relative increase significantly sooner. Exploring this further, it can have major negative consequences on the market over the initial 20-year period for developing nations.

January 2014 Con: Superior alternatives


Genetic Modification Has Superior Alternatives This section is an opportunity cost argument: if there are superior alternatives to GMOs which accomplish all the same objectives without some of the harms, GMOs have a net harm through their implementation ahead of superior methods. The upside of for Con teams of running the opportunity cost argument is the obviation of a direct need to contradict every Pro claim to GMO benefits. Instead of having to argue the weight balance of a tradeoff (e.g. increased yields vs. scientific consensus), Con teams can simply trot out advocacies of alternate methodologies with fewer tradeoffs.

Enhanced mutation delivers GM benefits without its regulatory and scientific hurdles. DAT “GMOs for African Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.” Academy of Science of


In Kenya and other African countries wheat crops are plagued by a virulent new strain of fungus called “wheat rust’’.

Using radiation-based techniques to modify crop characteristics and traits, scientists and crop researchers at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), working closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), developed new wheat seeds over the past decade. The first mutant wheat variety, called Njoro-BW1, was released in 2001. It is tolerant to drought and uses limited rainfall efficiently. Moreover, it exhibits moderate resistance to wheat rust, has high yields and the flour is of good baking quality.

Today, Njoro-BWI is cultivated on more than 10 000 ha in Kenya. It has become so popular among Kenyan wheat farmers that KARI’s seed unit can hardly keep up with demand.

Another high-yielding mutant, codenamed DH4, is due to be released soon.

Modifying a crop through radiation simply speeds up the natural evolutionary process, rather than creating a shortcut from start to finish, as gene modification does. This allows such crops to technically be the product of completely natural evolution and provide the same benefits of GM crops without the regulatory pains, trade embargoes, dodgy science, etc. associated with GMOs.



Nuclear treatment is an economic boost and safety net: case studies. DAT “GMOs for African Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.” Academy of Science of


Nuclear techniques can help to address the issues of food security in Africa. These techniques are highly competitive in relation to non-nuclear technologies and can be used to achieve better solutions to new challenges in Africa.

Other regions have already derived huge economic benefits through the use of radiation-induced mutations.

In China, up to 2005, a total of 638 mutant varieties of 42 plant species have been released, covering 9 million ha of planting area. The economic benefit derived from increased cereal production alone is estimated to be about US$420 million a year.

In Pakistan, a mutant producing better quality and higher-yielding crops quadrupled cotton production within ten years of release (1983–1992) and now accounts for 70% of all cotton grown in the Punjab region, resulting in an economic benefit of US$20 million a year.

In Peru’s high Andes, stronger and healthier varieties of barley, grown at altitudes of up to 5 000 m, produce about 1 200 kg per hectare, that is, an increase of 50% in relation to previous varieties. This translates to an economic benefit of about US$9 million a year.

There is no doubt that the use of nuclear techniques to produce improved varieties of food crops in Africa could contribute significantly towards alleviating the food crisis and bring about considerable economic benefits.

The China point is particularly relevant for Con teams wishing to draw a contrast with GM crops. Compare China’s windfall from its radiated crops to the public’s rejection of GM crops and the subsequence billion-dollar write-offs for American farmers due to blocked GMO shipments to the Chinese market (see Economic and Diplomatic Harms section).



Mutant breeding has proven effective at achieving the objectives of genetic modification. DAT

Kaskey, Jack. “Mutant Crops Drive BASF Sales Where Monsanto Denied: Commodities.” Bloomberg. 13 November 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/mutant-crops-drive-basf-sales-where-monsanto-denied-commodities.html

Some of the program’s greatest successes have been in Asia. Lower labor costs there make it practical to sort through tens of thousands of plants to find a variety with the desired change. In Vietnam, mutant varieties of soy account for half of the crop and higher yields from mutant rice has made the country self-sufficient in that grain, Lagoda said. Vietnam is now using the technique to develop salt-tolerant rice, he said.

Mutant breeding was developed during World War II and promoted during the Cold War as a peaceful use of nuclear technology. It created thousands of new plant varieties by knocking out genes with X-rays and gamma rays as well as chemicals.

Atomic gardens, built around gamma-ray emitters, were popular among breeders in the 1960s and Japan still operates one. China began launching seeds into space in 1987 to take advantage of cosmic radiation and low gravity, developing more than 40 mutant crops with higher yields and better disease resistance, including varieties of rice, wheat and pepper.

Most of the world’s wheat, rice and barley are descendants of mutant varieties, according to Lagoda. Mutagenesis is used to give fruits and vegetables a new color and to make grains shorter and easier to harvest. In the U.S., mutagenesis was used to develop Star Ruby grapefruit and varieties of lettuce, beans, oats, rice and wheat.

“Lagoda” is Pierre Lagoda, program head of the UN’s Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture Program. The impact of this card is amplified when considering that GMOs have the greatest promise in developing countries; mutant breeding, where radiation is used to accelerate natural mutation in plants, increases the yields which are crucial to developing countries while, as shown, leaving jobs in agriculture labor untouched.



3D printable food can provide nutritional benefits without hidden chemicals or ingredients. ASF

Paulas, Rick. "3D Food Printers: The Good Side of Food Technology". KCET. April 15, 2014. http://www.kcet.org/living/food/food-rant/3d-food-printers-the-good-side-of-food-technology.html

Last week, the German company Biozoon announced they're near completion of a 3D food printer that may change the way a lot of us eat, and for the better. The technology takes various powder mixtures that are put into the machine and outputs them as actual, honest to goodness meals that look and taste like real food. But the printed food will differ from actual food in one very significant way: It will dissolve in your mouth.

And why is this a good thing?

They allow a new form of nutrition for people with chewing and swallowing difficulties who are unable to eat normal food. The person affected can be provided with a balanced diet adapted to his or her needs. The concept focuses on increasing quality of life.

That's right: Hospital food's about to get all sorts of futuristic!

This development is an important one in the realm of elderly care, seeing as over 60% of elderly patients have trouble chewing and swallowing their meals. The options for hospital patients are currently either normal food (most of which isn't all that joyous to eat) or viscous gruel (which is even worse). But with this new invention, there's finally going to be a third, better option. (This is also good news for someone like myself, who's needed the Heimlich Maneuver four times in his life.)

I know that this alternative and its implications talk about regards to the elderly, but if you think about it further, not only does this mean we don’t need to rely on actual harvests, but also means the food can be boosted with nutrients and vitamins and is easily edible by those who have poor dental and throat hygiene.



3D printable food greatly reduces our carbon footprint from food production. ASF Purvis, Andrew. "Will 3D printers make food sustainable?" The Guardian. May 18, 2012.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/18/3d-printers-food-sustainable

Before the end of the year, if Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University gets his way, the world's first test-tube burger will be flame-grilled by Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in Bray and served to a celebrity guest. Meals at this restaurant don't come cheap, but this one will be the climax of a €250,000 research project – and a milestone in Post's quest to find new ways of feeding the world, without destroying the planet.

His petri-dish patty will be made from a mixture of fat and cow muscle grown from stem cells in a culture of foetal calf serum (that's blood plasma without the clotting agents) – a technology trialled in February. It may sound less appetising than a Big Mac – but it could bring huge environmental benefits. Producing beef this way results in a 96% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to rearing animals, and uses 45% of the energy, 1% of the land and 4% of the water associated with conventional beef production.

Nanotechnology in food can greatly boost nutritional benefits. ASF

Purvis, Andrew. "Will 3D printers make food sustainable?" The Guardian. May 18, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/18/3d-printers-food-sustainable

In her view, the advance most relevant to sustainable development is nanotechnology – using tiny particles, less than a billionth of a metre across, to engineer everything from packaging and agrochemicals to health foods. In Germany, the R&D firm Aquanova has developed a nano-based carrier system, called NovaSOL, for introducing nutrients into foods and drinks in a way that makes them more absorbable. Chemical company BASF is doing the same with lycopene from tomatoes, known to combat cancer. In Australia, 'micro-encapsulation' – surrounding tiny particles or droplets with a coating – has been used to mask the taste and odour of tuna fish oil added to the 'UP' bread range sold by brand Tip Top, boosting omega-3 intake.

Nanotechnology has implications but mostly is integrated into 3D printing technology of food. The implications of nanotechnology can solve for major vitamin deficiencies and such.



Nanotechnology associated with 3D printing food reduces food waste. ASF Purvis, Andrew. "Will 3D printers make food sustainable?" The Guardian. May 18, 2012.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/18/3d-printers-food-sustainable

But where nanotechnology has the biggest potential, Groves reckons, isn't in nutritional benefits, but in 'smart' packaging that promises to cut food waste. The packaging changes colour when food deteriorates, taking the guesswork out of shelf life. Smarter still is a label with an invisible X printed in a nano-silver compound. "When food, especially meat, starts to deteriorate due to microbial activity, hydrogen sulphide is released", says Dr Qasim Chaudhry, Principal Research Scientist at the Food and Environment Research Agency. "This reacts with silver and the X becomes visible." The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimates that 800,000 tonnes of food, worth £2 billion, is thrown away in Britain each year in the mistaken belief that it has gone off. Smart labeling could prevent that.

GMO pesticide solvency can be replaced with 3D printed nanotechnology. ASF

Purvis, Andrew. "Will 3D printers make food sustainable?" The Guardian. May 18, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/18/3d-printers-food-sustainable

Equally promising are nano-formulated pesticides and fertilisers which could, paradoxically, reduce pollution. Nano-sized particles have a much larger surface area, per weight equivalent, than conventional materials, making then more reactive. "You need less, and a smaller amount [of agrochemical] can cover a much larger area", Chaudhry says. Similarly, nano-sized additives in animal feed could improve the absorption of mineral supplements such as copper and zinc, meaning less would be excreted to pollute land and water.

Nanotechnology made with the 3D printed food, or printed onto food, can provide the same benefits as GMO alterations, but without the negative social connotation or effects.



Proper horticultural methodology can increase crop yields without GMOs. ASF National Institute of Agricultural Botany. "Plant Science into Practice". NIAB. 2012.

http://www.niab.com/uploads/files/NIAB_Corporate_Guide_2012.pdf Trait characterisation and pre-breeding work at NIAB has successfully identified and characterised the photoperiod response (Ppd) genes which control the timing of flowering in wheat. The research, in collaboration with the John Innes Centre, has isolated a range of Ppd genes from diverse sources and transferred these genes into wheat varieties for use by commercial wheat breeders.

The benefit of selecting for early flowering at drier, warmer latitudes is significant, delivering potential yield increases of up to 33% in southern Europe by optimising the time available for grain fill earlier in the growing season when soil moisture is higher.

The use of such characteristics to develop more climate resilient varieties is likely to become increasingly relevant in the context of climate change.

We can use gene research to isolate genes and then interbreed special to promote genetic diversity amongst species. Here we see a company that has cross-bred different strains of wheat, and by changing the time period of planting produced crop yields 33% greater than average. This opens the door for further research in relation to resistance to climate change.

January 2014 Con: Invasiveness


Invasiveness of Transgenic Plants

On invasiveness of transgenic plants: evaluating screening models and their predictions. PSM

Caley, Peter. "On invasiveness of transgenic plants: evaluating screening models and their predictions." . Australian National University, n.d. Web. 3 Oct 2014. <http://www.gmo-safety.eu/pdf/biosafenet/Caley.pdf>.

Predicting which plants will become invasive when released into new environments based on their intrinsic traits remains problematical. This may arise from problems in the science underpinning these predictions often being based on a case-control experimental design which contains many potential pitfalls. I argue that screening models to predict which transgenic plants will be invasive based on their intrinsic traits are equally likely to perform poorly. The most inferentially sound approach, namely controlled experimental release, is unlikely to be justified on a widespread basis for transgenic crop plants with a long history of domestication. It may, however, be the only option when contemplating the release of transgenic pasture plants and woody perennials for which the risk of becoming invasive appears much higher. Recently developed transgenic plant varieties include more pasture and tree species, which appear much more likely to become invasive (Paynter, Csurhes et al. 2003). Transgenic pasture species are much likely to have a higher base probability of becoming invasive, pose a greater threat to the environment, be dispersed over very large areas and be more difficult to control (Godfree, Young et al. 2004). For many of these plants we will not have the luxury of prior knowledge of their invasiveness elsewhere (other than at a genera or family level), thus removing our most reliable predictor of invasiveness. If we continue to accept the null hypothesis that individual traits are unreliable predictors of invasiveness except in specific contexts, then it stands to reason that GM-induced individual traits will also not be reliable predictors of invasiveness. The Australian WRA system successfully screens pasture species by penalizing them heavily for being pasture species. This inferentially circular blanket-type screening clearly has little discriminatory ability. Hence designs that explicitly attempt to quantify the genotype × environment interaction appear essential, as the invasiveness of genotypes with and without transgenes cannot easily be generalized outside of the specific population they are drawn from (Hails and Morley 2005). For transgenic crop species, given the expense of such trials and the higher likelihood that the next highly invasive weed will be non-transgenic, and likely purchased from the local garden shop, the justification for such trials seems low. In contrast, transgenic pasture species and woody perennials pose a much greater risk of becoming invasive, and present a significant challenge to predictive ecological risk assessment (Godfree, Young et al. 2004). Controlled experimentation prior to any release with subsequent careful follow-up monitoring would seem mandatory—at least until predictive models improve substantially.

January 2014 Con: Invasiveness


GM Crop on the Loose: Escaped Populations. PSM Biello, David. "Genetically Modified Crop on the Loose and Evolving in U.S. Midwest." .

Scientific American, 06 08 2010. Web. 3 Oct 2014. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetically-modified-crop/>.

That's not too surprising, given that North Dakota grows tens of thousands of hectares of conventional and genetically modified canola—a weedy plant, known scientifically as Brassica napus var oleifera, bred by Canadians to yield vegetable oil from its thousands of tiny seeds. What was more surprising was that nearly everywhere the two ecologists and their colleagues stopped during a trip across the state, they found GM canola growing in the wild. "We found transgenic plants growing in the middle of nowhere, far from fields," says ecologist Cindy Sagers of the University of Arkansas (U.A.) in Fayetteville, who presented the findings August 6 at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Pittsburgh. Most intriguingly, two of the 288 tested plants showed man-made genes for resistance to multiple pesticides—so-called "stacked traits," and a type of seed that biotechnology companies like Monsanto have long sought to develop and market. As it seems, Mother Nature beat biotech to it. "One of the ones with multiple traits was [in the middle of] nowhere, and believe me, there's a lot of nowhere in North Dakota—nowhere near a canola field," she adds.

That likely means that transgenic canola plants are cross-pollinating in the wild—andswapping introduced genes. Although GM canola in the wild has been identified everywhere from Canada to Japan in previous research, this marks the first time such plants have been shown to be evolving in this way. "They had novel combinations of transgenic traits," Sagers says. "The most parsimonious explanation is these traits are stable outside of cultivation and they are evolving."

Escaped populations of such transgenic plants have generally died out quickly without continual replenishment from stray farm seeds in places such as Canada, but canola is capable of hybridizing with at least two—and possibly as many as eight—wild weed species in North America, including field mustard (Brassica rapa), which is a known agricultural pest. "Not only is it going to jump out of cultivation; there are sexually compatible weeds all over North America," Sagers says. Adds ecologist-in-training Meredith Schafer of U.A., who led the research, "It becomes a weed [farmers] can't control."

There has been no evidence to show that the herbicide resistance genes will either increase or decrease fitness to date. The finding provides, however, a warning for future genetic modifications that might increase fitness in all kinds of plants; it will be difficult to keep those traits on the farm and out of the wild. "The big concern is traits that would increase invasiveness or weediness, traits such as drought tolerance, salt tolerance, heat or cold tolerance" says weed scientist Carol Mallory-Smith of Oregon State University—all the traits that Monsanto and others are currently developing to help crops adapt to climate change. "These traits would have the possibility of expanding a species' range." In the case of canola, consider it done—at least in North Dakota.

January 2014 Con: Politics


Politics of GMO GMO Safety Voted in Oregon. PSM

Harkinson, Josh. "Is 2014 the "Tipping Point" for the GMO Labeling Movement?." . Mother Jones, 29 09 2014. Web. 6 Oct 2014. <http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/gmo-food-ingredients-labeling-oregon-initiative-92-colorado-bronner>.

In 2002, Oregon became first state to try and pass a GMO labeling initiative—Measure 27 lost by a margin of more than 2 to 1. But the more recent initiatives in California and Washington suffered far narrower defeats, despite a barrage of attack ads bankrolled by biotech, grocery, and ag conglomerates. Washington's I-522, the most expensive ballot measure in state history, lost by barely 1 percent—a mere 19,000 votes.

A poll released in July by Oregon Public Broadcasting put support for GMO labeling at a whopping 77 percent. Even if it wins, Oregon probably won't be the first state to require disclosure. A labeling bill approved in April by the Vermont Legislature takes effect in 2016, assuming it doesn't get overturned by a lawsuit. Maine and Connecticut have also passed GMO labeling laws, though they're contingent upon further regional support. Such laws are common outside the United States, and this year alone, according to Slate, 25 states have proposed 67 pieces of legislation related to GMO labeling. But the Oregon prop (and possibly a similar one in Colorado) would be the first directly enacted by voters—a major PR victory for the movement against GMO foods.

Despite the unpopularity of GMOs with consumers, the debate over their health and environmental impacts is far from settled. While the commercialization of GMOs has triggered few health complaints, long-term studies on the chronic health effects of GMOs have been sparse. The makers of pest- and herbicide-resistant GMO crops claim that they've boosted yields* around the world, benefiting farmers and the poor, but GMOs have also spawned chemical resistant "superbugs" and "superweeds."



Political Movement Against GMO Food Contamination. PSM Margulis, Charles. "Take Action Against GMO Food Contamination." . Center for

Environmental Health, 17 05 2010. Web. 6 Oct 2014. <http://www.ceh.org/news-events/blog/take-action-against-gmo-food-contamination/>.

It’s been a rough few weeks for those concerned about threats from genetically manipulated (GMO) foods. First, in a recess appointment, President Obama gave the role of chief agricultural trade negotiator to a long-time lobbyist for the GMO crop industry. Next, news reports showed that farmers are facing increasing threats from GMO contamination of their natural and organic crops. And now, the Senate is expected to soon vote on a bill that requires agricultural research focusing on GMOs to be included in U.S. foreign aid projects. …but Senators Lugar and Casey, in their Global Food Security Act (S. 384), have included a clause requiring that research and development of GMOs be included in foreign aid research programs. This opens the door for a nearly $8 billion give-away to Monsanto and other biotech companies, so they can produce patented, expensive GMO seeds that ultimately increase the dependency of already struggling small farmers. Meanwhile, support for organic farm technologies that can offer truly sustainable solutions to small farmers around the world languish for lack of even basic research dollars.

Clearly we can’t count on President Obama to veto this nonsense. CEH and over 100 small farmer, health, environmental and consumer groups opposed Islam Siddiqui, Obama’s nominee to be the chief agricultural trade official, based on Siddiqui’s long record as a lobbyist for the pesticide and GMO crop industry. So Obama waited to appoint Siddiqui until Congress went on holiday. Then, when no Congressional opposition was possible, Obama placed Siddiqui in the post. In other words, Obama didn’t use his recess appointment powers just to avoid criticism from his Republican enemies. He also used it to avoid opposition from the progressives he calls his friends. Ultimately, Congress and the Administration’s support of the biotech industry will mean a continuing erosion of the integrity of natural food for consumers, as GMOs will continue to contaminate natural crops unpredictably and uncontrollably. It is sad but unsurprising that a group of organic corn farmers say they can no longer avoid contamination by nearby GMO crops. Corn pollinates promiscuously, often over vast distances. What has surprised many is how widely GMO contamination has affected other crops. Even rice, which biotech proponents note is self-pollinating and thus safe for growing untested GMO drugs, was widely contaminated by an unapproved GMO variety, causing massive disruption of the international rice market. To date, most GMO contamination incidents have involved crops grown in the US (although primarily due to stronger regulations, more incidents have been discovered in the EU). But with the Administration and Congress promoting development of GMOs around the world, it becomes increasingly likely that we will soon see contamination of US food imports by experimental GMOs grown in other countries.



The EU political agenda towards GMOs hurts Africa. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Europeans have also exported their anti-GM views and regulations to Africa, where half of all foreign aid comes from the EU or EU member states.153 European donor agencies have supported anti- GM campaigns and strict GMO regulations in Africa, while offering little for improvement of agricultural productivity.154

Africa also remains heavily dependent on agricultural exports to Europe, which might be threatened by any hint of “contamination” with GM genes.155 Zambia’s rejection of GM food aid in 2002, for example, was urged by exporters like Agriflora Ltd., an international company growing organic vegetables in Zambia for export, whose “main selling point is that Zambia is GM free.”156 European NGOs like Green- peace International and Friends of the Earth, after successfully cam- paigning against GM crops at home, have expanded their anti-GM operations to the developing world, demonizing GM crops and technology as a sinister American scheme to poison or enslave the poor.1

The uniqueness of arguments such as this is that the majority of an affirmative case can be conceded as true, and GMO crops may independently (in a vacuum) be harmless and beneficial, however in practice GMOs come with political backlash that causes a huge separation from developing nations. This means that even if the product is good, it hurts developing nations because they buy into the anti-GMO campaigns and reject them as a viable product. It functions as a turn to the affirmative case because it increases the technological and agricultural gap between the developing and the developed world.



High regulations hurt GMO development and availability in developing nations. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Another important lesson from the Indian study is that a high regulatory burden188 placed on GM crops results in a significant lag time between the development of productive new hybrids and their availability in GM form. This was the case in India for the hybrid cotton seed known as “Bunny,” which was used by some of the conventional growers in the above survey, but did not become available in Bt form in India until 2005.189 The increased productivity of this hybrid and its unavailability to Bt cotton growers significantly lowered the productivity differential between Bt and conventional cotton in the survey. When the economists controlled for this “Bun- ny effect” in the data, they found that the three-state (excluding Andhra Pradesh) average yield gains from Bt cotton increased from 42% to 59%.190

The economists concluded from their survey that Indian farmers would benefit from a relaxed regulatory approval procedure for GM crops, instead of the current system in which each new variety of Bt cotton requires separate testing and approval.191 This would cut the lag time between new hybrid development and GM versions, allowing for more locally adapted GM varieties.192 Addi- tionally, relaxed regulation is likely to lower the price of GM seed by increasing market competition.193

Reducing the political opposition to GMOs would reduce GMO price and create more adaptable crops with higher availability. In the study referenced, Indian GMO farmers did not have access to a strain of cotton that was a “high-yield” breed that conventional farmers did strictly due to political regulation. If they did, the crop yield difference between groups would have been even greater, from 42% differential, to 59%.

January 2014 Con: Biofuel limits food


GMOs Used In Biofuel Harms Global Food Availability GMOs used in biofuel are not grown for consumption. ASF

Goldenberg, Suzanne. "GM corn being developed for fuel instead of food". The Guardian. August 15, 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/15/gm-corn-development-food-fuel

US farmers are growing the first corn plants genetically modified for the specific purpose of putting more ethanol in gas tanks rather than producing more food.

Aid organisations warn the new GM corn could worsen a global food crisis exposed by the famine in Somalia by diverting more corn into energy production.

The food industry also opposes the new GM product because, although not inedible, it is unsuitable for use in the manufacture of food products that commonly use corn. Farmers growing corn for human consumption are also concerned about cross- contamination. The corn, developed by a branch of the Swiss pesticide firm Syngenta, contains an added gene for an enzyme (amylase) that speeds the breakdown of starches into ethanol. Ethanol plants normally have to add the enzyme to corn when making ethanol.

The development of GM crops for fuel decreases the focus on a much more predominant issue of a global food crises, and moreover, are unsuitable for the market level of consumption.

GMOs for biofuel hurt food availability. ASF

Goldenberg, Suzanne. "GM corn being developed for fuel instead of food". The Guardian. August 15, 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/15/gm-corn-development-food-fuel

Meanwhile, campaigners say the corn will heap pressure on global food supplies and contribute to environmental degradation. They argue Enogen will lead to an increase in the amount of food crops going to fuel, leaving less for human consumption and leading to food price rises. That will lead to food price rises on the global market. "The temptation to look at food as another form of fuel to use for the energy crisis will exacerbate the food crisis," said Todd Post of Bread for the World, a Christian anti- hunger organisation.

Although individual events such as the Somalia famine are caused by a complex combination of factors, several studies have established that the expansion of biofuels has pushed up food prices worldwide, making it harder to afford for the poorest. A World Bank report released on Tueday says food prices that are now close to their 2008 peak have contributed to the famine in Somalia. Marie Brill, a senior policy analyst at ActionAid warned: "It's going to put even more pressure on a really tight market. It will be really tempting to farmers to take on this new more efficient ethanol form of corn."

January 2014 Con: Biofuel limits food


Minimal amounts of GMO crops for biofuel can damage the food market. ASF Goldenberg, Suzanne. "GM corn being developed for fuel instead of food". The Guardian.

August 15, 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/15/gm-corn-development-food-fuel

The food industry is warning of the dangers of contaminating existing corn crops with the new GM corn. The same traits that make the modified corn so attractive to the ethanol industry – the swift breakdown of starches – would be a disaster for the food industry, turning corn chips into shapeless lumps, and stripping the thickening properties from corn starch.

Even a small amount of the amylase corn – one kernel out of 10,000 – could damage food products, according to data supplied to the North American Millers' Association by Syngenta. The organisation, like most food industry groups, has opposed the corn, noting failures to prevent cross-contamination from earlier GM breeds.

This evidence goes really well with the infeasibility of containing and preventing cross contamination of GMOs. If products such as these were to cross-contaminate with products intended for food, entire yields would go to waste.

January 2014 Con: Environmental encroachment


GMOs and Environmental Encroachment The introduction of GMOs has re-accelerated deforestation in Latin America. DAT

“Current Knowledge of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Organisms on Biodiversity and Human Health.” iucn.org. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Web. August 2007. Accessed 10/8/2014. Web. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/ip_gmo_09_2007_1_.pdf

Over the past 50 years, the most important direct driver of change in terrestrial ecosystems has been land cover change, and in particular conversion to cropland, and the application of new technologies to agriculture, which together have significantly increased supplies of food, timber and fibre at the expense of other ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) found that within terrestrial ecosystems, more than half of the original area of many types of grasslands and forests has been converted into farmland. However, the rate of transformation of ecosystems into farmland has begun to slow down globally as opportunities for further expansion of farmland decline. In many regions of the world, most of the suitable land has already been converted, so land brought into cultivation for increased agricultural production will be more fragile and more easily damaged. Much of it will be obtained by clearing forests, grazing lands and wetlands, thereby increasing environmental damage.

GM proponents claim that GM crops will indirectly contribute to forest conservation by allowing marginal land to be cultivated, preventing further deforestation for conversion to cropland. However, actual experiences indicate that GM crop cultivation can accelerate land use change. In a study of deforestation in seasonally dry forests of north-west Argentina, Grau et al. (2005) conclude that the initial deforestation was associated with black bean cultivation during the 1970s and high soybean prices in the 1980s. The introduction of GM soybean in 1997 stimulated a further increase in deforestation, which has been mirrored in other Latin American countries. It appears, therefore, that in at least some cases, the spread of GMOs can lead to agricultural expansion, sometimes accompanied by intensification.

The logical endgame for high-yield crops is using the same land to generate more wealth. The actual outcome, however, has been the expansion of farmland to maximize the net gains of planting GMOs.

January 2014 Con: Environmental encroachment


GM fish are high-risk and difficult to manage. DAT “Current Knowledge of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Organisms on Biodiversity

and Human Health.” iucn.org. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Web. August 2007. Accessed 10/8/2014. Web. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/ip_gmo_09_2007_1_.pdf

The main threats of GMOs to aquatic ecosystems concern over fishing, introduction of non-native species and pollution. As a substitute for fishing from natural stocks, aquaculture has improved protein levels in developing countries and reduced pressure on native species, particularly salmon. However, coastal aquaculture is already causing ecological damage by spreading fish diseases, modifying habitats, causing nutrient pollution, and changing ecosystems through the escape of exotic farmed fish (Reichardt, 2000). Fast-growing GM salmon present higher food-conversion efficiency and reduced effluent, but the indirect impacts need to be taken into account and minimised further.

Moreover, as fish are highly mobile and difficult to contain, GM fish could pose a threat to natural populations of related fish upon escape or accidental release (Van Eenennaam and Olin, 2006; McNeely, 2005). Careful risk assessment is required to determine the ecological risks of each transgene, species and receiving ecosystem combination in addition to sufficient security measures like multiple containment to prevent any escape of a GM fish (Van Eenennaam and Olin, 2006).

While there are genuine risks to any GM crop, especially with cross-contamination (which has both environmental and trade implications), animal species occupy a risk tier that’s higher and needs to be separately addressed by Pro teams.


Pro Counters

November 2014 Pro Counters: Not radical


GMOs are not radical

GMOs are comparable to selective breeding, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. The human race has been selectively breeding crops, thus altering plants' genomes, for millennia. Ordinary wheat has long been strictly a human-engineered plant; it could not exist outside of farms, because its seeds do not scatter. For some 60 years scientists have been using “mutagenic” techniques to scramble the DNA of plants with radiation and chemicals, creating strains of wheat, rice, peanuts and pears that have become agricultural mainstays. The practice has inspired little objection from scientists or the public and has caused no known health problems.

The process of genetic modification happens naturally, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. And although it might seem creepy to add virus DNA to a plant, doing so is, in fact, no big deal, proponents say. Viruses have been inserting their DNA into the genomes of crops, as well as humans and all other organisms, for millions of years. They often deliver the genes of other species while they are at it, which is why our own genome is loaded with genetic sequences that originated in viruses and nonhuman species. “When GM critics say that genes don't cross the species barrier in nature, that's just simple ignorance,” says Alan McHughen, a plant molecular geneticist at U.C. Riverside. Pea aphids contain fungi genes. Triticale is a century-plus-old hybrid of wheat and rye found in some flours and breakfast cereals. Wheat itself, for that matter, is a cross-species hybrid. “Mother Nature does it all the time, and so do conventional plant breeders,” McHughen says.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Not radical


GMO products are substantially safer than legal alternatives. DAT Kaskey, Jack. “Mutant Crops Drive BASF Sales Where Monsanto Denied: Commodities.”

Bloomberg. 13 November 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/mutant-crops-drive-basf-sales-where-monsanto-denied-commodities.html

The United Nations’ Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture program has received 39 requests this year for radiation services from plant breeders in dozens of countries, the most since records began in 1977, according to program head Pierre Lagoda. The group in Vienna promotes developing more “sustainable” crops by irradiating them to resist threats like drought, insects, disease and salinity.

Mutation breeding, after booming in the 1950s with the dawn of the Nuclear Age, is still used by seed developers from BASF SE to Dupont Co. to create crops for markets that reject genetic engineering. Regulators don’t demand proof that new varieties are harmless. The U.S. National Academies of Science warned in 1989 and again in 2004 that regulating genetically modified crops while giving a pass to products of mutation breeding isn’t scientifically justified.

“The NAS hits the nail on the head and I don’t think that any plant- or crop-scientist will disagree,” said Kevin M. Folta, a molecular geneticist and interim chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida. “Mutation breeding is absolutely the least predictable.”

Mutation breeding uses man-made radiation to mimic the radiation from sunlight. This increases the rate and frequency of plant mutations, allowing scientists to generate crops with desirable properties faster than the selective breeding used in conventional farming. It is a widespread, completely legal practice in agriculture. GMOs seem like a wild work of science fiction, but they are benign, highly regulated, and tightly-controlled compared to crops generated through mutation breeding.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Flawed studies


Faulty Scientific Studies Pusztai/Rowett Institute of Scotland study is extremely flawed, Fj


Opponents of genetically modified foods point to a handful of studies indicating possible safety problems. But reviewers have dismantled almost all of those reports. For example, a 1998 study by plant biochemist Árpád Pusztai, then at the Rowett Institute in Scotland, found that rats fed a GM potato suffered from stunted growth and immune system–related changes. But the potato was not intended for human consumption—it was, in fact, designed to be toxic for research purposes. The Rowett Institute later deemed the experiment so sloppy that it refuted the findings and charged Pusztai with misconduct.

Séralini/ University of Caen Lower Normandy study improperly designed, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. Most recently, a team led by Gilles-Éric Séralini, a researcher at the University of Caen Lower Normandy in France, found that rats eating a common type of GM corn contracted cancer at an alarmingly high rate. But Séralini has long been an anti-GM campaigner, and critics charged that in his study, he relied on a strain of rat that too easily develops tumors, did not use enough rats, did not include proper control groups and failed to report many details of the experiment, including how the analysis was performed. After a review, the European Food Safety Authority dismissed the study's findings. Several other European agencies came to the same conclusion. “If GM corn were that toxic, someone would have noticed by now,” McHughen says. “Séralini has been refuted by everyone who has cared to comment.



Hogan study results could not be replicated, Fj Entine, John. “No, You Shouldn’t Fear GMO Corn” Slate. August 7, 2013. Shetterly also talked with another CCHMC scientist, Simon Hogan, the lead researcher (with Rothenberg listed as co-author) of a 2005 study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, that appears to back up, at least in part, some of Mansmann’s theory. Hogan claimed that GMO peas then in development might cause inflammatory reactions in mice. There was no mention of any link to humans.

As Shetterly notes, the study was trashed by almost every major research organization in the world. In a slashing critique, Nature Biotechnology, the bible of academic and independent biotech researchers, called it “mush,” pointing out its extensive methodical problems and faulty conclusion. But the damage to the innovative research on this new variety of peas was done. Hogan’s paper created such an international stir that the research project was scrapped and the pea never came to market.

The questionable Hogan study was actually repeated by independent researchers and published in PLOS ONE in 2012. The researchers confirmed previous skepticism that the modified peas presented unusual allergenic threats. “Our data demonstrate that αAI transgenic peas are not more allergenic than beans or non-transgenic peas in mice,” the scientists wrote. “This study illustrates the importance of repeat experiments in independent laboratories and the potential for unexpected cross-reactive allergic responses upon consumption of plant products in mice.”

Aris and Leblanc study on birth defects used inappropriate methods, Fj “FSANZ response to study linking Cry1Ab protein in blood to GM foods” Food

Standards Australia New Zealand. 2012. The assay method (ELISA) used for Cry1Ab protein was not tested (validated) for its suitability to measure Cry1Ab in human blood. Other reports in the scientific literature have shown that the ELISA assay is not suitable for this purpose.

In mammals, the Cry1Ab protein is degraded in the stomach. If any fragments of the Cry1Ab protein were to pass through into the blood stream, they would be present at levels much lower than could be quantified by the assay method used in the study.



Aris and Leblanc study on birth defects assumed causation, Fj “FSANZ response to study linking Cry1Ab protein in blood to GM foods” Food

Standards Australia New Zealand. 2012. The authors do not provide any evidence that GM foods are the source of the protein. No information was gathered on the diet of any individual in the study so the assertion that the detection of Cry1Ab is linked to ingested GM food is, at best, speculative.

Several insecticidal formulations (e.g. Delfin, Dipel) contain a blend of crystallised proteins, (including Cry1Ab) and living Btk spores that germinate into the bacterium that then produces the proteins. These formulations have been applied worldwide, including in Australia, for decades. They are applied to crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, celery, melons, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, turnip, grapes, kiwi-fruit, citrus, avocados. They are used both commercially and by home gardeners and are permitted for use on organically-certified crops.

In comparison, the consumption of food derived from GM corn containing the Cry1Ab protein (no other currently commercialised GM crop species contain this gene) is recent and relatively minor. The corn lines containing the Cry1Ab protein are mostly used for animal feed and for processing into refined products such as corn syrup and corn starch which, because of processing, contain negligible levels of any protein. None of the GM corns produced so far are popcorn or sweetcorn lines and are therefore not consumed directly. Therefore, ingestion of Cry1Ab by humans via GM corn is not likely to be significant compared to conventional and organic produce sources..

Aris and Leblanc study on birth defects was misinterpreted, Fj

“FSANZ response to study linking Cry1Ab protein in blood to GM foods” Food Standards Australia New Zealand. 2012.

There have been claims in the media that the paper is proof GM foods are not safe for human consumption.

However, the paper does not discuss the safety implications of finding Cry1Ab in the human body and the authors make no mention of any abnormalities in either the subjects or, in the case of those who were pregnant at the time of the study, the subsequent process of birth or the health of the mothers and babies postpartum.

The Cry1Ab protein, whether ingested via Btk-sprayed conventional or organic crops or GM corn products containing the protein, is safe for human consumption at the levels likely to be found in these sources.



Studies’ safety concerns aren’t legally or scientifically valid barriers to GMOs. DAT “GMOs for African Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.” Academy of Science of


It has been argued that GM crops should not be used, even when there may be a very low probability of the occurrence of an unpredictable adverse effect on the environment or on human health (Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2003). This case is frequently cited in terms of the precautionary approach in the Protocol which emanated from Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration which states: “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” Some people have contended that irrespective of possible benefits, the precautionary approach argues for a delay in the use of the technology until a complete assurance of absence of risk is available (Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2003). Interestingly, however, the text of the Protocol can also be interpreted as permitting the introduction of GM crops with their associated risks if they are likely to be less than the risks inherent in current practices, even if the full extent of the reduction is not known. The former argument could lead to an inappropriate embargo on the introduction of all new technology. Since an absolute absence of risk arising from the use of any new technology can never be guaranteed, the only sensible interpretation of the precautionary principle should be comparative, i.e. to select the course of action (or inaction) with the least overall risk (Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2003).

This card nicely establishes the opportunity cost framework for this debate on the Pro side. Studies (and non-scientific cases) against GMO implementation at least implicitly reference the Rio Declaration: the logic is that because the risks are either unknown or demonstrable in a lab setting, a GMO is not safe. The question, however, is not of absolute safety; it is of relative safety. If a GMO is safer than an approved conventional crop, it passes muster with international safety principles and would thus be preferable to implement, compared to a conventional crop.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Enough studies


Enough Studies Can Validate GM Foods

Huge Bodies of International Research Support Safety of GM Foods AMS Entine, Jon. “2000+ Reasons Why GMOs are Safe to Eat and Environmentally

Sustainable.” October 14, 2013. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/10/14/2000-reasons-why-gmos-are-safe-to-eat-and-environmentally-sustainable/

The claim that genetically engineered crops are ‘understudied’—the meme represented in the quotes highlighted above—has become a staple of opponents of crop biotechnology, especially activist journalists. Anti-GMO campaigners, including many organic supporters, assert time and again that genetically modified crops have not been safety tested or that the research done to date on the health or environmental impact of GMOs has “all” been done by the companies that produce the seeds. Therefore, they claim, consumers are taking a ‘leap of faith’ in concluding that they face no harm from consuming foods made with genetically modified ingredients.

That is false.

Every major international science body in the world has reviewed multiple independent studies—in some cases numbering in the hundreds—in coming to the consensus conclusion that GMO crops are as safe or safer than conventional or organic foods. But until now, the magnitude of the research on crop biotechnology has never been cataloged. In response to what they believed was an information gap, a team of Italian scientists summarized 1783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods—a staggering number.

This study, or rather, database of studies, is a game change in this debate. Pro teams should use these studies to hammer home the validity of their claims. It only takes one study to sway the opinion of a judge. Pro teams must use sound reasoning and a preponderance of evidence to beat back these claims.



International Research Body: No Harms from GM Foods AMS Entine, Jon. “2000+ Reasons Why GMOs are Safe to Eat and Environmentally


In response to what they believed was an information gap, a team of Italian scientists summarized 1783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods—a staggering number.

The researchers couldn’t find a single credible example demonstrating that GM foods pose any harm to humans or animals. “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops,” the scientists concluded.

The research review, published in Critical Reviews in Biotechnology in September, spanned only the last decade—from 2002 to 2012—which represents only about a third of the lifetime of GM technology. “Our goal was to create a single document where interested people of all levels of expertise can get an overview on what has been done by scientists regarding GE crop safety,” lead researcher Alessandro Nicolia, applied biologist at the University of Perugia, told Real Clear Science. “We tried to give a balanced view informing about what has been debated, the conclusions reached so far, and emerging issues.”



Validated Research Body Dispels Allergens/Toxins Argument GMOS Do Not Introduce Unique Allergens AMS

Entine, Jon. “2000+ Reasons Why GMOs are Safe to Eat and Environmentally Sustainable.” October 14, 2013. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/10/14/2000-reasons-why-gmos-are-safe-to-eat-and-environmentally-sustainable/

In the food and feeding category, the team found no evidence that approved GMOs introduce any unique allergens or toxins into the food supply. All GM crops are tested against a database of all known allergens before commercialization and any crop found containing new allergens is not approved or marketed.

The researchers also address the safety of transcribed RNA from transgenic DNA. Are scientists fiddling with the ‘natural order’ of life? In fact, humans consume between 0.1 and 1 gram of DNA per day, from both GM and non-GM ingredients. This DNA is generally degraded by food processing, and any surviving DNA is then subsequently degraded in the digestive system. No evidence was found that DNA absorbed through the GI tract could be integrated into human cells—a popular anti-GMO criticism.

These 1783 studies are expected to be merged into the public database known as GENERA (Genetic Engineering Risk Atlas) being built by Biofortified, an independent non-profit website. Officially launched in 2012, GENERA includes peer-reviewed journal articles from different aspects of GM research, including basic genetics, feeding studies, environmental impact and nutritional impact. GENERA has more than 650 studies listed so far, many of which also show up in the new database. When merged, there should be well over 2000 GMO related studies, a sizable percentage—as many as 1000—that have been independently executed by independent scientists.



No Substantial Economic Impact from GM Foods Huge Body of GMO Food Research Demonstrates No Real Negative Environmental Impact

AMS Entine, Jon. “2000+ Reasons Why GMOs are Safe to Eat and Environmentally


In response to what they believed was an information gap, a team of Italian scientists summarized 1783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods—a staggering number.

The “general literature” category of studies largely reveals the differences between the US, EU and other countries when it comes to regulating GM crops. Due to lack of uniform regulatory practices and the rise of non-scientific rhetoric, Nicolia and his colleagues report, concern about GMOs has been greatly exaggerated.

Environmental impact studies are predominant in the body of GM research, making up 68% of the 1,783 studies. These studies investigated environmental impact on the crop-level, farm-level and landscape-level. Nicolia and his team found “little to no evidence” that GM crops have a negative environmental impact on their surroundings.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Farmers not impoverished


Farmers are not impoverished due to GMOs

Non-unique: Farmers in developing nations become poor through agriculture reform. ASF Sarracino, Francesco. “Explaining Famines: A Critical Review Of Main Approaches And

Further Causal Factors” Natural Resources, Agricultural Development and Food Security, International Research Network. 2010. http://economia.unipv.it/naf/Working_paper/WorkingPaper/Sarracino.pdf

Nonetheless, the natural shock happened in an already fragile context characterized by high incidence of poverty and of HIV/AIDS, high inflation and a devaluating currency, a falling GNP and a growing foreign debt. In order to fight these structural problems, since 1992 Zambia was obliged to enact agricultural reforms as part of wider structural adjustment programme pushed through by the IMF and World Bank in the face of mounting debts and fiscal crises (Lawson, 2002). In particular, the government of Zambia was obliged to abolish the state marketing board, to remove maize and fertilizer subsidies, to reform the agricultural credit market and to end price- control policies.

Such reforms were intended to improve marketing conditions in Zambia and to favor its growth, but in practice they failed to achieve their goals. In fact, rapid agricultural liberalization failed to integrate poor farmers into the market: incomes became much more volatile; credit was no more widely available; seeds and fertilizers costs were too high, production costs raised and most people could not afford them. Finally, investments in agriculture reduced and so did food crops even independently from the natural shock (Lawson, 2002). (45-46)

What we see is that when developing nations enact, or are forced to enact, agricultural reforms, and ultimately most of the impoverished farmers that are claimed to be negatively impacted by GMOs are still negatively impacted by the government’s alternative solution.



GMO’s have not caused damage in practice

GMO’s are standard for consumption in the US. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Today, GM ingredients can be found in approximately 70% of processed foods sold in the United States.69

Remarkably, even with this high level of consumption, there have been no cases of demonstrated harm to humans from eating GM foods.70

As many scientists have pointed out, the risks inherent to GM technology are not fundamentally different from the risks inherent to modern crop breeding generally.71 This is no longer a controversial assertion, having been endorsed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences,72 the National Research Council,73 the American Medical Association,74 and the Royal Society (Britain’s Academy of Sciences).75 In 2004, the National Academies76 were asked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency to compare the health risks of GM foods with those of conventionally developed foods.77 They concluded that “the most genetically disruptive” method of crop development was not gene splicing, but mutagenesis (mutation breeding, discussed in Section IIA above).78

(Page 10-11)

GMO consumption is a norm in the United States that has not caused our general population to keel over and die. Hooray! More importantly though, the harms that the negative case cites tend to be harms that are commonly found in normal crop breeding.



GMOs fight fungal toxins better than non-GMOs. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Some GM traits may even make crops safer to eat by protecting plants against disease and pests. Bt corn, for example, is less susceptible to borer pests than conventional corn, leading to less ear damage and lower levels of fungal toxins.82 In Europe, Bt corn was found to have mycotoxin levels below the WHO’s acceptable limit, in contrast with non-Bt corn, which had levels over six times higher—well over the limit.83 This difference is likely to be even greater in tropical and subtropical climates, which are more conducive to the Fusarium fungus.84

Natural crops lacked protection from fungal toxins and pests leading to less sanitary conventionally grown food, and safer GMO produce by a multitude of 6. In a comparative world we see less overall health risks in GMOs. This is important in developing nations because they have minimal access to healthcare.



GMOs’ negative genetic effects occur on a million-year timeline. DAT Keese, Paul. “Risks from GMOs due to Horizontal Gene Transfer.”

journals.cambridge.org. Cambridge University Press. 2008. Accessed 10/6/2014. Web. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FEBS%2FEBS7_03%2FS1635792208000146a.pdf&code=118bfa8de4dd4e5881bc6fe8a66d382c

HGT is defined as the transfer of genetic material from one organism to another, independent of reproduction. HGT results in unidirectional gene flow, usually of one to several genes, from a donor organism to the genome of a recipient organism. The recipient organism may be closely related to the donor organism or may be an unrelated species. Sequencing of large numbers of eukaryotic, prokaryotic and viral genomes has shown that HGT is a significant component in the evolution of virtually every organism. Nevertheless, most gene transfers between multicellular eukaryotes and other organisms are detected over time scales of millions of years. This is despite the abundant availability of genetic material in living organisms, and externally, such as in soil, water, feces or even processed foods (Brinkmann and Tebbe, 2007; Douville et al., 2007; Kharazmi et al., 2003; Nielsen et al., 2007). Only a few types of HGT occur sufficiently often to be observed. These frequent HGT events typically involve MGEs such as plasmids and viruses. From the current scientific evidence, HGT from GM plants to other organisms presents negligible risks to human health and safety or the environment due to the rarity of such events relative to those HGT events that occur in nature and the limited chance of providing a selective advantage to the recipient organism.

HGT (horizontal gene transfer) events “occur[ring] in nature” include those between conventionally-grown produce and the human genome, something which hasn’t been an issue. The genetic difference between conventional and GM crops, and the subsequence impact on humans, should be a non-issue as well by this standard.



GM Foods Do Not Cause Gastronomical Problems AMS Organic Systems. “A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed a combined genetically

modified (GM) soy and GM maize diet.” 2013. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf

The aim of the present study was to perform a thorough, long-term toxicology study (for 22.7 weeks, being the normal lifespan of a commercial pig from weaning to slaughter) on pigs in a USA commercial piggery in order to compare the effects of eating either a mixed GM soy and GM corn diet, or an equivalent diet with non-GM ingredients. Pigs in the USA are usually fed a mixed corn and soy diet, containing a high proportion of GM varieties. Even though pigs are physiologically similar to humans, particularly for gastrointestinal observations, very few toxicology studies have been conducted on them for GM crops (Walsh et al., 2012a). In doing this study, we not only used animals that were physiologically similar to humans, but we also weighed and internally examined organs and took blood for biochemical analysis. We further used a large enough sample size (168 pigs, 84 per group) to be able to determine statistical significance for key toxicological outcomes. We also used GM crops that are planted in significant quantities in the USA (Ht soy, and Ht and Bt corn) and hence are commonly eaten by pigs and humans in the USA. We further fed these crops as a mixed diet. Mixed diets commonly occur for pigs and humans. This study therefore reflects the effects of eating GM crops in the ‘real world’. To our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind conducted.

(…)

There were no statistically significant differences in food intake, feed conversion ratios, number or nature of illnesses, number or nature of veterinary interventions, veterinary costs or mortality between the non-GM-fed and GM-fed groups of pigs. Mortalities were 13% and 14% for the non-GM-fed and GM-fed groups respectively, which are within expected rates for US commercial piggeries. All dead pigs were autopsied by blinded veterinarians and deaths were assessed as due to usual commercial piggery-related matters and not to their diets. There was also no difference in body weights between the two dietary groups, initially, during, or at the end of the experiment. Initial weights in kg were : non-GM-fed group: 6.71 + 1.05 (mean + standard deviation); GM-fed group: 6.87 + 0.97. Final weights were: non-GM-fed group: 100.42 + 22.84; GM-fed group: 101.75 + 21.92.

This study provides a counter to Con teams’ GM studies. If Con teams claim that GMs cause gastronomical problems, use this study as a counter. The independence of the research group that did the study will also fend off Con attacks on biased GM studies.



GM Maize is Harmless Javier A Magaña-Gómez and Ana M Calderón de la Barca. “Risk assessment of

genetically modified crops for nutrition and health.” 2009. International Life Sciences Institute. http://static.aboca.com/www.aboca.com/files/attach/news/risk_assessment_of_genetically_modified_crops_for_nutrition.pdf

In 2007, GM maize became the second most important biotech crop after GM soybeans, and the first one to have a wider variety of genetic modifications than GTS. The traits of GM maize have been evaluated for compositional and agronomic features. Additionally, in vivo studies have been conducted to test the health safety of different transgenic maize events. It has been concluded that some of the GM maize traits are substantially equivalent to their conventional counterparts.

(…)

Bt176 maize was analyzed similarly to the Roundup Ready™ soybean study to test the potential toxic effects on mouse testes as a sensitive form of biomonitoring. The authors concluding that ingestion of Bt176 maize in a nutritionally balanced diet by the mother during pregnancy and lactation and later by litters had no negative effect on fetal, postnatal, pubertal, or adult testicular development or body growth.

Use this study to demonstrate the safety of GM maize and back up attacks on biased studies used by Pro teams to attack GM Maize.



GMOs still require good agricultural practice to properly implement. DAT Burachik, Moises. “Experience from use of GMOs in Argentinian agriculture, economy


The benefits that GM crops have brought to the farmers are also reflected in the significant positive effects on the environment. Nonetheless, it must be said that glyphosate does not perform miracles and when misused, it may produce undesired effects on the environment by, for example, generating herbicide resistant weeds 10, 11 and 12, as will always occur with conventional crops. It should be understood that agricultural biotechnology does not escape the laws of biology and the rules of good agronomic practice.

GTS has brought many benefits to farmers and the environment. First, farmers could turn massively to no-till agriculture. This practice has spread rapidly in Latin America. Argentina is one of the leading countries in the use of no-till farming with 19 million ha cultivated under this system, almost 20% of the global area 13,14 and 15. Conservation tillage systems offer numerous benefits such as fuel savings, reduced soil erosion, wildlife conservation and reduced release of greenhouse gases. The adoption of GTS has changed the pattern of the use of herbicides. Second, even though the number of applications and the amounts per hectare of glyphosate have increased, this did not inevitably involve a negative environmental impact. Indeed, the intensification in the use of glyphosate has caused a reduction in the use of atrazine, a herbicide with high residual effects and environmentally harmful. By contrast, glyphosate has a low toxicity level, has no residual activity and is rapidly decomposed by soil microorganisms. According to the World Health Organization classification, glyphosate belongs to Class IV, the ‘less toxic’ group. A 2005 survey [16]showed that in Argentina glyphosate has completely replaced other herbicides belonging to the more toxic Classes II and III.

When combatting Con tradeoffs, it’s important to think of GMOs in terms of tradeoffs, not absolute benefits. A GMO like GTS (glyphosate-resistant soybeans) may not reduce pesticide use across the board, but it provides a net benefit by allowing the use of safer pesticides. GMOs don’t cause damage, relative to conventional crops which we think of as having a positive benefit-damage ratio.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Biodiversity


GMOs don’t harm biodiversity

There is no unique harm to biodiversity from GMOs. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


Agriculture also affects the biodiversity of wild species, primarily through destruction of natural habitats.105 The American state of Iowa, for example, has lost over 99% of its original natural habitat area, mostly through conversion to farmland.106 In South Dakota, the introduction of a new drought-tolerant soybean has precipitated the conversion of over a million acres of dry grassland habitat into soybean farms.107 Drought tolerance, however, “can just as easily come from conventional plant breeding” as from genetic engineering.108 On balance, GM crops are likely to have a net positive impact on wild biodiversity by easing the pressure to convert more land to farms (through higher-yielding varieties), reducing the use of broad- spectrum pesticides (through targeted pest-resistance), and reducing soil tillage (through engineered herbicide tolerance).109

This block is a great turn because it specifically acknowledges that even if there is spillover to some plants and wild species, on net we have a positive impact on biodiversity because we stop destroying additional natural habitats to find more arable land. GMOs are a much more versatile species of crop, meaning we need not be as careful as to where we plant them.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Biodiversity


Herbicides used for GMOs are less harmful to biodiversity. ASF Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops:


This last feature—herbicide tolerance—is the single most popular GM trait.110 Though plant breeders have developed herbicide-tolerant varieties through conventional breeding, Monsanto developed the first GM variety specifically for its own Roundup brand of herbicide, also known as glyphosate.111 The resulting “Roundup Ready” crops can be treated with glyphosate to control weeds, with no harm to the crop itself. Britain’s Royal Society has conducted extensive farm-scale research on GM herbicide-tolerant crops, and concluded that they can be either better or worse for on-farm biodiversity than conventional crops, depending on how they are grown.112 The researchers emphasized that the differences they found between the GM and conventional crops were not the direct result of GM technology, but rather of farmers’ different strategies for weed control.113 Where the GM crops, combined with their specific herbicide, proved more effective than conventional strategies, the fields had fewer weeds, and therefore lower populations of the insects and birds that use the weeds for food and refuge.114 The GM corn, however, supported more biodiversity than its conventional counterpart, which was treated with a more persistent, toxic herbicide than that applied to the GM crop.115 Frequent soil tillage (plow- ing), another conventional weed control strategy, can also harm biodiversity by disrupting or killing soil organisms and exacerbating soil erosion (leading to runoff pollution of freshwater sources).116

Conventional means of weed control result in many environmental harms ranging from destruction of soil biospheres to pollution and runoff from the toxins used on conventional crops. The herbicides used on conventional crops are more toxic than those used with GMOs. Because we directly alter the natural environment less with GMOs we have a net positive impact when doing a side-by-side comparison to conventional crops.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Pesticide use


GMOs don’t increase pesticide use

Benbrook study fails to account for increased yield, Fj Entine, Jon. “Scientists, Journalists Challenge Claim That GM Crops Harm The

Environment” Forbes. October 12, 2012. The blog Big Picture Agriculture broke down Benbrook’s numbers and found that pesticide use is actually falling on a yield per acre basis—in accord with what biotech proponents have claimed would happen—but warned that trouble may lie ahead.

Benbrook study contradicted by Brookes study, Fj

Entine, Jon. “Scientists, Journalists Challenge Claim That GM Crops Harm The Environment” Forbes. October 12, 2012.

Benbrook made subjective estimates of herbicide use because the data, provided by the US National Agricultural Statistics Service, doesn’t differentiate between GM and non-GM crops, said Graham Brookesof PG Economics, a consultancy firm in Dorchester, UK. Brookes crunched the almost identical data and published a peer reviewed report earlier this year that reached a far different conclusion: GM crops may actually have reduced worldwide pesticide use by 9.1 per cent.

The disparity can also be explained by the unique toxic profile of glyphosate. While traditional herbicides don’t work on all weeds, resulting in farmers spraying their fields multiple times, the far more effective glyphosate, which attacks most weeds, can be sprayed fewer times for the same effect.

Every technology comes with trade offs. Farmers have seen an emergence of weed varieties—22 at current count—with some resistance to glyphosate. That’s a problem in conventional agriculture as well of course. So-called superweeds may signal danger ahead—or as New Scientist suggests, perhaps it’s only a temporary reflection of the current market reality that farmers have a limited menu of GM crops to choose from. With more variety of crops using different pesticides, resistant-specific weeds would be less likely to emerge. The issue then morphs into a debate over patent protections and not the science behind GM technology.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Golden rice


Answers Defending Golden Rice Pollan’s numbers are misrepresented. ASF

Glass-O'Shea, Brooke. "The History and Future of Genetically Modified Crops: Frankenfoods, Superweeds, and the Developing World". Journal of Food Law and Policy, Vol. 7, 2011. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2019491

In 2001, food writer Michael Pollan claimed in The New York Times Magazine that “an 11-year-old would have to eat 15 pounds of cooked golden rice a day—quite a bowlful—to satisfy his minimum daily requirement of vitamin A.”213 Pollan’s article portrayed Golden Rice as a cynical ploy to coerce guilty developed-world citizens into accepting GM technology. To support this position, he quoted Gordon Conway, then-president of the Rockefeller Foundation, as saying that “[t]he public-relations uses of golden rice have gone too far,” and that the Foundation “do[es] not consider golden rice the solution to the vitamin-A deficiency problem.”214

While fifteen pounds of rice is indeed “quite a bowlful,” it is difficult to say where Pollan obtained this figure. It may have been directly from Greenpeace, who asserted in a 2001 press release that a grown woman would have to eat nine kilograms of cooked Golden Rice per day in order to obtain sufficient Vitamin A.215 Or it may have been from Indian food activist Vandana Shiva, who claims that “an adult would have to consume 2 kg 272g of [golden] rice per day” to meet Vitamin A needs.216 In a strange twist of logic, Shiva states that Golden Rice is actually “[a] technology for creating Vitamin A deficiency,” because “one family member would consume the entire family ration” of rice in an attempt to get enough Vitamin A.217

Pollan’s quotes from Gordon Conway are excerpted from a letter that Conway wrote to Greenpeace in response to the Shiva report.218 However, Pollan completely misrepresents the positions of Conway and the Rockefeller Foundation. After stating that the Foundation doesn’t consider Golden Rice “the solution to the vitamin A deficiency problem,” Conway goes on to explain in the next sentence that the new rice merely “provides an excellent complement” to other solutions such as a balanced diet and nutritional supplements.219 He also points out that many poor children do not have access to a diversity of foods, especially during the dry seasons, leading to an increased dependence on “cheap food staples such as rice.”220 Finally, Conway notes that Golden Rice is intended to help cure Vitamin A deficiency, not a total lack of Vitamin A, and that “the best Golden Rice lines reported in Science could contribute 15% - 20% of the daily requirements.”22

If a negative team cites Pollan to claim that Golden Rice is actually going to worsen Vitamin A deficiency or is infeasible, note that Pollan did not preform a scientific study and that he quotes the head of the organization leading the front for Golden Rice out of context. The only scientific reference present is that a daily portion of Golden Rice can contribute up to 20% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A

November 2014 Pro Counters: Problems fixable


Ways to Combat GM Food Problems Response to Gene transfer to non-target species AMS

Whitman, Deborah. “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” 2000. Accessed 10/5/2014. Web. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php

Another concern is that crop plants engineered for herbicide tolerance and weeds will cross-breed, resulting in the transfer of the herbicide resistance genes from the crops into the weeds. These "superweeds" would then be herbicide tolerant as well. Other introduced genes may cross over into non-modified crops planted next to GM crops. The possibility of interbreeding is shown by the defense of farmers against lawsuits filed by Monsanto. The company has filed patent infringement lawsuits against farmers who may have harvested GM crops. Monsanto claims that the farmers obtained Monsanto-licensed GM seeds from an unknown source and did not pay royalties to Monsanto. The farmers claim that their unmodified crops were cross-pollinated from someone else's GM crops planted a field or two away. More investigation is needed to resolve this issue.

There are several possible solutions to the three problems mentioned above. Genes are exchanged between plants via pollen. Two ways to ensure that non-target species will not receive introduced genes from GM plants are to create GM plants that are male sterile (do not produce pollen) or to modify the GM plant so that the pollen does not contain the introduced gene. Cross-pollination would not occur, and if harmless insects such as monarch caterpillars were to eat pollen from GM plants, the caterpillars would survive.

Another possible solution is to create buffer zones around fields of GM crops. For example, non-GM corn would be planted to surround a field of B.t. GM corn, and the non-GM corn would not be harvested. Beneficial or harmless insects would have a refuge in the non-GM corn, and insect pests could be allowed to destroy the non-GM corn and would not develop resistance to B.t. pesticides. Gene transfer to weeds and other crops would not occur because the wind-blown pollen would not travel beyond the buffer zone. Estimates of the necessary width of buffer zones range from 6 meters to 30 meters or more. This planting method may not be feasible if too much acreage is required for the buffer zones.

Rather than outright deny the harms of GM foods, Pro teams should carefully analyze studies and provide alternate solutions. By demonstrating the overall benefits of GM foods and providing ways to counteract harms, the pro can counter any possible attacks.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Problems fixable


Response to Human health risks AMS Whitman, Deborah. “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” 2000. Accessed

10/5/2014. Web. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php · Allergenicity-- Many children in the US and Europe have developed life-threatening allergies to peanuts and other foods. There is a possibility that introducing a gene into a plant may create a new allergen or cause an allergic reaction in susceptible individuals. A proposal to incorporate a gene from Brazil nuts into soybeans was abandoned because of the fear of causing unexpected allergic reactions. Extensive testing of GM foods may be required to avoid the possibility of harm to consumers with food allergies. Labeling of GM foods and food products will acquire new importance, which I shall discuss later.

· Unknown effects on human health-- There is a growing concern that introducing foreign genes into food plants may have an unexpected and negative impact on human health. A recent article published in Lancet examined the effects of GM potatoes on the digestive tract in rats. This study claimed that there were appreciable differences in the intestines of rats fed GM potatoes and rats fed unmodified potatoes. Yet critics say that this paper, like the monarch butterfly data, is flawed and does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. Moreover, the gene introduced into the potatoes was a snowdrop flower lectin, a substance known to be toxic to mammals. The scientists who created this variety of potato chose to use the lectin gene simply to test the methodology, and these potatoes were never intended for human or animal consumption.

On the whole, with the exception of possible allergenicity, scientists believe that GM foods do not present a risk to human health.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Vandana Shiva


Vandana Shiva’s Claims Are a Hoax Vandana Shiva is a prominent anti-GMO activist. She is often an expert witness in GMO-centered hearings, and her opinions are the basis of widely-circulated stories about the harms of GMOs in both conventional and alternative media. She actually holds a PhD in philosophy, and most of her claims have been proven false. Her legitimacy in the global community means her views are still mainstays in public discourse and often provide the backbone of some of the more egregious anti-GMO stories in legitimate media outlets. In actual round, there’s a decent chance of Con teams quoting evidence from legitimate news sources which, in turn, source information from Shiva. The easiest route to preventing the evidence from sticking with a lay judge is to hit the information at its root.

Shiva’s alternatives to Golden Rice are impossible to implement. DAT Entine, Jon. “Vandana Shiva, Anti-GMO Celebrity: ‘Eco Goddess’ or Dangerous


“By focusing on only one crop, rice, which by itself does not provide all the nutrients, including higher quantities of Vitamin A than Golden Rice, the Golden Rice pushers are in fact worsening the crisis of hunger and malnutrition,” she writes on Navdanya. “Promoters of Golden Rice are blind to diversity, and hence are promoters of blindness, both metaphorically and nutritionally.”

Is Golden Rice a “hoax,” as Shiva claims?

Almost 700,000 children under the age of 5 die every year from Vitamin A deficiency disease. Golden Rice has been genetically engineered with enhanced production and accumulation of β-carotene in the grains. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that Golden rice contains up to 35 micrograms of β-carotene per gram of rice. A bowl of ~100-150 grams of cooked Golden Ricecan provide as much as 60% of the recommended nutrient intake of vitamin A for 6-8 year old children. As little as 20% of the recommended daily allowance can mitigate or eliminate clinical symptoms such as blindness. Golden Rice also has abetter conversion ratio for Provitamin A (which is turned into Vitamin A in our bodies) than leafy vegetables, carrots and other crops.

Shiva’s alternate proposed solution for promoting a ‘diversity of diet’ has not worked for the very poor who cannot afford to buy vegetables or fruits, or cannot devote the land on their subsistence farm to grow more of them.

Golden Rice is a product of the public sector with the realistic hope of saving the lives and sight of millions of children in the developing world. Despite its promise to help alleviate hunger, blindness and malnutrition,

November 2014 Pro Counters: Vandana Shiva


the vitamin enhanced rice has been met with significant opposition from environmental and anti-globalization activists, including Shiva. In August of 2013, activists converged on an experimental field trial of Golden Rice in the Philippines and violently ripped up the plants.

The end of this card illustrates, vividly, the difference between valid claims and impactful ones.

Indian farmer suicide myths (including a prominent documentary) stem from Shiva. DAT Entine, Jon. “Vandana Shiva, Anti-GMO Celebrity: ‘Eco Goddess’ or Dangerous


“Suicides have intensified after the introduction of GMO Bt cotton [in India],” she has written. “…[S]eed monopolies… the collection of super-profits …has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India.”

As Discover blogger and New York University journalism professor Keith Kloor recently noted, Shiva’s claims have resonated with anti-GMO activists around the world. She is credited with inspiring a 2011 movie called Bitter Seeds which claimed to document the genocide supposedly perpetrated by Monsanto, who developed the Bt cotton seeds. The green online magazine Grist extolled the documentary for revealing the “tragic toll of GMOs in India.” Foodie favorite Michael Pollan, who often recklessly recommends anti-GMO propaganda to his legion of followers, called it “a powerful documentary on farmer suicides and biotech seeds in India.”

But Shiva is flat out wrong. She alleges a link between farmer suicides and the adoption of Bt cotton in India where no causal link actually exists. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reviewed the government data, academic articles and media reports about Bt cotton and suicide in Indiain 2008 and 2010, concluding that farmer suicides predated the introduction of GMOs, reflect the broader trend in suicides in the general population and have in fact leveled off in the agricultural sector in recent years.

“[I]t is nonsense to attribute farmer suicides solely to Bt cotton,” wrote Dominic Glover, an agricultural socio-economist at Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands in an article in Nature last year. “Although financial hardship is a driving factor in suicide among Indian farmers, there has been essentially no change in the suicide rate for farmers since the introduction of Bt cotton.”

November 2014 Pro Counters: Developed nation shift


Political Shift towards GMOs Benefits Developing Nations

Developed nations are moving away from GMOs while developing nations are growing them. ASF

James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012". International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. 2012. http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/44/executivesummary/pdf/Brief%2044%20-%20Executive%20Summary%20-%20English.pdf

Two new countries, Sudan (Bt cotton) and Cuba (Bt maize) planted biotech crops for the first time in 2012. Germany and Sweden could not plant the biotech potato, Amflora because it ceased to be marketed; Poland discontinued planting Bt maize because of regulation inconsistencies in the interpretation of the law on planting approval between the EU and Poland; the EU maintains that all necessary approvals are already in place for planting whereas Poland does not. In 2012, Sudan became the fourth country in Africa, after South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt, to commercialize a biotech crop – biotech Bt cotton. A total of 20,000 hectares were planted in both rainfed areas and irrigated schemes. About 10,000 farmers were the initial beneficiaries who have an average of about 1-2.5 hectares of land. In a landmark event Cuba joined the group of countries planting biotech crops in 2012. For the first time, farmers in Cuba grew 3,000 hectares of hybrid Bt maize in a “regulated commercialization” initiative in which farmers seek permission to grow biotech maize commercially. The initiative is part of an ecologically sustainable pesticide-free program featuring biotech maize hybrids and mycorrhizal additives. The Bt maize, with resistance to the major pest, fall armyworm, was developed by the Havana-based Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

We see that 4 developed nations in Africa have begun to grow GM crops, inclusive of maize, while three developed nations from the EU moved away from it. This tradeoff is good, and has many implications because it shows that African countries are willing to lead the way in implementation of GMOs. This can spur the sub-Saharan region to move towards GMOs if and when the results from the four African countries show benefits.

Developing nations can implement large-scale GMOs: Brazil. ASF James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012".


November 2014 Pro Counters: Developed nation shift


Brazil ranks second only to the USA in biotech crop hectarage in the world, with 36.6 million hectares, and emerging as a global leader in biotech crops. For the fourth consecutive year, Brazil was the engine of growth globally in 2012, increasing its hectarage of biotech crops more than any other country in the world – a record 6.3 million hectare increase, equivalent to an impressive year-over-year increase of 21%. Brazil grows 21% of the global hectarage of 170 million hectares and is consolidating its position by consistently closing the gap with the US. A fast track approval system allows Brazil to approve events in a timely manner. Brazil has already approved the first stacked soybean with insect resistance and herbicide tolerance for commercialization in 2013. Notably, EMBRAPA, a public sector institution, with an annual budget of ~US$1 billion, gained approval to commercialize a home-grown biotech virus resistant bean, (rice and beans are the staples of Latin America) developed entirely with its own resources, thus demonstrating its impressive technical capacity to develop, deliver and deploy a new state-of-the art biotech crop.

The more relaxed regulations of GMO politics in Brazil have allowed massive economic growth, enabling them to rival the US within the GM market. Moreover, they have set one of the highest year-over-year growth rates at 21%. They even have public sector companies starting up new GM foods and implementing them on a large scale.

November 2014 Pro Counters: Small scale farmers


GMOs Help Small Scale Farmers Over 15 million small-scale farmers benefit from GMOs. ASF

James, Clive. "Brief 44: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2012". International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. 2012. http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/44/executivesummary/pdf/Brief%2044%20-%20Executive%20Summary%20-%20English.pdf

In 2012, a record 17.3 million farmers, up 0.6 million from 2011, grew biotech crops – notably, over 90%, or over 15 million, were small resource-poor farmers in developing countries. Farmers are the masters of risk aversion and in 2012, 7.2 million small farmers in China and another 7.2 million small farmers in India, collectively planted a record ~15.0 million hectares of biotech crops. Bt cotton increased the income of farmers significantly by up to US$250 per hectare and also halved the number of insecticide sprays, thus reducing farmer exposure to pesticides.

90% of those who grew GMOs were small-scale farmers. Though cotton is not a food, it still shows the implications that GMOs can increase wages and help those in poverty as it sets a precedent for safe farming practices.


Con Counters

November 2014 Con Counters: Radically different


GMOs are radically different

GMOs are not like selective breeding, Fj Freedman, David. “The Truth about Genetically Modified Food” Scientific American.

August 20, 2013. The difference is that selective breeding or mutagenic techniques tend to result in large swaths of genes being swapped or altered. GM technology, in contrast, enables scientists to insert into a plant's genome a single gene (or a few of them) from another species of plant or even from a bacterium, virus or animal…

True, the number of genes affected in a GM plant most likely will be far, far smaller than in conventional breeding techniques. Yet opponents maintain that because the wholesale swapping or alteration of entire packages of genes is a natural process that has been happening in plants for half a billion years, it tends to produce few scary surprises today. Changing a single gene, on the other hand, might turn out to be a more subversive action, with unexpected ripple effects, including the production of new proteins that might be toxins or allergens.

November 2014 Con Counters: Anti-GM studies not faulty


Studies not faulty Seralini study was scientifically valid, Fj


It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh—even unscientific—in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. And even Séralini, the scientist behind the study that found high cancer rates for GM-fed rats, has his defenders. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed. He says that as someone who runs drug-safety studies, he is well versed on what constitutes a good-quality animal toxicology study and that Séralini's makes the grade. He insists that the breed of rat in the study is commonly used in respected drug studies, typically in numbers no greater than in Séralini's study; that the methodology was standard; and that the details of the data analysis are irrelevant because the results were so striking.

Defense of Seralini Study AMS “Ten things You Need to Know about the Seralini Study.” December 30, 2012.

http://www.gmoseralini.org/category/critics-answered/ • Séralini’s study is the only long-term study on the commercialized GM maize NK603 and the pesticide

(Roundup) it is designed to be grown with.

(…)

• Séralini used the same strain of rat (Sprague-Dawley, SD) that Monsanto used in its 90-day studies on GM foods and its long-term studies on glyphosate, the chemical ingredient of Roundup, conducted for regulatory approval.

• The SD rat is about as prone to tumours as humans are. As with humans, the SD rat’s tendency to cancer increases with age.

• Compared with industry tests on GM foods, Séralini’s study analyzed the same number of rats but over a longer period (two years instead of 90 days), measured more effects more often, and was uniquely able to distinguish the effects of the GM food from the pesticide it is grown with.

November 2014 Con Counters: Pro-GM studies are faulty


Problems with GM Studies Studies Done on GM Foods Not Long-Term Enough AMS

“Ten things You Need to Know about the Seralini Study.” December 30, 2012. http://www.gmoseralini.org/category/critics-answered/

• Séralini’s study showed that 90-day tests commonly done on GM foods are not long enough to see long-term effects like cancer, organ damage, and premature death. The first tumours only appeared 4-7 months into the study.

• Séralini’s study showed that industry and regulators are wrong to dismiss toxic effects seen in 90-day studies on GM foods as “not biologically meaningful”. Signs of toxicity found in Monsanto’s 90-day studies were found to develop into organ damage, cancer, and premature death in Séralini’s two-year study.

Using a popular study that shows the harms of GM foods, this source explains the problems with typical studies. Con teams should use this to discount studies that fail to continue longer than 4-5 months.

November 2014 Con Counters: Pro-GM studies are faulty


Studies may have falsely attributed improved Chinese farmer health to GMOs. DAT Tianjie, Ma. “Wieding the Double-Edged Sword: The Chinese Experience with

Agricultural Genetically Modified Organisms.” wilsoncenter.org. Wilson Center. Summer 2008. Accessed 10/8/2014. Web. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/wielding-the-double-edged-sword-the-chinese-experience-agricultural-genetically-modified

A 2002 multi-year study of Bt cotton growth around the Yellow River Basin found that the introduction of the GM cotton reduced pesticide use by 24 to 63 kg per hectare in Henan and Anhui provinces.[14]According to the study's authors, this reduction has significant health implications for Chinese cotton farmers who "typically do not use any protective clothing" when applying pesticides. In 1999, 2000, and 2001, respectively, 22%, 29% and 12% of the surveyed farmers growing non-GM cotton in Anhui and Henan reported cases of poisoning, while for those growing only GM cotton reported 5%, 7%, and 8%, respectively.

These findings are not without disputes. In letters responding to the above-mentioned GM rice study, researchers from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI); Greenpeace; and University of California, Santa Barbara raised questions about the research findings. These questions range from whether the reduction of pesticide use was largely a result of farmer's perception of the GM rice as "anti-pest" rather than its actual effect,[15]whether food safety concerns and long-term ecological effects such as those on non-target species were taken into account,[16]and whether the researchers considered the potential of resistance developed by pests (in the case of Bt rice) and transgene flow from Bt crops, which may increase weed resistance and compromise refuge (part of a GM field dedicated to non-GM crops to prevent resistance) efficacy. [17]The international researchers also raised the point of better alternative solutions such as increasing rice diversity through intercropping in small-scale agriculture, which can significantly reduce plant disease and increase yields while conserving genetic diversity at minimal cost.[18] Similar discrepancies also exist in the assessments of GM cotton. A study conducted by Cornell researchers in China, for instance, raised concern over the rise of secondary pests (pests that are not controlled by the Bt toxin) in the long run that may erode the initial gains from the reduction of pesticide use for the farmers.[19]

Much of the data in the GMO debate is survey-based, rather than empirical (aside from the economic data, typically). Self-reporting by farmers, particularly in developing countries, lends itself to hyperbole and influence from placebo effects.

November 2014 Con Counters: Long-term risk


Legitimate Studies Consider GMOs a Long-Term Risk GMO impact on biodiversity is unpredictable in long-term. ASF

Celec, Peter. “Biological and Biomedical Aspects of Genetically Modified Food". Biomedicie & Pharmacotherapy Vol. 59 pp. 531 - 540. 2005. http://facweb.northseattle.edu/esciara/GMOs/GMO_review.pdf

A major problem in evaluating the environmental effects of transgenic crops is the lack of sufficient long-term baseline information on the variation in soil nutrient cycling in diverse agroecosystems to compare with agroecosystems, in which transgenic crops have been introduced. In addition, knowledge of the complex diversity of soil microorganisms is limited since only a small portion of soil microbial populations can be cultured and identified using standard analytical methods, although some new methodological approaches, including the use of molecular biology techniques, show some promise in helping to understand the impact of transgenic crops on soil microbial ecology. The effects of transgenic plants on phyto- pathogens are obviously intentional because the very purpose of the introduced genes is to protect the plant by reducing the effect of the pathogens on their hosts. There have been no reports as yet of disturbances in pathogen communities or of an emergence of new pathogens in transgenic plants.

We struggle to study soil biodiversity in the status quo. Introducing unpredictable organisms into an environment can damage biospheres that we do not yet completely understand in detrimental ways on a microbial level.

November 2014 Con Counters: Food security better now


Food Security Is Getting Better Now Global food security has increased in the past 20 years. ASF

Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology, Human Health And Development: An Evidence-Based Study". June 1, 2005. http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/biotech_en.pdf

In developing countries, 800 million people are undernourished, of which a significant proportion live on less than US$1 per day, despite a more than 50% decline in world food prices over the past 20 years (Pinstrup-Andersen 2000). Global food production has soared, making a variety of foods available to all consumers.

With advancements in agricultural practice we have combatted global food insecurity, meaning we are moving in the right direction as is. It is not necessary for us to rely on GMOs when simple agricultural practices have gotten us this far, like smart and better-timed irrigation efforts.

Food insecurity is projected to decrease. ASF Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology,


A secure food system is one in which the ecological resources on which food production depends allow for their continued use, with minimum damage for present and future generations. In other words, food security and sustainable agriculture are interlinked and both are central to the concept of sustainable development (Bonny 1994). ��The FAO Anti-hunger Programme (Baraclough 2000) reported that increasing investment in agriculture and rural development can reduce hunger. To reduce the number of hungry people by half by 2015, it estimated that funding of US$24 billion would be required for agricultural research, emergency food assistance, and improving rural infrastructure. By contrast, at the current rate of progress, the number of food-insecure would fall by only 24%.

As of 2000, global hunger was projected to decrease by 24% over the following 15 years, and at a higher investment level, it could have been halved.

November 2014 Con Counters: Food security better now


World hunger is decreasing. ASF Zaccaro, Sabina. "Global hunger decreases - but unevenly". Al Jazeera. October 3, 2013.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/global-hunger-decreases-but-unevenly-2013102115951845647.html

Since 1990-92, the total number of undernourished in developing countries has fallen by 17 percent from 995.5 million to 826.6 million.

The ambitious target set at the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) to halve the number of hungry people by 2015 remains out of reach at the global level, even though 22 countries had already met it by the end of 2012.

November 2014 Con Counters: Conventional breeding


Conventional Breeding Can Achieve GMO Benefits The same vitamin benefits can be achieved conventionally. ASF

Food Safety Department, World Health Organization. "Modern Food Biotechnology, Human Health And Development: An Evidence-Based Study". June 1, 2005. http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/biotech_en.pdf

Indeed, such programmes are now widely accepted as being at the core of sustainable agriculture. The communities that participated in these projects were able to transform food production through the use of resource-management strategies that focused on improving the soil by growing leguminous crops and applying agro-forestry, zero tillage and green manure. These and other projects (Sanchez 2002) have proved that the sustainability of any farming practice and the conditions under which production can be maintained at reasonable levels cannot be predicted with absolute certainty. Some regions may be better able to transfer high-yielding technologies with varying degrees of success (Dommenlen 2000). The uptake of new production systems has proved successful where the programmes have included the participation of entire communities and have not been introduced to isolated groups of farmers (World Information Transfer 1996).

Producing nutritionally enhanced properties in staple crops eaten by the poor could reduce the burden of disease in many developing countries. Scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, India) have developed a pearl millet variety enhanced with beta- carotene (Prasad and Reddy 1999). The trait naturally occurs in two Burkina Faso millet lines from which it was transferred by conventional breeding methods. Genetic modification of japonica rice with a ferritin gene has not given superior results compared to rice with an 80% increase in iron density produced by conventional plant breeding at the International Rice Research Institute (Jayaraman 2002).

If we can achieve the same benefits from conventionally breeding crops, then we are adding additional risks to our crops for no necessary reason and actually hurting developing nations because their politics are adverse to GMOs. We should focus on the viable solution as it sits and back away from GMOs if we value helping the developing world.

November 2014 Con Counters: Corporations control research


Corporations Control Research Companies have veto power over research, Fj

“Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?” Scientific American. July 20, 2009. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers.

To purchase genetically modified seeds, a customer must sign an agreement that limits what can be done with them. (If you have installed software recently, you will recognize the concept of the end-user agreement.) Agreements are considered necessary to protect a company’s intellectual property, and they justifiably preclude the replication of the genetic enhancements that make the seeds unique. But agritech companies such as Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta go further. For a decade their user agreements have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any independent research. Under the threat of litigation, scientists cannot test a seed to explore the different conditions under which it thrives or fails. They cannot compare seeds from one company against those from another company. And perhaps most important, they cannot examine whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended environmental side effects.

Research on genetically modified seeds is still published, of course. But only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal. In a number of cases, experiments that had the implicit go-ahead from the seed company were later blocked from publication because the results were not flattering. “It is important to understand that it is not always simply a matter of blanket denial of all research requests, which is bad enough,” wrote Elson J. Shields, an entomologist at Cornell University, in a letter to an official at the Environmental Protection Agency (the body tasked with regulating the environmental consequences of genetically modified crops), “but selective denials and permissions based on industry perceptions of how ‘friendly’ or ‘hostile’ a particular scientist may be toward [seed-enhancement] technology.”



Scientists petition for more independence in their research, Fj Pollack, Andrew. “Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting

Research” New York Times. February 19, 2009. Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry’s genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists.

“No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions,” the scientists wrote in a statement submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. is seeking public comments for scientific meetings it will hold next week on biotech crops.

The researchers, 26 corn-insect specialists, withheld their names because they feared being cut off from research by the companies. But several of them agreed in interviews to have their names used.

The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes.

“If a company can control the research that appears in the public domain, they can reduce the potential negatives that can come out of any research,” said Ken Ostlie, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota, who was one of the scientists who had signed the statement.



Anecdotal impacts, Fj Pollack, Andrew. “Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting

Research” New York Times. February 19, 2009. What is striking is that the scientists issuing the protest, who are mainly from land-grant universities with big agricultural programs, say they are not opposed to the technology. Rather, they say, the industry’s chokehold on research means that they cannot supply some information to farmers about how best to grow the crops. And, they say, the data being provided to government regulators is being “unduly limited.”

The companies “have the potential to launder the data, the information that is submitted to E.P.A.,” said Elson J. Shields, a professor of entomology at Cornell.

Dr. Ostlie, at the University of Minnesota, said he had permission from three companies in 2007 to compare how well their insect-resistant corn varieties fared against the rootworms found in his state. But in 2008, Syngenta, one of the three companies, withdrew its permission and the study had to stop.

“The company just decided it was not in its best interest to let it continue,” Dr. Ostlie said.

Mark A. Boetel, associate professor of entomology at North Dakota State University, said that before genetically engineered sugar beet seeds were sold to farmers for the first time last year, he wanted to test how the crop would react to an insecticide treatment. But the university could not come to an agreement with the companies responsible, Monsanto and Syngenta, over publishing and intellectual property rights.

Chris DiFonzo, an entomologist at Michigan State University, said that when she conducted surveys of insects, she avoided fields with transgenic crops because her presence would put the farmer in violation of the grower’s agreement.

Dr. Shields of Cornell said financing for agricultural research had gradually shifted from the public sector to the private sector. That makes many scientists at universities dependent on financing or technical cooperation from the big seed companies.

“People are afraid of being blacklisted,” he said. “If your sole job is to work on corn insects and you need the latest corn varieties and the companies decide not to give it to you, you can’t do your job.”


Contentions

November 2014 Pro Contentions


Pro Case

Introduction: One of the most popular arguments against genetically modified foods is that the area is generally not understood and egregiously under-researched. This could not be further from the truth. The research on genetically modified foods and their safety spans more than 40 years. In response to claims that GMOs require still more research, a team of Italian scientists is currently gathering a massive body of research to support the safety—and necessity—of GMO foods. The team has already added a staggering 1,783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods to their collection. These studies span from 2002-2012 and the scientists continue to add more research from before 2002 and after 2012. So, what did they find? According to Forbes’ analysis of the scientists’ findings in October of last year, “The researchers couldn’t find a single credible example demonstrating that GM foods pose any harm to humans or animals. “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops,” the scientists concluded.” Because these scientists were unable to find even one credible instance of danger posed by GMOs today, my partner and I affirm the resolution that: Resolved: On balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms.

Contention One: Genetically modified foods are safe. In addition to the aforementioned body of studies supporting the safety of genetically modified foods, major scientific bodies across the world arrive at the same conclusion. According to a 2013 issue of Scientific American, Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a science-based consumer-watchdog group in Washington, D.C., insists: “Current GM crops are safe to eat and can be grown safely in the environment,” he says. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences have all unreservedly backed GM crops. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats. Dozens of review studies carried out by academic researchers have backed that view.

In fact, scientists today are finding more health problems with foods that have NOT been genetically modified. According to an article on the subject from November of 2013’s Bloomberg:

“Breeders who avoid genetic modification are simply trusted to rid their new plants of any hazards. That doesn’t always happen: Varieties of conventionally bred potatoes, celery and squash have been pulled from the market after breeders accidentally increased levels of naturally occurring toxins.” In light of these findings: In the U.S., where only GMOs are required to pass through an approval process, the



Department of Agriculture issued a memo this year verifying crops created through mutagenesis as acceptable even for organic farming.

“Any GMO on the market today is safer than anything that hasn’t gone through that safety regulatory step,” McHughen, a member of the National Academies who helped write the 2004 report, said by phone.

Contention Two: Genetically modified foods benefit developing countries.

New scientific advances, like genetically modified foods have brought us closer than ever before to eliminating world hunger. According to a report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications: “To-date, biotech cotton in developing countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bolivia, Burkina Faso and South Africa have already made a significant contribution to the income of >15 million small resource-poor farmers in 2012; this can be enhanced significantly in the remaining 3 years of the second decade of commercialization, 2013 to 2015 principally with biotech cotton and maize..”

In addition to the gains from cotton and maize, several so-called “super-foods” are doing wonders for nutrition problems in developing countries. For example, according to the International Rice Research Institute, the genetically modified food known as “golden rice” has big potential for the future. Normal rice could substantially reduce the devastating impact of vitamin A deficiency because in many developing countries—the Philippines among them—the poorest families lack the means to buy the vegetables and fruits that contain this crucial nutrient. They can afford nothing more than plain white rice.” However, rice is not usually a source of vitamin A. While many fruits and vegetables have the genes to make this vitamin, neither rice nor any of its close wild relatives have these genes. Traditional breeding in rice is useless in the fight against this deadly vitamin deficiency. It would take genetic engineering to help solve the problem of making rice produce its own source of vitamin A.

Engineered so-called “golden rice” can “help reduce the deaths and blindness that come with not getting enough vitamin A in poor communities around the world. As we try to improve the nutrition of poor families across the country, Golden Rice can help alleviate the health scourge of vitamin A deficiency. Studies have shown that one cup of Golden Rice could provide around 50% of the recommended vitamin A that an adult needs for a day.”



Contention Three: Genetically modified foods are essential for the future.

Genetically modified foods drastically improve the efficiency of agriculture all around the world. According to Scientific American, that difference will be absolutely essential in coming years: “The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world will have to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 just to keep up with population growth. Climate change will make much of the world's arable land more difficult to farm. GM crops, Zilberman says, could produce higher yields, grow in dry and salty land, withstand high and low temperatures, and tolerate insects, disease and herbicides.” In order to overcome these challenges, genetically modified foods can help. These foods are easier to grow in environments considered too dangerous for un-modified crops.

Genetically modified foods have already improved food security. According to a study published in the Public Library of Science, “Controlling for other factors, the adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.”

GMOs are not only better for the world—they will soon become essential to continue its existence. These crops improve agricultural efficiency and help nutrition deficient nations. And as the growing research body of 2000 studies shows, the security concerns are negligible. Thus, the significant benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh any harms.

November 2014 Con Contentions


Con Case

Introduction: “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt. Since the onset of civilization itself, little work has been more worth doing than agriculture. Given agriculture’s prominence in the birth of modern civilization—as a catalyst for a transition to non-nomadic lifestyles—this is a sensible worldview. Since the late 20th century, however, biotechnology has promised to take some of the hard work out of the work worth doing—the advent of genetically modified foods—GMOs—has seen promises of improved crop yields, improved crop resilience, and stimulus to the global economy. GMOs are a product of a biotech renaissance that continues to this day, the result of high innovation in the developed world. In negating the resolution Resolved: On balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms, it is not our intention to contest the scientifically-verified empirical benefits of GMOs. Rather, it is to make apparent that this product of corporations in wealthy, developed nations fails to deliver meaningful net benefits anywhere else. In its global implementation failings, GMOs worldwide currently present a net harm.

Contention One: The opportunity costs GMOs have been hailed in industry as the best hope for increasing yields and coping with both greater climatological volatility and population growth. The issue is, GMOs are simply the best-known alternative to conventional crops. Two alternatives emerge as superior options: one a superior current methodology, one a promising future technology. The most currently relevant agricultural technique is radiation breeding. Instead of splicing genes from different species, as is the case with GMOs, mutation breeding involves artificially irradiating crops, mimicking the mutation-inducing radiation naturally occurring from sunlight. Favorable mutations are then selected and bred further. This technique still falls under conventional breeding regulations, rather than the more onerous regulations countries typically use for GMOs, but still yields crops with the same desirable attributes as GMOs. Tangible proof is in the economic data: Data from the Academy of Sciences of South Africa shows that implementation of one mutation-bred cereal crop in China netted $420 million in economic stimulus due simply to increased yields. Extrapolated across the gamut of agricultural species and regions, it’s easy to see the benefits adding up. Given that mutation-bred crops avoid the regulatory hurdles and financial burdens of developing and sustaining GMO implementation, mutation breeding looms as the superior option from a benefit-cost perspective. Looking further down the line additive manufacturing (3-D printing) looks to have yields in the agricultural sector as well. One notable example of this comes from Andrew Purvis of The Guardian: chemical company BASF has been using additive techniques to make lycopene—widely suspected in the scientific community of having cancer-preventative properties—both more absorbable and more widely available in common foods. Rather than relying on finicky and potentially unpredictable gene splicing techniques, agriculture can



potentially be reduced to picking and choosing traits in the end products—a simpler and potentially more precise process. The issue is of physical limitations. There is only so much farmland available, and a limit to the labor available to utilize it. As such, GMOs deliver a net harm if they use space that could otherwise be devoted to more promising techniques with superior cost-benefit breakdowns. While additive agricultural manufacturing has yet to become viable, mutation breeding has been used to “conventionally” generate superior crops since the advent of the nuclear era. With fewer upfront costs, fewer regulations, and a massive economic and scientific upside, mutation breeding presents a superior alternative to GMOs. GMOs thus present a net harm for every acre they displace a conventional mutation-bred crop.

Contention Two: GMOs harm global trade Agriculture is a global good—nearly every country engaged in its import/export to a massive scale. The difference between effective and ineffective trade mechanisms stands as the difference between starvation and food security for swathes of people across the world in developing countries.

One source of trouble is the fractured nature of international GMO regulations. Typically, regulations between exporting and importing countries match up, allowing the continued large-scale trade of bulk goods. The trouble is, countries can unilaterally change policies and impact trade bilaterally. The most glaring instance of this occurred in the maize trade between China and the United States. As noted by Dan Charles of NPR, the Chinese regulatory moratorium on DDGS (a GMO corn variety) imposed last year hit ethanol producers, traders, and farmers in the United States (the exporting country) to the tune of $3 billion dollars. This is a significant, impactful economic loss. The real problem here is the general unpredictability of the GMO trade; nothing stops countries from unilaterally imposing bans on certain or all GMOs; this leaves exporting countries with lost stocks and corresponding lost revenue. In agriculture, where margins are slim and the good to be traded is a necessity, this is unacceptable.

Contention Three: GMOs are unpredictable Sudden reversals of policy, as occurred with the Chinese blockage of DDGS, is a testament to the larger issue that arises from GMOs: their unpredictability. The most important facet of GMO harms is safety. Conventional crops have a sample size ranging in the millennia; GMOs, meanwhile, have had mere decades. There simply hasn’t been enough time to demonstrate any long-term harms which are still potentially impactful. Josie Garthwaite of The Atlantic, citing a Wilson Center report, has noted that “some of the most advanced models in use today for eco-evolutionary dynamics falter beyond a 10-year time frame.” This means that even legitimate scientific studies attesting to the safety of GMOs, both for human consumption and for their host ecosystems, aren’t actually comprehensive enough to cover the impacts across the legitimate lifespan of the GMO. As such, GMOs essentially trade short-term productivity for long-term insecurity.



A known GMO’s impacts cannot be predicted past a 10-year time frame, but this issue is compounded when the GMO is actually an unknown. As explained by David Freedman of Scientific American, a genome often continues to change in the successive generations after the insertion, leaving it with a different arrangement than the one intended and initially tested.” This means that not only can the impacts of a GMO not be extrapolated over long-term periods, but the GMO itself cannot be predicted.

This in itself is a deal-breaker for GMOs. The imperative for the agriculture trade, globally, is security. This means economic security for farmers and sustenance security for consumers. If GMOs are incapable of satisfying this imperative, they have no place in the global food chain. A majority of the global populations live in developing countries, where consistent food supplies can quickly become a legitimate policy concern. With suitable alternatives with longer track records, and a current inability to guarantee economic gains or long-term security, GMOs are not a tenable component of global agriculture compared to conventional alternatives. The utopian dream sold by GMO manufacturers—of simple, effective, and secure agriculture—has yet to be adequately realized. So for now, the work worth doing requires continued hard work—and no attempted shortcuts through genetic modification.

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