Not too long ago, popular wisdom ran that molecular biologists were going to save billions of people from starvation by genetically engineering crops resistant to flood, freeze, and drought; crops that could blossom from desiccated soil and bloom in salty sand; crops that could flourish despite an atmosphere saturated with carbon dioxide and rays of sunshine riddled with radiation. A waterless seed was the next killer app.
Open-source GMO is a new idea for food justice activists, who have been concentrating their efforts on depleting Monsanto’s market share through consumer advocacy and political reform. Labeling laws for genetically modified organisms in the retail foodstream are about to land in statehouses across the country. But genetic modification does not equal Monsanto and Pioneer. The time has come to separate the dancer from the dance and admit that it is possible to be against big-agriculture and for scientific advancement.
Read the full story here: Let’s Make Genetically Modified Food Open-Source
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Additional Resources:
- “Could open-source GMOs bring down Monsanto at last?,” io9
- “Glow-in-the-dark nightmares: Anti-synthetic biology campaigners play hysteria card,” Genetic Literacy Project
— Our Newsletter feature on the negative reaction to a crowd-funded project to produce glowing plants.
