The anti-GMO movement often finds its members from the left wing. These activists often equate liberalism with an aversion to food technology. Leaders of this movement, often very progressive on other issues, often display a real skepticism and mistrust of genetically modified foods.
Blogger Jayson Lusk discussed this phenomenon in a recent blog post:
From time to time, I’ve received some push back on some of the claims in my book, The Food Police, that food technology aversion, and willingness to regulate and restrict food technologies, has roots in the progressive left…
One challenge is that many popular food books (by folks like Pollan, Moss, Warner, etc.) often refrain from specifically mentioning much about policy in the book. But, then when your see these authors out on the interview circuit, they often talk a lot about policy and advocate all kinds of things. This has the consequence of their writing appearing more centrist and “ideologically neutral” than is actually the case, and it also lets the authors off the hook by rarely putting them in a position of having to seriously defend their policy proposals…
It is a mistake to narrowly evaluate Pollan, Moss, et al. strictly based on what they write in their books without also viewing their writing in the larger context of the polices they advocate outside their books. One also has to pay attention to what they choose to write about and what they choose to omit, and I would argue much of their writing errs by omission.
Read the full, original post: Is GMO aversion a left-wing phenomenon?
Additional Resources:
- Frankenpolitics: The Left defense of GMOs, Leigh Phillips
- Harvard scientist reports on Canada’s anti-science, anti-GE left, Policy Lab
- Anti-GMO attitudes on the left and right, Discover
