While genetically modified crops may still provoke fear and uncertainty, some scientists argue that not only can they help to alleviate human health concerns, but they might also be able to help fight climate change. And as new tools like CRISPR, which can make targeted cuts in DNA, gain traction, genetic food engineering could be on the cusp of a quantum leap.
“It’s all political,” Stuart Smyth, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of Saskatchewan, said of the Philippines decision [to ban Golden Rice and BT Eggplant]. “It’s not based on science.”
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If farmers can grow their crops on less land, less forest is converted into farmland, allowing trees and landscapes to store more carbon. “That decrease in deforestation is the big reason why yield increases cut emissions,” said Emma Kovak, a senior food and agriculture analyst for the Breakthrough Institute.
Other scientists say crops with herbicide resistance can require less tilling. “Every time soil is tilled, it releases carbon back into the atmosphere,” Smyth said. Herbicide-resistant corn, for example, can endure being sprayed by weed-killing agents, preventing farmers from having to till the land to remove weeds.
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But the environmental community is split. Some activists say focusing on climate change obscures the real problem with genetically modified crops: the role of big corporations in controlling food production.
“We see GMOs as a tool of the major corporations that already have a stranglehold on our food system,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food and Water Watch. Many genetically modified crops, Starbuck says, go toward feeding animals for meat production — and improvements in yield won’t change the fact that humans need to move away from eating so much meat. “We need to move to significantly reduce that consumption,” she added.
