Society should be asking itself why it needs to trade the security of its GMO regulations for unsecured promises from the visions of genetic engineers, argues molecular biologist Prof Jack Heinemann in a superb article. The article is prompted by New Zealand's proposal to remove some regulations on GMOs. In the article, Prof Heinemann takes apart several myths that the advocates for deregulation promote to justify their aims and accuses them of "gaslighting the public".

For instance, regarding the argument that countries that don't deregulate will miss out, he writes, "The United States provides the counterfactual. It has the most permissive laws and largest number of commercialised GMOs. Yet it has only commercialised 11 GM crops in 30 years. Nearly all GM production is just three crops – corn, soy and cotton – and two traits, herbicide-tolerant and insecticide-producing. GMO agriculture is used on ~15% of US agricultural land, with other GM organisms and traits contributing ~1%. We have missed out on crop losses to dicamba drift and glyphosate-resistant weeds, but not access to drought-, heat-, flood- or salt-tolerant intrinsically higher-yielding crops.

"Gene editing is no more inclined to deliver solutions to the big problems we face from climate change, malnutrition and poverty. Even those who support the legislative changes admit that “new cultivars created overseas” using new tools like gene editing “haven’t hit the market yet” even in permissive countries. Two products, a modified oilseed and a hornless cow, appeared then disappeared."

This article is not only relevant to New Zealand but also to other regions that are moving to deregulate new GMOs, such as the UK and the EU. The Spinoff

 

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