The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e.33: Nathanael Johnson on the GMO Debate

Episode Date: January 22, 2015

In  mid- to late-2014, journalist Nathanael Johnson wrote a series of blog posts at grist.org entitled Panic-Free GMOs.  This was no minor foray into modern ag's most divisive topic. Nathanael's research was extensive, and the series topped thirty posts.  Here are some of Nathanael's conclusions, which we discuss in our conversation: GMOs are relatively well-regulated The effects of GMOs on the environment have been a mixed bag of benefits and losses There is a strong scientific consensus that GMO varieties of plants that have been approved for commercial use are safe to eat We should probably label GMO foods in the marketplace None of it really matters anyway This is a long episode. I recommend you listen to the fifteen minute segment about Nate's approach to research and writing these articles, but if you prefer to skip ahead to our discussions of his conclusions, tune in at the 21 minute mark. 

I'm just worried that this metaphor of GMOs for our industrial food system has been in use for so long now that it's gotten stale. And, you know, what happens to a metaphor when it's no longer connected to the facts on the ground that are originally represented is that it becomes a cliche. represented is that it becomes a cliche. It becomes meaningless. And instead of enlightening our thinking, it takes us farther away from a reasonable discussion that can actually move us forward. That's Nathaniel Johnson of Grist.org talking to me about his excellent blog series on the GMO debate. And this is the Ruminant Podcast, a show that wonders what good farming looks like. I'm Jordan Marr. The Ruminant is a website for farmers and gardeners. Check it out on Facebook and at theruminant.ca.

You can also email me, editor at theruminant.ca. Okay, let's go. Hey everyone. In a minute, you're going to hear my conversation with this guy. My name is Nathaniel Johnson and I'm a journalist. I am the food and agriculture writer for grist.org and I live in Berkeley, California with my small family. But before we get to that, right from its outset, the ruminant was intended to be a place for farmers and gardeners to share their ideas with each other. Over the years, I've had a number of great submissions, but I've also learned that busy

farmers struggle to find the time to take photos of what they're doing and then send them along. So I'd like to try something different. I hereby invite you to make a quick phone call to Beverly Hills, California to record a voicemail in which you tell me about something cool you're doing on your farm or in your farm business. I'm looking for the kinds of things you might tell a colleague when you're talking shop at a conference. I just bought a Skype number in Beverly Hills because there are no Skype numbers in Canada. Only you can prevent it from being the worst 35 bucks I ever spent. I hope you'll consider leaving a message. Something like this. Hey there, this is Jordan Mara with the Homestead Organic Farm in Pichon, BC.

I just thought I'd phone and talk about a couple of tweaks we made to our CSA program that helped us get more customers. The first is to accommodate those who have the odd vegetable that they don't like and that ends up being a stumbling block for committing to a program for which we choose the veggies. In the second year of our program, we just decided we'd allow every customer to name one veggie they never want to see in their weekly delivery. All that it requires for us to do is to harvest one extra bag of veggies and bring it along with us. When we deliver the customer's veggies, we simply switch out the veggie they don't want for a doubling up of something else that was harvested that week.

We make them aware that they'll be getting a doubling up of something else. They seem to be fine with that. It means they don't feel like they're wasting their money a little bit when they get a veggie they really hate. That's's one thing we did. And then another thing we did to accommodate people is we tend to offer our program, however many weeks it is, say it's 18 weeks, we offer it over a 20-week period. We allow every customer to postpone their delivery twice. And that accommodates those who inevitably go away in the summer. And again, the aim in both cases is just to be a little more flexible to try and increase the potential customer pool. So it's worked for us and I hope it works for you. Thanks a lot. I know you have something cool to share and I'd love to hear about it. So if you want to

record a message for me to share on the podcast, here's the number 310-734-8426. I hope to hear from you soon. Okay, so today's episode features my conversation with agriculture journalist Nathaniel Johnson of Grist.org. He recently wrote a really thorough series of blog posts for Grist in which he explores the GMO debate, and he recently joined me to talk about his findings. Nate's a really thoughtful guy. It's an interesting conversation, and I hope it spurs you to check out his series at Grist, which is called Panic-Free GMOs. One last thing, actually.

For about the next 15 minutes, you'll hear Nathaniel and I talking mostly about his background and credentials, and also the process that he used to wade into this debate and conduct his research and then write his findings. I think it's really important, and that's why I've included it in this conversation. But it is 15 minutes, and so it's about that much time before we get into the meat of the debate. So if you're in a hurry and you really just want to get into his findings, then skip ahead

to about 21 minutes. That said, I hope you'll listen to the whole episode because I think the 15 minutes that follows really sets up the rest of the conversation. Nathaniel Johnson, thanks a lot for coming on the Ruminant Podcast. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Nathaniel, a little over a year ago now, you did a series of blog posts on the genetically modified organism debate. And I'm not sure if you meant for it to get to a large series, but it became quite epic. It was roughly 30 posts that you wrote as you tried to essentially form a position on the debate by educating yourself.

And I thought it was a fantastic series of articles. And so that's why I've asked you on the show today. And I'm really glad to have you. But before we get started talking about it, I'd like to just start by establishing your credentials and your interests. So you've already given me a little bit of a bio about yourself. You work for Grist. But could you go back a little further? Am I right that you did some sort of journalism internship with Michael Pollan? Kind of. I was writing for a small newspaper in southern Idaho,

and I was covering a lot of these agricultural issues because that's a place where you have really big farms doing some very intensive agriculture. And the CAFOs were just booming when I was there. So these giant dairy farms and a couple hog farms were moving in. And Idaho is a place that really prides itself on being libertarian not not having regulations um and so I was kind of covering this and um and in a very small town newspaper sort of way and not feeling like I was fully doing it justice and I and I was reading Michael Pollan's stuff um and being like here here's a guy who's like

has this um just kind of resounding clarity covering some of these same issues in a really holistic way. And so I went to UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism from there, largely to, you know, in an attempt to work with Michael Pollan. He just started there. So I ended up doing my master's thesis with him, and I respect and admire him a lot and hope that I've gleaned some of his skills.

But it does sound like you were a journalist quite a long time before that. Is that right? I graduated from college undergrad in 2001. And so I was working. I got this job at the small town newspaper in southern Idaho in 2001 and worked for a couple years before going to grad school. And were you interested in issues of food security right away or did that come a little bit later? You know, it was just something that I was covering. I was interested in the environment,

you know, growing, I grew up in this small sort of hippie town in Northern California, and was always kind of environmentalist. And the I hadn't really thought of food as part of that that much until I got to this newspaper and was covering these issues and saw how profoundly food was affecting the ecosystem there and the human ecosystem as well. So it's just sort of something that I've fallen into. I've always been interested in farming. You know, I'm the first generation that, you know, my father, my grandfather grew up on a farm.

My father and then my grandfather was working for the USDA and, you know, the State Department Food for Peace Program. So he was kind of in agriculture and had a big market garden with a couple hogs and stuff. And so my father kind of grew up drinking raw goat's milk and stuff. So I had this very romantic conception of farming as a kid growing up because I was kind of the first one that didn't have that. So I was always interested, and I guess, but I hadn't really connected

food security and food issues with environmentalism. Right. So that tended to happen more and more as you just, as you got into your journalism career then? Yeah, I just found myself kind of gravitating to these stories that were at the nexus of food and environment and health okay and then so you eventually completed this graduate in journalism you had some mentorship from from michael pollan among others um can you talk a little bit about grist like just if you had to summarize grist as a website what could you say sure so Brist is a green news site.

It's a website that produces news blogs. And the focus is on the environment. And we try and be a little bit whimsical in our coverage. The tagline is doom and gloom with a sense of humor. So it's a little bit different from the old school shame and ruining the day sort of environmental journalism. And it was one of the original, and, and, and ruining the day sort of environmental journalism. Um, and it was one of the original, I think it started back in 2000, um,

2001 maybe as an email newsletter, you know, fairly early in the history of the web. Um, so it was one of these original news outlets that's online and has just continued to do that. And it's a non-profit, you know, it's supported mostly by foundations, environmental organizations and the like. Well, on that note, and given the topic we're about to parse, I really think I should ask you, are you or is Grist a shill for corporate interests? Certainly not. You know, it's something that I take very seriously. And there may be cognitive biases that have unintentionally aligned me with corporate interests.

But, you know, I have never received money from agribusiness or a related organization. And to my knowledge, Grist has not either. Right. And I mean, I ask that half jokingly. I think Grist is a great site. And I just don't have any sense that you had any agenda heading into this writing project that you did. Right. I tried to be very clear about, you know, my agenda, you know, and upfront about my biases and the way that my mind was set going into it and how it changed along the way. Right. Okay, well, on that note, let's talk about your writing. So I think I better start by asking you, Nathaniel, what led you to take it on? Why did you want to tackle the GMO debate? Well, I didn't.

I'd actually thought about doing it for my book. I'd written this book called All Natural, which is I'm telling stories from my very all-natural hippie family and upbringing and talking about the things that I grew up with, like natural births and alternative medicine and all these various dietary fads that we've gone through. And then going back and kind of fact-checking and trying to do a rigorously scientific look at all these things that was also really loving and holistic and not simply dismissive of these things.

And I thought GMOs seemed like a good fit for this. This is this thing where it's like this technology that kind of hits the same alarm bells that many of the people who are interested in those other issues that I just mentioned are worried about. But it was just like so technically complex. And the details were kind of boring, I thought. And I saw very clearly that it was so partisan and polarized that it was going to be really hard to wade my way through. I didn't see any clear narrative through line where there's just like someone's story that I could tell that would really carry this debate. And so I abandoned it.

The real reason that I ended up doing this for Grist is that my editor assigned it to me. I got hired after my book came out, and he said, I'd really like you to look closely at GMOs, and this is something that we've just kind of haven't known what to think about. And so can you just take a close look at the details of what's going on with this and just kind of blog as you go, do a little research, write up what you're, you find, react to people making corrections or making comments and, and just go from there and say, okay, you know, I'll try it.

And so that's, that's the genesis of the series. One thing you mentioned in your very first post in the series that stuck out for me is you said that you thought humility was required in taking this whole project on. Can you explain a little bit about what you meant? Well, I forget exactly what I meant in that first instance. But certainly humility is something that's really important to me. I think as a reporter, my job is to go out and learn stuff and not to cling to my positions, but instead to change my positions and to enrich my perspective and strengthen it by incorporating new information that comes to me.

So I probably was talking about that. Right. And one last question before we actually talk about your series. Can you talk a little bit about how you approach your research? Yeah, sure. I think that's a really important question, actually. It kind of changed as it went along, but I started out by asking people. I knew that other people have looked at GMOs.

Who are people that won't lead me into deep water on this? Who are people that are credible and relevant and smart? And I got several suggestions and started, and I feared I would break it up and look at one thing at a time. Because what I found from the very beginning is I try and pin, you know, pin down one piece of information and it's, I just sort of be trying to like, well, what are you telling me here? Is this right or is this wrong? You know,

this other person is contradicting what you're saying. Can you speak to that? And people would, would sort of answer, but then they'd like quickly pivot to another subject. You know, there's so many things to talk about on GMOs. And they'd sort of say, well, yes, but, you know, and then they'd be off talking about insects getting resistance to ET toxin or what have you. So my idea was that I would take kind of one step at a time and look closely at it and try and just figure out what was going on with that and see if I could figure out the places where people on both sides actually agreed. You know, if I could get someone

from the pro GMO side to say like, well, yes, actually the antis have a point here. Then I'd be like, okay, well this, here's, here's something that I can really hold on to. Here's a building block, you know, that I can start to build this edifice on. Because here's a point of factual agreement. And so I was trying to find, do some findings of fact and start with that. findings of fact, um, and start with that. And then after, after I built that up, um, be able to make some kind of judgment on it. Right. And, and you certainly did have to, you ended up chasing, there were just wormhole after wormhole or, or, or whatever in this. And I was boggled by how many experts you consulted. I mean, you must've spent,

this must've been your life for those few months. Oh, yeah, completely. And it was, you know, there was just tremendous pressure, too, because I was doing it, you know, the Internet is such a crazy place. And this is kind of my first job I've had where I'm on the Internet. And people are incredibly combative and angry on the internet and this certainly this issue punches so many buttons that um i got a i got a lot of flack from the very beginning and i was really trying to read it all you know to be to actually be like

okay this there's going to be some useful stuff here you know And so I would get these like horribly abusive emails being like, first of all, you are just a naive idiot. And secondly, I think you should read these seven studies, you know, that I'm attaching. I'd be like, okay, thank you, kind sir. You know, I'm not going to have an emotional reaction to this. There's actually something useful that I can get from this maybe. You know, maybe they're seeing something that I've missed um and and that was the case sometimes um so but at one point you mentioned that you had intended to to sort of uh well certainly participate in in the comment forums and everything but in the end there was so much vitriol and just so much volume some of those posts had hundreds of comments that you just you couldn't do it thousands even yeah yeah yeah i that was um i had to abandon ship well okay so i think we've got all the all the precursor stuff behind us

um but the thing is we can't we can't possibly explore this topic with a nuance that you did in your blog series, Nathaniel. So instead, we're going to touch on some of your conclusions about the subtopics and kind of the overall topic. And hopefully we can encourage some listeners to check out the series. And really briefly, I'll say that there's two ways to my mind to go about that. You can start at post one and read all 30 odd posts, which, which when I did it for the second time yesterday took me, I don't know, two to three hours, and it was really fascinating reading. Or you could start near the end and towards the end of, of your series, Nathaniel, you kind of do one, it's like the penultimate post summarizes all

the major subtopics and kind of just gives your quick conclusion that you made on each topic with ref with links to more nuance. And then your, your, your last post is kind of a summary of your overall conclusion that we're going to talk about there. There are technically a couple of posts after that. But those were kind of came after the fact and featured a couple of different voices as well. But people could start there as well if they want to get to information or your conclusions on specific subtopics. So I recommend people check it out. And the other thing they can search,

I mean, I'm going to have it up with the show notes on my site, but if you Google panic-free GMO and grist, you'll get the page that has the the chronological order of all the blog posts so that's a really easy way to check it out anyway right nathaniel uh i think i think we're going to just just uh touch on a lot of these subtopics but i the the one that i expect we'll go into a little more detail about is the first one i want to talk about which is effects of gmos on human health um because i think that's probably the overarching concern um right so i'm going to start with a quote from one if you're not your first post then your second um and so i'll quote you now quote i'm going to start with the most politicized issue is there any evidence that

genetically modified food is directly harmful to people who eat it? There's a one-word answer to this. End quote. Nathaniel, what's your one-word answer to that question? Well, I believe it was no with what I said at that point. I think that, yeah, and the key is that I'm saying there is there evidence. as anti-GMO, but have generally been among those that are campaigning for more regulation and are worried about them. And those people were telling me that, no, there isn't evidence that they're harmful.

And furthermore, that people like Margaret Mellon from the Union of Concerned Scientists were saying, you know, I'm not worried about the GMOs that we currently have out there. That doesn't keep me up at night. And, you know, there are other things. There are new GMOs coming online that she says need to be evaluated. But I think that that is one of those points that everybody, like all reasonable people kind of agree on, that there really isn't evidence that they're causing harm to human health, the ones that we have out there now. Maybe we'll make one further

on that really does some damage. Right. And so wrapped up, or what contributes to you forming that conclusion, is the fact that there isn't a lot of evidence that anyone has been harmed in terms of their health, and that there isn't really all that much significant difference between genetic modification and other forms of breeding that aren't causing harm to people. Do I have that about right? Yes. because this is one of those issues that people, it's very hard to conceptualize. The way I'd put it is that we should look at transgenesis, the moving of DNA from one organism to another species that it's not related to in the scope of all the other technologies that we've introduced to our food system and ask how much evidence have we demanded for all of these things, for all these innovations? How much do we need?

We should at least have some kind of level playing field for different things that we introduce. And when you look at GMOs, they've gotten a lot more study from good, independent public scientists than almost any other innovation that we've seen in our food system. And that includes things that are modifying genes of plants. You know, there's this example that you hear a lot and that I talk about of mutagenesis, which is mutating the DNA using radiation or chemicals,

and there's more chance of something going wrong or producing results that wasn't intended with that. And yet this is something that there's not the same kind of controversy or attention to or for or about. So there's, and that's just one example. There's, you know, when you look at all of the crazy things that we've been doing to improve the efficiency of seeds over the years, to me, transgenesis doesn't look like a hugely different step. And you end up pointing out it just sort of depends on one's level of risk tolerance,

but that overall the science that you investigated and you did so quite exhaustively, shows that the overall risk to human health of GMOs is actually quite reasonable, like quite relatively low. There's a lot of major scientific organizations that have looked into this in depth and really gone through the entire literature and done the risk analyses and came to the same conclusion. do I say about this? I was like, you know, I read the one from the U.S. National Academy of Science, and I said, okay, well, that's, you know, it's kind of hard to go against them, but maybe, you know, maybe there's something here that they're not seeing. And then you see the Royal Society and just one major scientific institution after another with these really well-respected scientists running them, coming to this conclusion over and over again. And I'm just, I feel it necessary to repeat because I know a lot of listeners are going to be

just like spitting, frothing from the mouth right now. But there's a lot of nuance in your pieces and i really encourage them to read everything that went into you forming this conclusion i have to say that that this is the same position that that i hold um and i this is the one i wanted to go into in a bit because i really feel like and and and i've been influenced by your own writings but but i this i came to some degree i came to this conclusion myself as well. Um, I just, I feel like if, if we could get past this issue, if, if, if those on either side of the debate could at least agree on this, suddenly, I think the rest of the subtopics, like the other concerns about GMOs, it becomes much, I think it it's, it suddenly

becomes much easier to have a reasonable, calm debate. I think this health one is the one that freaks people out and causes a lot of the animosity and vitriol, personally. Yes. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that there is another one, which is this fear that something will go terribly awry and you'll have, you know, this self-reproducing organism that will bring about ruin to our biosphere, that, you know, it'll just go out of control. And, you know, I think that there are a lot of people that feel the sort of same gut horror that we're altering life that is reproducing. And that has the potential for catastrophe in a way that we haven't risked before.

haven't risked before. You know, and so I think I understand those perspectives and, you know, we could debate them at length, but it's hard to push past it because I think that if you really firmly have like this, this feeling that that, that this is just a fundamental threat to mother nature or to human health and life and happiness on earth. It's really hard to hear anything else, you know, that I try and say in a kind of cool um, cool, rational, like, let's,

let's just talk about the facts, um, type of way. Right. So, so Nathaniel, um, I want to talk, I want to, I'm going to touch on what you just said in a little bit, but now, uh, if we, if I'm going to, I'm going to attempt to take, to take, to have you take us through the rest of the topics you covered quite quickly. I mean, if you think about the post you did, the penultimate post, where you really just provided short answers to these questions with links to the nuance. I'm asking for those short answers. And then, I mean, if you feel like elaborating a bit, that's fine. But because people, there's no way,

the proper way to do this is to read your writing. We're not going to get it, get through it here. So, uh, I have essentially five more major questions that you asked that I'm going to ask you to, to, to answer if you can. Great. So the next one then, are GMOs unregulated? Are GMOs unregulated? No, they're not unregulated. They're fairly highly regulated. Monsanto pushed for regulation in part because they knew that it would prevent other competitors from rising up. There's this thing that you see over and over again with, you know, once you have the first corporation break in,

then they want the regulations because that stops the other people. They want those barriers to entry for others. Yeah, exactly. And they also knew that it would help with them with PR. You know, the people were concerned about this and they wanted the regulations. And so they said, OK, let's let's try and try and do this. So and there is a fairly significant testing regime that they they have to go through with the EPA and the Environmental Protection Agency and the, um, agriculture department and, um, the FDA. And I know there's a lot of people who figure, who think that whole process is all a sham and I'll just, I'll just, I'll have to leave it at you. You, you, you, you really explored that.

You, you had a lot to say about that. And so if people can go check it out if they want, um, next, next topic, then are GMOs bad for the environment? Next topic then, are GMOs bad for the environment? Very complicated. There's a few main things that are going on with GMOs. They influence use of insecticide. They influence use of herbicides and some other minor things. But the herbicide and insecticide are the main thing. It's pretty clear, you know, this is again one of those things that people from both sides agree,

that there's been a real reduction in insecticide use because of the use of genetically modified crops. Both sides also agree that there's been a big increase in the use of herbicides because of genetically modified crops. And that's really all glyphosate, which is Roundup. And the trick is when you look at glyphosate, it's a much less toxic herbicide than some of the herbicides that are replaced. But then, you know, you can go much deeper into this. We see resistance developing to both the insecticide-reducing GMOs and the herbicide-tolerant GMOs. So this may not last forever. And there's also the fact that the herbicide-resistant GMOs have been so effective, allowing the use of these herbicides.

That effective weed control has created, you know, effective weed control is what farmers try and do, but that's created a problem of its own in that some of the biodiversity that was just there in the fields via the weeds has been reduced. And this is one of the things that seems to be really impacting the butterflies, the monarch butterflies, because there's not as much milkweed in the Midwest anymore. So overall, I mean, well, there was a ton of detail there, too. But it's been kind of a mixed bag with regards to the environment, some positives and some negatives. That's a topic definitely worth exploring in your series, just because there's so much to say.

So the next question, who benefits from GMOs? So this is something that there's been, you know, economists have done studies on this and figured out, you know, who's gotten the benefit. Most of the money has gone to seed companies like Monsanto. Monsanto is the biggest one. They're the innovators. They've done the research, although there's public scientists also who are responsible for a lot of this research who have certainly not seen their fair share of the benefit.

And then farmers have seen some benefit. Some of the money has gone to farmers. And there is a little bit of benefit to consumers. Prices have dropped slightly because of DMOs, you know, when you do the whole econometric analysis. But it doesn't look like it's enough that we'd really notice it. And if they suddenly went away, we probably would only have a subconscious reaction to the price increase. And then I guess a sub-question there or sub-topic of that is, I mean, one big concern that gets repeated a lot is the effect on small-scale farmers or just farmers in general in developing countries.

And GMOs have even been linked to increase in suicide rates among farmers because of the crippling debts they take on. You know, you also explored that issue. Do you want to speak to that a little bit? Yeah, sure. I mean, I think that the real issue here is debt. You know, that these small farmers in developing countries are often in pretty dire situations and willing to bet a lot on trying to, trying to become prosperous and make a better life for that family. And so, so sometimes they, they go into extreme debt, buying seeds, buying tools for their farm.

And then if, if something goes wrong and, and they, you know, just the weather goes wrong and they lose the harvest, they are in a really dire situation. Now, from my research, I'm really skeptical of the claim that GMOs have caused farmers to commit suicide. There certainly are farmer suicides, but when you look at the timing of introduction of GMOs and the rates of farmer suicides, it doesn't really work out. You know, the GMOs are introduced and the farmer suicides kind of flatline. They don't they don't bump up. couple looking at suicide in India is really a serious problem just across the board. And it's not simply constrained to farmers. You see this, you see more suicides, a greater percentage

suicides in people into the ground. Now, the question is, is this technology saving them? You know, are they right to bet on it? And the evidence there also is not, you know, the pro-GMO people will trumpet that very loudly and say that if you're anti-GMO, you should be tried for crimes against humanity. I don't see really solid evidence that it's the thing that's saving small farmers. I think it's certainly helped certain small farmers, but it's really hard to tease out whether those are the farmers that were already rich or relatively rich in their villages or whether they're the truly desperate people who were made a little bit more affluent by this technology. Well, I have more I want to ask you about that, but that's the case with all of these. I'm going to move on again.

So, Nathaniel, do we need GMOs to feed the world? I don't think so. You know, I do worry about cutting off too many technologies. You know, sometimes when I hang out with my environmentalist friends, I feel like, you know, well, we just need better solar power. We just need better this or that. better solar power we just need better this or that um but then also there's this sense of like well but we don't want we don't want we've got to regulate um these companies that are innovating on these things much more heavily and we've got to um make sure that they don't use any risky chemicals and it's like at some point at some has to give, right? You can't have, you can't have

these new technologies and, and cut off all of the, the options. But I think if we just, if, if, you know, if it's just a question that you're asking, I think we'd be fine. You know, we pivot, There are many other technologies and breeding techniques that are much more important than transgenesis. And I'm sure that we could do well without them. I mean, the other thing to note is that feeding the world, this has been said many times, but I think it's worth repeating, is at this point, it's not a production issue. It's distribution. There's enough. Yeah, it's a distribution issue, and it's an equity issue, a human rights issue.

The problem here is poverty. We have more than enough food to go around, but we have inequality, and some people get lots and lots, especially us in North America, and we waste it. And the rest of the world gets very little. And that's always how capitalism has worked. There's no easy fix to that. But that's the fundamental problem that I think we really need to be focused on.

And these other issues, I think we do need to increase production, and increasing production can help small farmers. It can help with poverty. But do we need GMOs to feed the world? Again, there's a simple answer to that question, and that's no. And you also, you spend a fair bit of time also kind of exploring what I'll just call the fact that for over the last 20 years, the companies or the greatest advocates of GMOs have spent a lot of time selling their concept to the public on this notion that there's just so many great innovations for humanity that can be achieved with them.

But that in practice, one thing many critics GMOs have pointed out, which I think you tend to support or agree with, is that on the ground there's been very little beyond just those herbicide and pesticide-tolerant crops. GMOs haven't delivered on all these pie-in-the-sky promises. Yeah, there's just been a few things that, you know, this has been a really difficult technology to use and to figure out. And so it only makes sense for these companies to do the things that they can sell to wealthy farmers, really, and they can sell at scale. So that's what they've done. And it's also moving to India and to other places around the world. So it's, you know, that's, it's not entirely true, but most of what this has done is helped

conventional industrial farmers farm a little bit more efficiently. And I think it's really worth asking, you know, if you make a system that is dirty and broken a little bit more efficient, is that really an unmitigated good? Right. So Nathaniel, should we label GMO foods in the grocery store? Daniel, should we label GMO foods in the grocery store? I, you know, this is a tough one. I think that we should. And, you know, I guess I should say a word about this because it may be counterintuitive to people. And people say, like, of course, like, why don't we want to know what's in our food?

And the danger here is just that it will end up being this kind of health washing label where, you know, you have no GMOs on things, but it doesn't really mean anything that people, you know, see it. And it's like, you know, your heart healthy sugar bomb cereals, you know, see it. And it's like, you know, your heart healthy sugar bomb cereals, you know, that, um, they're heart healthy because they have a little bit of oats in them or something like that. Like they see the Cheerios that say GMO and, but then they see the Fruit Loops that, that say GMO free. So they go for the Fruit Loops kind of thing. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Although Cheerios are not GMO free. I know, but I guess I could have chosen another one. You know, I do think that if the labeling laws are passed, and, you know, they have been passed in Vermont, if they stand up,

that you'll just see everything getting labeled, you know, may contain GMOs, just as sort of a cover-your-ass strategy because these supply chains, you know, things get mixed up and it's really hard to segregate and be totally sure that you can get sugar from GMO beets in your sugar mix. So, you know, it'll just kind of be everywhere. And then you'll still have like the basically the organic things and things that already have the non GMO labels on them or the organic labels on them that are GMO free. that it may be the right thing to do because this debate has just gotten so toxic that I think we need a pressure release valve. And the thing about GMOs is it's just based on this. We have this fear based on this unknown. We don't really know what it is. There's this,

we as eaters don't see a benefit from it. So there's no real incentive to go out and research it. And so it's just kind of this looming unknown that why should I, why should I assume any marginal iota of risk for something that's not benefiting me but is um benefiting monsanto and so if we if it was just kind of out in the open there i think it would do away with that kind of cloud of darkness and you could just say okay this uh this has gmos and i can make a choice for myself whether you know is that the fact that it's maybe a little bit less money um it's like there's it's maybe a little bit less money? It's just kind of a sense among a lot of people you think that there's just a lack of control in their life, that sort of thing.

Yeah, absolutely. And you see this is a real problem with the modern condition. As we outsource more and more of our lives to machines and people overseas doing it more efficiently. You know, there's this sort of feeling like, okay, what, how do I know if I can trust this or not? And, you know, I'm torn on this because I really like it to just be like, let's just look at the facts and let's figure this out. But I do think that, um, it would be useful just to, just to say, okay, fine, let's lay, let's label everything. And, and people can just make their choice then. Um, yeah. So that kind of takes us through my notes on those topics. I realize as I talk to you right

now that I didn't include a question about intellectual property. And I'll just, I'll assure listeners that you go, you deal with that in depth as well. I'll also say once again, that if there's anyone who's frustrated right now at how casually we've treated these topics, my whole intention here is to is to point people to these articles and they can go and find out lots more information. So that's all the listeners are going to get on the actual topics that you covered for for this episode. But I now just want to deal a little bit with your conclusions. So you you do have a final post that ties everything together. And you're the conclusion you came to was a bit of a non sequitur. Essentially, and I realize you were writing this somewhat with tongue in cheek,

but what you started your final post by saying that after all of this and months spent researching this stuff, you'd come to the conclusion that none of it matters. What did you mean, Nathaniel? Well, what I meant by that is that if you take away GMOs, you're somehow able to wave a wand and disappear them from our world. Some things would change. But I think the really important things that people are concerned about wouldn't change. This wouldn't disrupt big monoculture, industrial agriculture. It was never foundational for industrial agriculture.

And it'll do just fine without, without transgenesis. Um, it, you know, there, if they disappeared, there would be some pluses for the environment. We'd use less, um, herbicide and, um, there would be, or we'd at least use less glyphosate and there'd be less glyphosate resistance in weeds. But people would use other more toxic herbicides too. And we'd start seeing the resistance in those other herbicides. I don't know if that makes any sense, but the point is that we kind of expect weeds to gain resistance to herbicides on a kind of linear fashion depending on how much herbicides are used. And because everybody switched over to Roundup and glyphosate,

they weren't using the other herbicides. And so there's less resistance to those guys. You know, there would be Monsanto would make a lot less money, but there would still be plenty of other giant corporations with really rapacious intellectual property rights practices like Apple, for instance, out there. And

I think that, you know, the bigger point is that there's all of these issues that kind of go off like the spokes of a wheel from GMOs. And GMOs are the touchstone that people kind of associate with all of these things. But you take them away and the wheel still stands. Well, I think you summed it up really nicely with this, with the following quote, which is what you, which you, this is something you said in, in presenting a scenario where GMOs are banned, a magical scenario. And you said, quote,

the banning of GMOs hasn't led to a transformation of agriculture because GM seeds was never a linchpin supporting the conventional food system. Farmers could always do fine without it. End quote. Right. Yeah, exactly. Right. So that's half of your assertion that none of it matters. You present this scenario where the industrial system would go march right along and with all kinds of terrible effects that people are well aware of. You then say, let's look at the other scenario where resistance to GMOs completely dissolves. And so can you comment on that? So in that scenario, we'd see more herbicide and we'd see more herbicide resistance.

That would become a bigger problem sooner. We'd see less insecticide use. We'd see more of these biotechnologists coming up with interesting new solutions that right now, you know, people are really hesitant to try and put something out on the market because there is so much fear and resistance of these technologies. So we'd have more tools to be working with. You know, I'd sort of like to see, I'd be interested in seeing tools for organic agriculture, for instance, coming out of biotechnology. I know that would be a hard one to swallow for many people. But I don't think that they would really prove transformative either.

We'd still be faced with these fundamental big-picture problems of reforming the food system and feeding our families in a way that's good for the planet. And I think that these are really social issues rather than technological issues. that these are really social issues rather than technological issues. So, I mean, essentially in that scenario, you're pointing out that GMOs are not the agricultural panacea that some have promised. And so just because there was free reign to use them, that's not going to affect us all that much. I think that that's absolutely true. That's that I think that that's absolutely true.

And, you know, what this all kind of leads to is then like, well, what about all these other issues that I that we've just talked about in length, you know, and I think that those issues need to be looked at directly. You know, we really do need reform. I don't know if it's the same in Canada, but in the U.S., you know, our intellectual property rights, our patent system is just a mess. Everybody agrees that it's just stupid. And we need to figure out better ways of doing agriculture to solve, to use Wes Jackson's words, to solve the problem of agriculture that we've just been bumbling along trying to get right since we started with this in the Fertile Crescent. We started with this in the Fertile Crescent. And I think you can sort of do that with every one of these issues. And for none of these things is GMOs the linchpin, the deciding force one way or the other. So you go on to say in your conclusion, Nathaniel, I'm going to quote you again.

Quote, the anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone has pointed out that each side of the debate has agreed to talk about GMOs as if GMOs are a single entity up for approval or rejection, end quote. People use GMOs as a stand and they use it as a metaphor. And or sorry, I'm now mixing a couple of messages you had. But essentially, they just see GMOs as this one monster rather than looking at each GMO technology separately. You see that as problematic. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Because there's, I mean, I think that if we were to decide as a society, like, do we want or not want each one of these things? You know, I think that we'd probably say, yeah, I think we do want disease-resistant papaya. On balance, that's been a really good thing.

And these disease-resistant cassavas that they're developing for Africa. And, you know, there's this list that are useful, I think. Herbicide resistant? Soy? Well, maybe, maybe not. It's much more complex, and I could very easily see simply saying no to that one. So they do need to be divided. And then there's the issue of GMOs as a metaphor, which is sort of something that I was somewhat inarticulately grinding my way toward. So Nathaniel, overall, what you get to towards the end of your concluding post is that you don't really think this debate is actually about genetically modified organisms. You suggest it's about the stories we've attached to them.

We've touched on that a bit already, but can you elaborate on that? Yeah, that's exactly right that we've attached these stories about a technological utopia resulting from these seeds or these stories about hubris and sort of the frankenstein story attached to these seeds and i think that that's a really important discussion to have, and it's hard to talk about without having some kind of example to use to talk about it. And GMOs are a really good example. It's one that we've been using for 30 years. 30 years. But I think over that time, over those 30 years that we've been debating this, the sort of big ideas that we're debating have occluded and pushed away the facts on the ground. And, you know, I'm all for using metaphors and for, you know, you can't organize a movement around, you know,

just kind of vague ideas about reforming agriculture. You have to have one kind of rallying point to bring people in. And I think that's totally understandable. bring people in. And I think that's totally understandable. I'm just worried that this metaphor of GMOs for our industrial food system has been in use for so long now that it's gotten stale. And what happens to a metaphor when it's no longer connected to the facts on the ground that are originally represented, is that it becomes a cliche. It becomes meaningless. And instead of enlightening our thinking, it takes us farther away from a reasonable discussion that can actually move us forward. And distracts us, I guess. I've seen you argue elsewhere that it distracts us from some

other issues that are very, very important. And also, there's a lot more potential to deal with them. Yeah, I am. I am dismayed by the amount of political capital that's getting poured into GMO labeling. You know, it's fine. It's like, I'm, as I've said, I'm pro labeling. But, but every time I see the dollar amounts that are spent and just all this energy with workers going out and volunteering and writing things on Facebook and the rest, climate change action or if we could channel that into a push for better use of fertilizers on industrial farm so they're not polluting so much. If we could channel that into people actually being willing to pay a fair

price for a farmer's work who's actually doing good stewardship on the land and producing a truly healthy, in every sense of the word, product, man, oh man, I think we'd accomplish a lot more. It's a good point. Well, I just have one last thing to ask you about Nathaniel. I actually had more, but, but, uh, I have taken up too much of your time already, but I'll, I guess I'll end on this. I'm a certified organic farmer and the large majority of people in the

certified organic farming community, uh, they're pretty strident about the GMO debate and they're generally pretty anti-GMO. If your overarching conclusion that you made about just the health aspect of GMOs in terms of human health, in terms of their consumption, if you're right about that, in terms of their consumption, if you're right about that, and if all of these major scientific institutions in the world that have also endorsed that notion that, that yes, there's a tiny bit of risk, but overall there's a decent amount of testing going on and that the stuff on the market is safe. Do you think, how does that make you feel about the certified organic system? I mean, you're someone who's very skeptical and rational. I get the sense from some of your writing. It seems to me like you probably,

I know you believe in organic agriculture and I think you probably purchase organic products, but do you think it undermines, does it make you question the rest of the certified organic regime when you see them embracing this notion that these are terribly, terribly dangerous for human health?

Well, it does. Yes. The short answer is yes. I mean, it does concern me. And it frustrates me when I'll go shopping at this, you know, natural food store locally and I'll see, you know, they've got this area for books and it's all full of Jeffrey Smith's stuff. And Jeffrey Smith is just kind of one of the most out there anti-GMO, you know, just really taking extreme liberties with the, with the science.

And, and it's just, you know, this is someone that should not have the support of good forward-thinking, progressive people. And so that does bother me to no end. I think that the bigger issue for me is that I want the organic farming movement to be successful. And I think that right now we've entered a period of technological, well, regulatory, not technological, but regulatory lock-in and ideological lock-in to some sense as well. So it's not moving forward in the way it could because we've created this thing where we have a definition of what's certified organic. And then you can get a little bit of a market benefit um from that but but then i see farmers just simply defending that and and using it as a marketing strategy and not really pushing forward to make themselves even more sustainable.

See, Nathaniel, you're so right about that. And I just, I worry, actually, I believe it's very short-sighted thinking. There's certainly, I see my colleagues at the farmer's market really capitalizing on people's fear of GMOs, but I'm very involved in the organic movement in Canada. But I'm very involved in the organic movement in Canada. And I don't have a problem with the organic movement saying we're against GMOs because of reasons like we're concerned about the power, increased power it gives to the large monopolyongering about the health risks, when the science really doesn't support it, I of shaken me because there's these organizations that I've just always sort of like, oh yeah, these are the good guys, trusted. And, you know, and then I see something from the Organic Trade Association, you know, and it's just, they're saying like crazy stuff that's

just like so far out there that it's it's like ah you know i just want i'd like to i just want you guys to be to be kicking butt rather than kind of um just defending defending the turf that you have and using this you know very powerful instinct that a lot of people have around GMOs to have this sort of temporary boost in market share. Nathaniel Johnson, thanks a lot for coming on the Ruminant Podcast. I found this all really interesting and I hope my listeners will too. Thank you for taking the time and having the interest. And I'm glad there's at least a few organic farmers out there who haven't been totally alienated by my inquiry. Only the shells like me, Nathaniel, unfortunately. Take it easy.

Okay, so that's it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation and I hope you will consider checking out Nathaniel Johnson's excellent series on GMOs called Panic-Free GMOs, which can be found at grist.org. Next week, my podcast will feature a conversation I had with a farmer who was very successful in starting a commercial culinary herb operation. And he really, really knows his culinary herbs and shares a whole bunch of advice for anyone who wants to try and do what he did so i hope you'll you'll check out the ruminant podcast for that next week and in the meantime i hope you'll consider calling our new voicemail hotline

to share any good ideas you think other farmers would like to know about you can do that by calling 310-734-8426. Have a good week, everybody. Because why would we live in a place that don't want us A place that is trying to bleed us dry. We could be happy with life in the country, with salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands. I've been doing a lot of thinking, some real soul searching, and here's my final resolve. I don't need a big old house or some fancy car to keep my love going strong. So we'll run right out into the wilds and graces. ride out into the wilds and graces we'll keep close quarters with gentle faces and live next door to the birds and the bees and live life like it was meant to be Bye.