Proposition 37

As a scientist and a foodie, I am happy Proposition 37 failed. While I understand that the campaign against it was funded by Monsanto (a company with policies I would consider questionable, at best), it was not a good proposition. The argument for it was funded by an anti-vaccine nut, and the parallels are obvious. Study after study has shown that GMO foods are no different than "regular" food (and I put regular in quotes for a reason), however the argument says that just because we say something's safe now doesn't mean it's actually safe. Scientists don't speak in absolutes, which is frustrating to the public and leaves room for them to grab on and present a counterargument.

Now, what exactly is the difference between GMO food and what we consider "regular" food? a few dozen years. Much of the food we eat has been genetically modified in some way or another--that's what cross-breeding is. Why is your tomato uniformly red, rather than tasty? They were bred that way. Tomato breeders found that certain tomatoes turned red more uniformly, and genetically selected those. Those tomatoes have a genetic mutation that we've selected for. We also do the same thing with pest-resitant crops. In the early days of agriculture, our ancestors would notice that some crops just weren't tasty to bugs, and select for those. How is that different than finding a gene that makes our plants taste icky to bugs and inserting it straight in the DNA? It's the same process, just quicker. I'd rather that than ingest questionable amounts of chemical pesticides.

That's my scientific reasoning, but I'm also interested in food and the quality of my food, so I do understand why people are against Monsanto. Monoculture is highly damaging to the environment, and the way our food is treated is terrible. Unfortunately, there are too many people on this planet for everyone to eat organically and locally. And while you can argue about overpopulation and how the best way to handle it is, the reality is that right now we have 7 billion people to feed.

Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan argue that if only people knew what they eating and how bad it was for them they would shop solely at the farmer's market, eat only locally sourced, organic food, and spend time crafting home-cooked meals for the whole family to eat together. This is just not realistic for many people. It's hard for me, and I have the luxury of money and time. My farmer's market is on Thursday afternoon until sundown, and only runs from June until October. I have to plan ahead and leave work earlier than usual. In the summer, that's fine, since the sun sets late here in Boston. Come October, it's a no-go. For a person with a desk job, that might not work. And then there are the food deserts. Some people don't even have a reasonable grocery store, much less a farmer's market. Some people work two jobs and don't have time to cook. Yes, it might be cheaper in the long run to make home-cooked meals, but you don't account for the time it takes. That's time someone could be getting paid.

We need to seriously think about how we use our resources in the United States. If you really want to fight Monsanto, we need to entirely overhaul agribusiness. If we stop subsidizing corn and soy, food prices across the board will go up. The price of food in other countries is significantly higher in other countries than it is in the US, which I think many people here are unwilling to pay. Yes, let's educate people about food, but let's also make it easier for people to make good choices. Let's address the growing inequality between the rich and the poor so that everyone has the opportunity to eat in a sustainable manner. Let's all eat more vegetables and less meat to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses produced. We need to change the way we think about how wasteful we are as a country, not just when it comes to food but in regards to everything. Do you need a new car every year? A new iPad? New clothes that you're going to toss after three months because they're no longer "in style"? Addressing these questions is hard, and won't be fixed by slapping a vague label on a can of spaghetti-o's.

Here are a couple of articles on the subject, if you're interested:
GMOs are OK
Why Activists Need to Stop Stoking Scientifically Baseless Fears About GMOs for Political Purposes