“Overblown fears have turned the public against genetically modified food. But the potential benefits have never been greater,” says a New York Times Magazine long-read that’s well worth your time.
Scientists are using biotechnology to supercharge foods—like a purple tomato with proven anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties due to an added boost of anthocyanin, explains The New York Times Magazine.
The challenge? The purple tomato is classified as a GMO—which “brings with it a host of obligations,” including a regulatory process that could cost $1 million and a history of public mistrust and misconceptions about the technology.
Read: Gene Editing 101
“People think, Well, if you’ve got this really strict regulatory system, then it must be really dangerous. So it becomes self-reinforcing,” said Eric Ward, co-CEO of AgBiome, a biotech company using microbes to improve food crops.
Read: Resilience needs innovation—and workable regulations
But with the global population expected to increase by 2 billion by 2050, we need GMO crops more than ever. “So where’s that extra food going to come from?” asked Andrew Allan, a plant biologist at the University of Auckland. “It can’t come from using more land, because if we use more land, then we’ve got to deforest more, and the temperature goes up even more. So what we really need is more productivity. And that, in all likelihood, will require GMOS.”
The better news: “In recent years, many environmental groups have also quietly walked back their opposition as evidence has mounted that existing GMOs are both safe to eat and not inherently bad for the environment.”
“Probably the angriest I’ve ever felt was when anti-GMO groups destroyed fields of Golden Rice growing in the Philippines,” said Mark Lynas, a former anti-GMO writer and activist who disavowed his opposition to GMOs in 2013. “To see a crop that had such obvious lifesaving potential ruined—it would be like anti-vaxxer groups invading a laboratory and destroying a million vials of COVID vaccine.”
Read the whole thing.
Learn how BIO’s working to grow trust in innovation.
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White House: The Path to Achieving Justice40
Justice40 is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that Federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities. Today, we are taking a key step toward achieving the President’s ambitious goal and issuing interim guidance that will help Federal agencies deliver on the Justice40 Initiative. Read more from BIO's Cornelia Poku on biotech's role to help address environmental justice.
