Humans crave new technology in communications, medicine, electronics, and transportation, but show reserve when new technology touches food. While the industrialized world enjoys the safest and most abundant food supply in human history, the same consumers voice concern about that same bounty. This problem is multi-faceted, with origins in a lack of corporate trust, appeals to nature, an internet filled with poor-quality information, and whims of affluent consumers that spend a small percentage of their income on food. Human history has been a perennial battle against food scarcity and under-nutrition. Crop domestication and the emergence of agriculture changed that. Today’s modern technologies, led by plant genetic improvement, have provided sustained food security. Some of these technologies implement recombinant DNA technology, commonly known as genetic engineering. These new genetic technologies allow farmers to produce record yields with fewer impacts on the environment. However, these same technologies are often maligned and misrepresented by a well-funded and deceptive movement that uses soft scientific claims, misrepresentation of the literature, manufactured risk, fear, and blatant misinformation to promote their cause. Here this contemporary food war is explained, an unfortunate fight playing out at the intersection of science and food, with impacts on farmers, the environment, consumers and the poverty stricken.
Crop Biotechnology. Where Now?