As final US decision nears, a lively debate on GM salmon
An interesting debate. Paul Greenberg, critic of genetically-engineered salmon, and Elliot Entis, CEO of a company which will soon be selling the AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon.
Greenberg:
"To your main points about improved efficiency of ANY
species, be it Atlantic salmon or coho or tilapia. Yes, obviously it
would be better to have more efficient, less impactful animals for our
food. But it’s also clear to me that the diet of the future is going to
contain less animal protein. It simply makes more sense. The loss of
energy that happens when you feed an animal and then eat that animal,
instead of what you’re feeding it, will not be economically acceptable
in a few more decades, even if animals are more efficient. Greater
efficiency is a distraction from the
larger problem of humans and our unsustainable over-reliance on animal protein. I’m reminded of something told to me by the writer Anna Lappé (daughter of France Moor Lappé, who wrote Diet for a Small Planet).
Anna’s essential issue with GE crops, be they salmon or corn or pigs,
was the open-ended way they formulate our response to population growth.
If we continue to bend the rules of nature so that we can provide more
and more food for an open-ended expansion of humans on the planet,
something eventually will have to give. Would you like to live in a
world of 15 billion people? 20 billion? I would not. And while it’s
possible you will label my response as New Age-ish, I feel that GE food
distracts us from the real question of the carrying capacity of the
planet."
Entis:
"Paul, you cannot with credibility applaud and encourage
increasing the efficiencies of aquaculture through the use of indoor
systems as you have often done, while simultaneously disparaging
efficiencies if they come from better understanding of fish genetics.
While consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, I think that in
the context of this discussion it has some merit. And while I understand
and share your concern for the potential degradation of our habitat and
our lifestyles if population growth is unchecked, it is not clear to me
that you have set forth a coherent message. It seems that personally
you want to be able to continue to eat meat protein, but not have it so
available that everyone can afford to have it."
Paul Greenberg started off what was for me the most interesting part of the discussion by mentioning the world's reliance on animal protein. This gets him to his real point, that efficiency in food production systems is... a bad thing, or at the very least, distracting. The argument is horrible, in so many ways.
It is far more efficient for us to eat vegetable protein directly than to give it to a cow and then eat the cow. May thoughtful people turn to vegetarianism on this fact. There is much to say for changes in our lifestyle that result in eating less meat. However, this is not a premise that leads us to the conclusion, as Greenberg puts it, that we should NOT strive for maximal efficiency in animal production systems. As he puts it, by achieving further efficiency in production of animal protein, we "
continue to bend the rules of nature so that we can provide more
and more food for an open-ended expansion of humans on the planet". This argument boils down to: all (eating less meat) or nothing (we should NOT strive for lower costs and smaller environmental footprints, or really, anything because the ultimate flaw is eating meat.) There may be some biase in his criteria for nature-bending... after all, we've been hunters and gathers for how many millennia? If the real goal is to slow the expansion of the human race, then shouldn't we be giving up vegetables and embracing the inefficiency of meat?
Greenberg's discussion is based on purely Malthusian principles: More food >> more population growth >> resource depletion >> population crash. According to him, improving living standards could lead to a world population of 20 billion. This is indeed a sticky thing to think about.
Here's a helpful insight: Well-to-do societies tend to have lower population growth than the not-so-well-off societies. Improvement in living standards is the basis of the projected 'plateau' of the human population after 2050.
The 'rule-book' is not founded in the semantics of what is natural. Imperfect and biased as it may be, it is based on detailed analyses of benefits and tradeoffs -- social, economic, environmental, and otherwise. We need more research into GM. So far, though, there has been increasing consensus in the scientific community that consumption of GM foods is reasonably safe. The jury is still out. In regards to production, there are social-economic consequences (ie. mega-corporations exploiting people) and environmental consequences that need to be considered. We need, first, to nail these consequences down, then consider trade-offs with non-GMO food production. If it does turn out to be reasonably safe, this sort of attitude will start to resemble a witch hunt more than anything else.
We can choose not to consume GM products. Given the enormous potential for this technology to benefit other people, on what grounds do we take away the choice for others of growing and consuming GM foods? If, hypothetically, Greenberg's points were all valid... Who gets meat and who doesn't? Who gets to have children? In what world does a desperate person choose to conserve, rather than deplete, limited resources? If choice is removed, then who chooses for them? How to pick and choose?
Whether or not GM technology turns out to be safe, the jury is out. It has some real benefits but also some real disadvantages. People also deserve the choice. Long story short, efficiency is the only realistic, long-term solution to conservation. Optimizing the efficiency of resources, in feeding the world population, is the ultimate goal of agriculture in this century. And, importantly, agronomic efficiency does not necessitate un-sustainability; quite the contrary. Agronomic efficiency and environmental sustainability are often the same thread.
Efficiency is the first priority in sustainable food production. There is simply no way around it.
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