Let's Talk About GMOs
and why we have to have more nuanced conversations about them
Still from Okja
What to expect!
a link to a guest lecture I did on GMOs (genetically modified organisms) plus some additional thoughts I have on this topic
what I’m reading and eating
****
This month I gave a guest lecture for an Intro to Environmental Humanities course. The class was watching Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja and reading All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki. I lectured on the topic of GM (or genetically modified) foods and industrial agriculture!
You can listen to the 30 min lecture here, but please note that this is a very cursory glance at GMOs. I don’t engage with conversations surrounding GMOs and human health. I am sure that I’ll write more about this dense topic in a future newsletter.
The patenting of food products is something I think about a lot. Because GMOs have their genetic material altered, they are technically novelties. This means that whoever invented the organism (or the particular genetic sequence in one particular iteration of the organism) can apply for a patent. A patent gives the inventor the right to stop others from making or selling their invention.
Having ownership over one’s intellectual property can be crucial, particularly for independent researchers, graduate students, and people who would otherwise not have much recourse if their work was plagiarized. However, often, and particularly in the case of industrial food production, patent claims are weaponized against disenfranchised peoples. In the case of food production, disenfranchised peoples would include small scale farmers, particularly in the Global South. That said, there are plenty of examples of corporations going after small farmers in the U.S. and Canada over patent infringements. Percy Schmeiser v. Monsanto is the most notable Canadian example.
Examples like these make me, and many folks concerned with equity and food sovereignty, very wary of the patents held by multinational corporations. Through the sales and distribution of their patented seeds (and the pesticides and insecticides that work in conjunction with these seeds), multinationals like Bayer-Monsanto, and others, continue to accumulate land and wealth all over the world, but especially in colonized and formerly colonized places.
For the many reasons I mention in the lecture, GMOs can exacerbate existing global inequities, especially those related to climate change and food access. There have also been a number of compelling arguments about how the proliferation of GM seeds exert new iterations of colonial power. In other words, gaining land via spreading GM seeds is one way for powerful corporations to occupy formerly colonized countries. These dynamics are further explored in “Neo-Agro-Colonialism, Control over Life, and Imposed Spatio-Temporalities” where the authors argue that “the instrumental use of life fabrication within the rationale of globalized capital (re)creates post-colonial temporalities that legitimize (re)new(ed) colonial ties.”
Unfortunately, these issues are rarely engaged with in mainstream conversations about GMOs. Rather, GM foods are often defended as the technological solution to climate change. This defense loves to frame GMO critics as techno-skeptics or techno-pessimists.
I wholeheartedly reject this reductive framing and here’s one example of why that is. I was once presenting at an international food studies conference in Rome (this is important for context as I find that global conversations about food and colonialism differ tremendously from the ones I’m used to; that is, there isn’t much conversation about colonialism and food in some parts of the world). Myself, and many of my colleagues presented papers on how patented seeds have been used against colonized and formerly colonized peoples. It was interesting to see how much these topics resonated with folks living in settler colonial nation-states and formerly colonized countries. I met two instructors from South Africa who explained that many of the problems with GM seeds that I had presented on were problems they were seeing in South Africa. However, after the presentations, one (British) audience member expressed her frustration at us all for being so “anti-technology,” and with that, dismissed all of the concerns about food sovereignty that the panel had raised.
I return to this person’s frustration often because it frustrates me. Not only did this person not engage with the research that was presented but, in my mind, her view of technology was far too reductive and far too familiar. Often mainstream media conflates Euro-Western science and technology. But “technology” does not equal Euro-Western institutions of science. Indigenous peoples and peasant farmers all over the world have been performing experiments, researching, learning, and adapting their agricultural practices for millennia while protecting environmental health. To dismiss legitimate concerns about the implications patented seeds have on climate change and food sovereignty movements around the globe, and to instead turn the issue into a pro-tech vs. anti-tech debate isn’t in the interest of people or the planet.
Let’s have more nuanced conversations about GMOs, ones that stray from the reductive pro-tech/anti-tech dichotomy.
****
Reading:
An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler
This is a different kind of cookbook. It is more like a meditation on cooking that integrates recipes into those meditations. Alder’s recipes focus on simplicity and sustainability. They are largely vegetable based but she also has excellent reflections on sourcing meat and getting the most out of more expensive ingredients without compromising deliciousness. I really enjoyed this read!
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
This is a novel about a recently disengaged woman who moves home after her father’s Alzheimer's diagnosis. It includes interesting meditations on food and illness, guilt, grief and joy. Another good read.
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
This is a wild novel about a food critic and serial killer who cannibalizes her ex-lovers. It was an entertaining read for sure and has some pretty interesting meditations on consumption, butchery, and gender. For those who have watched You on Netflix, the main character in this book sometimes gave Love Quinn energy. Take that as you will.
Listening:
What You’re Eating: “Can Fake Meat Save the World?”
This podcast episode is a great compliment to the guest lecture I gave and offers some important perspectives on how the GMO conversation overlaps with debates surrounding faux meat!
Eating:
Focaccia! I’m currently working on my own recipe, so expect that in the future. I’m a much better cook than I am baker but I am always so blown away by bakers who know their dough well enough— know what they need to add, in what amounts and in order—to make something truly delicious. Cooking is more forgiving than baking, in my experience. But I’m learning and that’s exciting!
Drinking:
I find ginger tea, sometimes with lemon, to be such a delicious and warming drink. Sometimes I’ll buy ginger-lemon tea bags, sometimes I’ll just use fresh or dried ginger with a lemon slice. I love ginger and when I went to Mysore in 2018 I would drink multiple cups of ginger lemon honey tea each day. I’ve yet to make a cup as deliciously gingery as the ones my hosts made for me! An important note: I know that ginger-lemon-honey is yet another South Asian beverage that has been “discovered” by the wellness industry, not to the same extent as turmeric and chai, for example, but I still think it’s worth noting and reflecting on. For those who would like to join me in reflection, here is a great (brand new) podcast episode about “How Indian Food Became Frustratingly Hip”
Take care of yourselves!
M.