California, The Drought, and GMOs

I recently had to make a trip to Canada. I love going back to Canada for many reasons, but this trip was a bit rough because it was for a family funeral. We tried to make the most out of the trip, and stayed longer to visit with my parents and siblings. And I promise that this narrative has a point :)

It was great for my son. He got to spend lots of time with his cousins, but he just couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that we were in Canada, because every time we skype with my folks, they show him the snow banks outside; so Canada is synonymous to snow in his young mind (it's actually not too far from the truth :) ). Since we were visiting in April there was no snow, but there was PLENTY of rain. It was probably just as fascinating for the kid, because he seldom sees rain. Several times, I

River in Belleville, ON

caught him with his face pressed up against the glass, just staring at the novelty of rain (and leaving face prints on my sister's windows). 

As you probably know, our home state of California is in the midst of one of its worst droughts on record. There are regulations in place to conserve water and there are many ideas being tossed around on why there's a drought and what can be done or could have been done to deal with the water shortage. Regardless of the reasons, the drought was at the forefront of my mind as I watched the torrential rain pour down, and I admired the brooks and rivers in Belleville, Ontario.

My dad asked me several times if we had thought of moving back to Canada. Of course, he'd love to have all his kids (and more importantly, grandkids) around him, but he was concerned about the future of California and our future living in the state. He explained that if the drought continued as some predict it may, California might become less than hospitable, our home (and a good portion of our investments locked into it) may lose its value, and he suggested that we consider cashing out and moving somewhere more water-rich. There's some logic to his reasoning, but I don't agree. Here's why:

Moving somewhere else to escape a drought implies that the changes in our weather are unique to California, and they're not. Extreme weather patterns, including extreme cold/heat, will become more frequent as we see deepening impacts of climate change. The World Health Organization highlights that with changes in climate come changes in infectious diseases, as well as impacts to our food supply. Even if you don't live in California, you'll be impacted by its drought since so much of America's fresh produce is grown here. So there's no escaping climate change. As apocalyptic as it sounds, there's no safe haven. If it's a drought in one place, it'll be more severe hurricanes in another, or a longer winter, or a harsher summer. 

If you accept the scientific consensus that our climate is changing, you have to admit that providing food is going to be a big problem in the next few decades. Not only that, but there's also going to be more people living on the planet, which makes the problem even worse. Although I've joked on this blog that switching to a career in plant sciences would be awesome (because I want to make a peelable pomegranate), given the gravity of the challenges we'll be facing, it legitimately seems like a future-proof career path.

Anti-GMO advocates argue that GMOs will not be able to feed the world as we start facing these challenges. But as many GMO advocates point out, transgenesis is simply a tool that researchers have at their disposition when developing a crop. There's no doubt in my mind that we will need any and all tools available to deal with the challenge of feeding our population while dealing with the changes in climate that will become more and more apparent as we continue living our lives in the status quo.

Although I started this blog to document my learning about GMOs, I guess I've become more of an advocate for transgenesis, because I think that dealing with climate change will be one of the greater challenges that my generation and that of my son will face. And yes, traditional cross-breeding will probably help develop some drought resistant crops. But in some cases, transgenesis might develop some crops more quickly and more precisely, so why not keep it as an option on the table? (that pun wasn't intended, but it's pretty awesome). A quick search for keywords drought+tolerance+transgenic in the NIH's pubmed database found hundreds of papers, an example of which is this very recent paper where alfalfa was made more drought and salt tolerant by adding a gene from the sweet potato. Let's assume that half of these studies are shown not to be feasible options for product development, but that still leaves us with a couple of dozen transgenic crops that might be viable options for farmers in years of drought. As the people and elected officials in California wag their fingers in disapproval at farmers who grow almonds, rice, or alfalfa, I wonder if many of these people would consider transgenic crops as viable alternatives.

And let me beat you to the punch: growing drought-resistant transgenics will not address the underlying causes of the drought. This all-or-none argument is often invoked by anti-GMO advocates, particularly those who oppose Golden Rice on the basis that it doesn't address the underlying cause of malnutrition. But using that as an excuse to oppose drought/salt/high-temp/low-temp resistant GMOs is a lame-ass excuse? It's like saying that I shouldn't take shorter showers or buy a water-efficient washing machine to reduce my water consumption, because neither one of these activities will address the underlying causes of the drought. Or that I shouldn't compost spoiled veggies/fruit because it doesn't address the issue of food waste.

So that's the long-winded answer to my dad on why I don't think we'll be leaving California. Also, I must admit to all my Canadian relatives and friends: I took long showers while staying at your houses. I'm kinda not sorry :)

The Life and Times of BioChica as Told Through GMO Legislation Around the World

As you may know, I'm not American. The spouse and Mr Chubby-Cheeks were born in the US, whereas I was born in Canada. But that's not the whole story: my parents are Iranian who fled the Islamic revolution in 1979 due to their religion, I was born in Canada, raised in Venezuela (which is why I've written about dengue), and I actually met the spouse while working for a year in Israel. I don't know where we'll end up: probably wherever I get decent job offers. Until today, my blog has been very US-centric, but this post will have a more international angle.

This article is about different nations' laws and regulations surrounding GMOs. A common argument that you may read about the dangers of GMOs is how different countries around the world have banned them or have legislation around them. Here's an example from the Non-GMO Project's website:

"Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe. In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs."

You can see how this can lead to a conspiracy theory with the following narrative: GMOs aren't properly tested in the United States. In Europe, scientists have discovered that GMOs can be harmful and they've been banned. But in the US, the FDA is in bed with Monsanto, which is why we're eating these toxic poisons and we aren't being told the truth.

To quote Professor Higgins, it's "so deliciously low, so horribly dirty!" Hence the appeal of this particular conspiracy theory. 

In terms of "bans", there's actually only one country in the world that has an outright ban: Kenya. Recently, there have been calls to lift the ban due to farming losses. 

All other countries have laws and regulations surrounding biotech crops. That includes the United States. There's a reason why you can't just make a transgenic crop and have it sold in stores the following season. So, for the rest of this article, I'm going to look at laws surrounding GMOs in 4 different countries: Canada, Israel, Venezuela and Iran. 

It's the "The Life and Times of BioChica as told Through GMO Legislation Around the World". 

GMO Legislation in Venezuela, Iran, Israel, and Canada

Venezuela: Venezuela's story about GMOs is fascinating (in my biased opinion). To understand Venezuela's stance on GMOs, a bit of a background is needed: Hugo Chavez was elected as Venezuela's president in 1999 and remained in power till his death in 2013. He led a "socialist revolution" that took a very hard anti-American, "anti-imperialist" stance (whatever that means...). As such, much of the policies in the country reflect this attitude. In 2002, Chavez passed a "seed law" which included the establishment of an institute that would oversee the testing, development and research of transgenics. However, in 2004 Chavez made the sudden decision of cancelling a contract with Monsanto, which was about to plant 500,000 acres of GM corn. There was no legal ban, yet no one has planted transgenic crops in Venezuela ever since the incident, which was paired with Chavez's public statement: "the people of the United States, of Latin America and the world, should follow the example of Venezuela and be free of transgenics.”

However, Venezuela relies very heavily on imports and food shortages have become increasingly common the last decade and have hit an all-time high in the last 1-2 years. Two of Venezuela's biggest import partners are Argentina and Brazil, who also happen to be global leaders in the number of acres dedicated to transgenic crops. Despite the fact that Venezuela needs a dramatic increase in food production to meet the demands of its growing population, it plans to pass a law that will straight-out ban growing GMOs.

Here's where it gets interesting. This story comes from Dr Felix Moronta (@morontafelix) who generously gave me permission to translate the story from his website. A recent study published in a regional journal examined 12 Venezuelan corn growers in 2011: 10 were government owned and 2 were privately owned, and these represented 70% of the corn growers in the country. Using tests that searched for the transgenic protein as well as for transgenic DNA, the authors were able to determine that a government owned company was actually growing transgenic Bt-corn (for more info on Bt-corn and transgenic proteins, please see previous post). The authors were also able to determine that the crop being grown carried a patented trait (transgenic event TC1507). The journal article, as well it's summary by Dr Moronta, ask the government to 'fess up and to clarify their stance. As Dr Moronta eloquently outlines, the government is banning growing and doing research on GMOs, yet they import tons of GM grains and goods, AND they're growing them on the DL. Makes no sense...

I can only conclude that Venezuela's position has NOTHING to do with the safety of transgenics. If it was legitimately about safety, then there would be laws surrounding their import. In reading articles and news stories, the sense that I get is that Venezuela's ban on transgenics seems to be due to 1) sticking it to "imperialist" big-Ag. 2) striving for food sovereignty and 3) removing GM seeds from the equation so that small farmers can be successful in the socialist revolution. However, there's no evidence that the moratorium on growing GMOs has contributed to any of these goals given the devastating food shortages.

Iran: Unfortunately, I can only read Farsi up to a 1st or 2nd grade level at best, so most of this information came through translated material. Only one transgenic crop has been approved for cultivation in Iran: rice. It makes perfect sense: rice is eaten every day in an Iranian household. According to my dad, it's not real food unless it has rice. A form of Bt-rice was approved in 2004, but when President Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, his administration "decided against the release of GM crops". It's important to note that Iran was the first nation to commercialize transgenic rice and this article outlines how Iran had hoped to quickly follow this success with additional crops. There was no ban or legislation against GMOs. Apparently, the decision to drop the commercialization of GMOs was due to the lack of a "biosafety law in the country, and 2) lack of harmonization among different stakeholders (Ministry of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Organization etc.)". However, the Iranian government now feels that a decent biosafety law is now established, and the law's text states that the government should facilitate the release, research, commercialization, etc of GMOs.

Makes sense:  I don't think that international companies based out of the US would be allowed to trade with Iran due to the current sanctions that are in place, so Iran's probably trying to figure out a way to boost food production. Mmmmmmmm... Tahchin made with GM rice... Drool...

Israel: Before I start this section, I've got to tell you something about Israel. It's a desert. It's hot. It can be really dusty. But despite all this, the local fruits and veggies are spectacular (here's Wikipedia's article on agriculture in Israel). There are no GMOs commercialized in Israel, even though the country is a hotbed for research into GMOs. This comes as no surprise considering the interest that the nation has in drought-resistant crops. Apparently, this is due to the fact that a very large portion of Israel's agricultural exports head to the EU, where they are slow to approve transgenic crops for import and have labelling laws as well. As such, growing GMOs might have financial repercussions if the EU were to decide to be more wary of Israeli produce.

I couldn't find the actual text of any laws. If anyone out there knows where I could find them, please let me know.

Canada: This database lists a slew of GMOs that have been approved for cultivation in Canada. Health Canada's website has a great description of the regulatory process to gain approval for cultivation and/or sale of a new crop. When someone is interested in submitting a new crop, they're encouraged to consult with Health Canada beforehand to determine if there are any potential red flags. Then they submit the paperwork and undergo a scientific assessment. Health Canada can request additional information, will summarize it's findings, prepares a ruling, and then posts the information on the Health Canada website. It seems very similar to the process in the US under the FDA.


What struck me when I was doing research for this article, is how little the science of GMOs were mentioned. I didn't find any evidence to support the Non-GMO projects' statement that "most developed countries do not consider GMOs to be safe", albeit I only looked into 4 countries for this article. However, these 4 countries are extremely diverse in terms of economic status and development, as well as their relationship with the US. Despite these differences, I think that the common thread in this article seems to be the fact that laws for and against GMOs are economic or political in nature, and have little to do with safety. If it were genuinely about safety, then they'd ban the import of GMOs and join the ranks of Kenya.

Happy New Year y'all! Or, Feliz Año!