Is there a sustainable agriculture certification that sees GMOs as potentially beneficial?

Question

I keep dreaming of a certification body that has stringent and ever-evolving standards for a sustainable agriculture that looks after the environment and humans, with a rigorous but open mind when it comes to technologies that could help us get to a more sustainable and ethical food production system.

In my opinion, GMOs are unjustifiably seen as an entirely evil thing by a big chunk of the population. I acknowledge the fact that some are associated with the use of potentially dangerous pesticides, and the fact that some companies that commercialise them demonstrate unethical practices. However, I understand that genetic engineering has the potential of helping humanity solve issues related to food security and the impact of agriculture on the environment by developing varieties that are more nutritious, grow more efficiently, require less resources, are drought resistant and defend themselves against pests.

Is there a label (i.e. a certification body) that integrates soundly developed and tested GMOs as a part of the solution?

Answer 1

Given that you can't "soundly test" the long-term effects of GMOs on humans without first exposing humans to GMOs for a long time (decades, even generations) I don't see how such a label would be of any use whatsoever to inform the purchasing decisions of the first few million/billion willing volunteers unwitting victims guinea pigs.

Given that a few million/billion people might be seriously ill or dead by the time the "sound testing" for a particular GMO was completed, and the liability bill could financially ruin any corporation, I don't see why anyone would run the risk of creating or backing such a label.

Even if such "sound testing" did occur, do you seriously believe that negative results would be made public? I don't. I'd expect the shredders to be running hot whenever testing data made its way back to head office.

"Grass-fed Beef" has been around for thousands of years, and has an established track-record of safety. Monsanto's "Moo-231987422/A" has been around for a few months, and is made by perhaps the most evil company in the world — with a track record of making nasty things that do bad stuff to animals, plants, and humans. Most rational people — interested in self-preservation — will opt for Grass-fed Beef on their plate.

Profit-driven corporations are immoral or, at the very least, amoral. Time and time again they have shown this to be true. The public don't trust them because they have a track record of deception, lies, and generally not caring about their customers. If the public can't trust the companies, they can't trust the products they make, either. The 99% of corporations that are untrustworthy have ruined it for the 1% of corporations that are actually trying to do the right thing. It's not the consumer's fault — it's corporate culture driven by greed that's at fault; it's capitalism.

If any certification body ever comes into existence to perform the function you desire then I think you'll find it is funded by the very corporations that would profit from its labelling. A mere puppet that can falsely promote customer confidence and be quickly liquidated when the class action lawsuits come rolling in.

At the very heart of the problem, though, is the fact that you can't label a GMO as 'safe' without exposing people (and their unborn children) to unknown levels of harm first. It's a Catch-22. You need willing tests subjects to verify that something is safe, but those test subjects want to know that it is safe before they're willing to eat it.

I don't know if it's even possible to solve that problem.