Illinois Farm Families Blog

Fourat Janabi

 Greetings and salutations my fellow readers. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride publishing the last two posts on GMOs, so I thought to myself, where should I go next? Dive further into the rabbit hole (making myself ever more unpopular), or switch topics? I have an interview with a scientist, check! With a farmer, check! Biotech firm? Bingo! An opportunity thus presented itself, so down I went further down the rabbit hole.

So, to round out—and conclude—my trifecta (or triumvirate—a much cooler word that makes me sound smarter than I am) of posts about GMO, I have just finished up an email Q&A with the CEO and founder of Okanagan Specialty Fruits (OSF), Neal Carter, whose company makes Arctic Apples (apples that don’t brown). In my two previous Q&As— with a scientist here and with a family farmer here—I had commentary and concluding thoughts; this time, I prefer to let their positions stand on its own two feet, as it is more than capable of.

Do note, however. I am not trying to convince anyone to not eat organic food, or to eat GMO food, so don’t get your knickers in a twist.

 

1) What prompted your company to create a GM nonbrowning apple? Why not, for example, try to do the same with hybridization?

Our motivation for developing biotech apples, and all our other projects under development, is to introduce value-added traits that will benefit the tree-fruit industry. We have chosen to focus specifically on nonbrowning Arctic® apples as our flagship project for a number of reasons. One of the chief ones is that apple consumption has been flat-to-declining for the past two decades and we are confident the nonbrowning apple trait can create a consumption trigger while also reducing food waste throughout the supply chain.

Another key motivation is ever-increasing demand for convenience. Arctic apples are ideally suited for the freshcut market, which is expensive to enter because of the browning issue. We often refer to the consumption trigger that convenient “baby” carrots created – they now make up 2/3rds of all U.S. carrot sales!

As for why we use biotechnology to achieve this, it’s because we knew we could make a comparatively minor change safely, relatively quickly, and precisely. We silence only four genes, specifically, the ones that produce polyphenol oxidase, which is the enzyme that drives the browning process. We do so primarily through the use of other apple genes, and no new proteins are created. If we were to attempt to breed this trait conventionally, we could easily spend decades trying with no guarantee of success.

2) What benefits will the Arctic apple bring to the food market? Are there quantitative studies that can predict how effective it could be?

In addition to addressing stagnant apple consumption and tapping into the underutilized freshcut and foodservice markets, Arctic apples offer plenty of other benefits throughout the supply chain.

For growers and packers, nonbrowning apples can help significantly reduce the huge number of apples that never make it to market because of minor superficial marks such as finger bruising and bin rubs. So much of the food produced today is wasted purely for cosmetic reasons. This extends to retail where the nonbrowning trait can have a big impact on shrinkage and making displays more attractive while also offering exciting new value-added apple products.

Consumers will also benefit from throwing away far less fruit at home – how many apples get bruised up on the way back from the grocery store or in kids’ lunchboxes? Our goal is helping consumers, especially kids, eat healthier and waste less food. Last year, one grade 2 teacher wrote about how excited she is for nonbrowning apples, explaining she sees countless perfectly good apples and apple slices thrown out by her students due to minor browning and bruising. Consumers will also enjoy other tangible benefits like new opportunities for cut apples in many cooking applications.

As for quantifiable evidence showing the value of these benefits, food waste has been a major issue over the past year with recent estimates from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization suggesting around one-third of food produced is wasted. The numbers are even worse for fruit, where around half of what’s produced never ends up getting eaten.

As far as the potential to create a consumption trigger, the produce industry is full of examples of how making fruit more convenient, especially for the foodservice industry, results in huge consumption boosts. We mentioned how baby carrots now make up two-thirds of carrot sales and reports tracking major fruit and vegetable consumption trends frequently emphasize convenience. One example explains one of the most prominent, ongoing trends “is a consumer demand for foods of high and predictable quality that offer convenience and variety.” Arctic apples satisfy all these requirements.

For apples, specifically, there’s lots of attention given to how various chemical treatments can slow browning and plenty of attempts to conventionally breed low browning varieties (though this is quite different from being truly nonbrowning). For instance, a notable 2009 publication from the Journal of Food Engineering discusses how “the market for fresh-cut apples is projected to continue to grow as consumers demand fresh, convenient and nutritious snacks”. Yet it also explains that the “industry is still hampered by-product quality deterioration” because when “the cut surface turns brown; it reduces not only the visual quality but also results in undesirable changes in flavour and loss of nutrients, due to enzymatic browning.” Again, Arctic apples address these issues.

Finally, some of the most convincing evidence that the nonbrowning traits will provide substantial value – both apple producers and consumers have told us so! In 2006/07 we surveyed a number of apple industry executives, 76% of whom told us they were interested in Arctic apples. In focus groups, we have found that over 80% are positively interested in Arctic apples and 100% of participants wanted to try them. Even more encouraging, when we surveyed 1,000 self identified apple eaters in 2011, we found that their likelihood to buy Arctic apples continued to increase the more they learned about the science behind them!

3) How many, and how intensive, were the studies performed to show Arctic apples are as safe as other apples? Were the studies peer-reviewed? If so, by whom? (You may wish to discuss what was and/or wasn’t changed.)

Before getting into the specifics, it’s important to put things in perspective to show how rigorous the review truly is; particularly arduous for a small, resource-tight company like ours: (See timeline)

So Arctic apples, our very first project, still haven’t been commercialized 17 years after we were founded and over a decade after we proved the technology and planted them! That means we now have over ten years of real-world evidence that Arctic trees grow, respond to pest and disease pressure, flower, and fruit just as conventional trees do.

Over this time, our apples have likely become one of the most tested fruits in existence. This makes detailing all of the specific tests impossible here, but we encourage anyone interested to view our extensive, 163-page petition on the USDA’s website, which provides full details.

Quickly highlighting some of the key ones: 

• Trees were closely monitored by a third-party horticultural consultant for any difference in their response to pests
• Agronomic data including how fast trees grow, how much fruit they produce, etc. was recorded by a third-party
• Experiments were completed to monitor pollen spread and potential for cross-pollination, resulting in two peer-reviewed papers
• Nutrition and composition of mature fruit was tested and deemed equivalent to controls
• Possible presence of novel proteins tested and confirmed none present

These tests were performed by a variety of reputable groups and individuals, some third-party, some in-house. Our field trials were monitored and data was collected by independent horticultural consultants and an Integrated Pest Management specialist.

Of particular importance is the fact that there are no proteins in Arctic fruit that aren’t in all apples. This shows there’s nothing “new” in our apples that will affect consumers. This is expected as we silence the genes that cause browning, rather than introduce new attributes. To give an idea of how sophisticated the tests used to prove this are, they would be able to detect a single penny amongst 100-250 ton coal-sized rail cars! We are confident Arctic apples are safe, and soon, we anticipate FDA’s confirmation of this.

So what has all of this extensive testing taught us? Exactly what we thought it would – Arctic trees and fruits are just the same as their conventional counterparts until you bite, slice or bruise the fruit!

4) Can you name a few of the misconceptions — if any — that people associate your company with, or accuse your company of, when they find out you’re a biotech company? If there are misconceptions, why are they wrong or miss the big picture?

Absolutely – just as there are countless misconceptions about biotech foods in general, there are also plenty of myths about our company and Arctic apples. In fact, one of our most popular blog posts ever is titled “Addressing common misconceptions of Arctic orchards and fruit”.

We invite readers to visit that post and explore our site in general for more details, but the two most common misconceptions about Arctic apples are:

1. Arctic apples will cross-pollinate with other orchards, causing organic orchards to lose organic certification: No organic crop has ever been decertified from inadvertent pollen gene flow. Even if pollen from an Arctic flower did pollinate an organic or conventional fruit, the resulting fruit is the same as the mother flower….not that of the pollen donor. Additionally, we are implementing numerous stewardship standards to ensure cross-pollination won’t occur, including buffer rows, bee-hive placement, and restricting distance from other orchards.
2. Because Arctic apples don’t brown, they will disguise old/damaged fruit: The opposite is true! Arctic apples won’t experience enzymatic browning (which occurs when even slightly damaged cells are exposed to air), but the decomposition that comes from fungi, bacteria and/or rotting will be just the same as conventional apples. This means that you will not see superficial damage, but you will see a change in appearance when the true quality is impacted.

Other accusations we hear somewhat frequently from a vocal minority who oppose all biotech foods are “we don’t know what the effects will be down the road” or that we’re “messing with God/Mother Nature”. Regarding the first claim, the science tools we now have are truly amazing and we have an unprecedented level of precision, control and analysis when developing biotech crops. They must be meticulously reviewed before approval and around three trillion meals with biotech ingredients have now been consumed without incident. As to the messing with God/nature charges, biotech-enhanced crops are really just one more advancement in a long history of human-driven food improvements – and even the Amish and the Vatican support these advances!

5) As an insider, you are privy to the goings-on and workings of the biotech industry, what do you envision the future of biotech to be? What new seeds are coming down the line and what potential advantages or disadvantages might they bring?

We foresee biotech continuing to be the most rapidly adopted crop technology ever, as it has been for the past 17 years. We also anticipate already realized benefits from biotech crops to continue, such as those highlighted by a fifteen year study including increased net earnings of $78.4 billion for farmers (mostly from developing nations), a reduction of 438 million kg of pesticide spraying and the equivalent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as removing 8.6 million cars from the road for a year. Two major categories in particular where we’ll see further advancements are in environmental sustainability (reduced pesticide use, carbon emissions, food waste) and higher crop yields under adverse conditions (from pest resistance, drought-tolerance, etc.).

Another major trend you’ll see is the increased presence of biotech foods with direct consumer benefits, particularly nutrition. We will see many new projects following in the footsteps of crops like Golden Rice, which is fortified with beta-carotene; a precursor to Vitamin A. The World Health Organization has identified that around 250 million children under the age of 5 are affected by Vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness and death. Biotech crops like Golden rice can potentially save millions of lives by helping address this, and efforts are already underway to produce other Vitamin A enhanced crops including bananas and cassava.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as there are many other exciting developments on the way including many other nutrient-enhancements for cassava, numerous drought-resistant crops, blight-resistant potatoes and many more. I actually highlighted some of these crops in a TEDx talk I gave in October 2012 on the value of agricultural biotechnology, which is available to watch online.

6) As a biotech company, do you bear the brunt of the anti-GMO backlash nominally directed at Monsanto and DuPont? If so, how has this affected you? Please be specific.

All companies who develop biotech crops have to deal with a certain level of backlash from the vocal, emotional minority who oppose biotechnology.

We are quite unique because when consumers discuss biotech companies, names like Monsanto and DuPont, as you mention, are the first ones that come to mind, rarely small companies like ours. Using Monsanto as an example, they have approximately 22,000 employees – we have 7. Because most organizations in this industry are pretty massive, they do get the lion’s share of attention. That being said, if we were to create a ratio of media attention to company size; ours would be through the roof!

One key reason we likely get more than our fair share of attention is that we’re dealing with apples. When we’re talking about something as popular and iconic as the apple (e.g., “an apple a day”, “American as apple pie”), it’s going to get people emotionally charged. Genetically, our enhancement is relatively minor compared to the majority of crops out there; yet even so, when our petition was available for public comment along with 9 other biotech crops in the U.S., we received around three times as many comments as all 9 of the other petitions combined!

In terms of how all this attention affects us, we can dictate that to some extent. On one hand, we could simply choose to ignore it. The review process is evidence-based (and rightfully so!), meaning we could keep our heads down and let the science speak for itself and not worry about what people are saying. That’s not how we operate, however, as we believe in the benefits and safety far too much to keep quiet. We want to do our best to make sure accurate, evidence-based information is out there to counter-balance all the myths and misinformation. This may mean that we spend more time and resources on education than others might, but it’s too important of an issue not to.

We’ve made a concerted effort so transparency is the core of our identity. We know we have a safe, beneficial product and we’re happy to explain the truth around previously mentioned misconceptions. We make it a priority, no matter how busy things get, to keep active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, maintain a weekly blog, make timely site updates, respond to every single sincere email we get and invest in delivering presentation such as last year’s TEDx talk. 

We believe everyone in the science and agricultural industries have a responsibility to help educate the public on the facts of biotechnology. Sometimes that results in more backlash, but it’s worth it.

7) Some scientists state that the anti-GMO backlash has cemented Monsanto’s grip upon the market because only they can afford the regulatory burden, do you find this to be true in your experience? And how does this affect the greater biotechnology field?

Well, we’ve touched on how rigorous the review process is and how much smaller we are than the big industry players, so yes, it is tough for smaller companies to bring a biotech crop to market. It’s challenging to raise funds, produce needed data, spend the resources providing education, and it’s just a much bigger overall risk.

While the regulatory burden is heavier for small biotech companies, I think we’re an example that it’s still possible for the little guys to make it through, but it’s not easy. Not only do you have to successfully develop a fantastic product, but you must be focused, persistent and very patient. There is no rushing the review process, but here we are a decade after first planting Arctic trees and we expect to achieve deregulation in the U.S. later this year.

Even though we’re helping demonstrate it’s possible for small companies to commercialize a biotech crop, the high regulatory burden certainly does affect the industry as a whole. With such an intimidating outlook in terms of high investment, both in time and resources, there will obviously be far less small, entrepreneurial companies than would be ideal. In a field in which innovation should be embraced as much as possible, we are missing out on many potential innovative companies and value-added products because the barriers are so high.

Really, what it comes down to is the regulatory process is (and should be) extremely rigorous, but it is indeed possible for companies that aren’t multinationals to accomplish commercialization. Ideally, once biotech crops add further to their exemplary track record of safety and benefits and the scientific tools continue to improve; these barriers will gradually be lessened.

8) Lastly, what is your relationship to the government and governmental agencies. It has been alleged that agencies like the FDA are in the pocket of big biotech organizations and are willing to look the other way. Do you find any truth in those statements? If not, why not?

If we had to select one word to describe the multiple regulatory bodies we’ve dealt with over the past few years (USDA, APHIS, FDA, CFIA) it would be “thorough”. There’s certainly no looking the other way and nothing casual about the review process. If these government agencies were in the pocket of biotech companies, we wouldn’t still be awaiting deregulation more than ten years after we first developed Arctic apples!

Some people will see that some of the agencies have former members of biotech companies and immediately distrust the whole system; this misses the point. Of course they will have some former industry employees. These companies have thousands and thousands of employees and plenty of them are well-credentialed with first-hand experience in multiple facets of agriculture. In most fields, movement between private and public spheres is common, and most working aged citizens will have at least 10 different jobs before they turn 50. Some overlap is inevitable.

The truth is, you will hear a very wide range of arguments from those who don’t like biotech crops and this is just another one on that list. Luckily, there is more than enough evidence to show that biotech crops are indeed safe and beneficial, including over 600 peer-reviewed studies, around one-third of which are independently funded. The best advice we can give to consumers is to do their own research, but always with a close eye on the credentials and reputability of the sources!

For more information on OSF or Arctic apples, please visit www.arcticapples.com

Neal Carter is the CEO and founder of OSF. Thank you for your time Neal. I am, well, me; a curious fellow trying to make sense of the world (and I just released the 2nd edition of Random Rationality: A Rational Guide to an Irrational World for Kindle). It’s working out so far, and quite fun too.

So, would you eat an Arctic Apple?

 

Fourat Janabi is a writer, entrepreneur, photographer, explorer, and idiot. So, he likes to think he's important. He has worked in Baghdad while a war was raging, in Bahrain while the Arab Spring was in full sw?ing, and in Saudi Arabia where women don't exist. He wrote a book called Random Rationality, which you can buy for Kindle. You can follow his thoughts on his blog of the same name. Originally published on April 3, 2013 in at www.randomrationality.com. Reprinted with permission from the author.

Fourat Janabi

In reading about GMOs in the last several years, I also read lots of reports about how farmers are disadvantaged, slaves to Monsanto, and for the most part, I blindly accepted them. But I had never heard from a farmer before. It was time to change that. It occurred to me recently that we live in the (mostly) free-market. The Big Ag BioTech companies can’t force people to buy their products, they have to convince them; with results, with cost-savings, or whatever else that a farmer needs that I know nothing about. The 95% of GM acreage in America isn’t a Monsanto empire, the farms bought into it not because they were forced to, but because they saw a benefit in it, and they keep buying the seeds not because they are obligated to, but because they still see benefits. On my last post when I interviewed a molecular biologist, Brian Scott, a fourth generation family farmer, was kind enough to let me ask questions about how he farms and why he uses biotech seeds, and what specifically was his relationship to Monsanto from whom he buys some of his seed types. I wanted to know what really happens between a farmer and the evil company everybody talks about, and not hear about it from activists who’ve probably never set foot on a farm. While this is only one story from one farmer, it is enlightening. Also, do check out his blog, The Farmers Life, where he blogs about running his farm.

Fourat (Me) - Why do you use GMOs?

Brian -  I like to call GMO a tool in my toolbox. Biotech isn’t a silver bullet for every problem, but it’s still a powerful tool. We use traits like Bt and Roundup Ready (RR) on many of our acres, but not all of them.  All our soybeans are generally RR, while only some of our corn carries that trait. Popcorn and wheat, our other crops, are not available in GMO varieties. Some of our corn acres are dedicated to waxy corn production, and we generally don’t buy them as RR.  Built in insect resistance in Bt corn along with seed treatments mean it’s a very rare event that we have to treat a crop in season for pests.  That means we prevent soil compaction by keeping another piece of equipment out of the field. It also means a sprayer doesn’t need to filled with water, fuel, and pesticide which is good for the earth and the wallet.

Me - What incentives are there for using GMOs?

Brian - There can be incentives such as buying traited crops and certain chemistry (herbicide, etc) as a bundle to receive price discounts. Some crop insurance plans also offer a biotechnology discount. I think that says a lot about the effectiveness of GMO. If an insurance company is willing to give you a discount, they must believe those crops lead to less crop insurance claims.

Me - As many activists allege, are you a slave to Monsanto once you sign their contract? 

Brian - I’m certainly not beholden to any seed company. I can plant what I want and manage it how I see fit. Do I sign an agreement that stipulates certain things when I buy patented seeds? Yes. Do patents only apply to biotechnology? No. These agreements are not nearly as binding as people would lead you to believe. The most viewed post I’ve put online is an outline of my 2011 Monsanto Technology Use Agreement. In the post I break down the line items in my own words, but I also provide the reader with a scanned copy of the agreement pulled straight from my filing cabinet. This allows anyone to read the agreement for themselves. In short, if I buy seed from Monsanto, Pioneer, etc nothing binds me into buying seed from them the following season. Nothing says I have to use their brand of herbicides or insecticides. Believe what you will about farmers being slaves to seed companies, but you’ve got to talk to a farmer before your mind is set in stone. My post can be found here. (Fourat: Definitely a worthwhile read.)

Me - Do you think you should be able to reuse the seeds you purchase from Monsanto? If not, why not?

Brian - That’s a tough question. For my purposes, if I wanted to save seed it would be soybean seed. All of our corn is hybrid corn. Hybrids don’t necessarily produce seed identical to the parent plant. Therefore, planting that seed the next season would give you an unknown result.  Soybeans self-pollinate so they remain true to themselves genetically. If I saved seed I would need to take a little extra care and expense to clean and possibly apply seed treatments to protect young seedlings. Right now my view is that of a division of labor. Farmers are great at producing high quality and high quantities of crops. The seed companies have the know how and resources to breed great plants. I think that’s a great combination for success. I’m not saying farmers couldn’t develop their own seed. Successful farmers are some of the smartest people I know, and can do anything if they choose to. [Fourat: I'd never thought about it this way. Farmers can save time and money by not having to clean and protect the next crops seeds. Funny how simple things evade the mind to those of us not actually involved in the industry.]

I also believe since it takes several years and millions if not billions of dollars to bring an innovative new variety to market, that any breeder large or small should be entitled to benefit financially from said variety for some period of time via a patent system.

Me - What is the most glaring factual error, if any, made by activists when discussing GMO seeds?

Brian - I often ask people what they think about crops that produce their own chemical defenses naturally, and I find a good number of people aren’t aware that some crops do this.  For example cereal rye has an ability to suppress weeds. This quality is called allelopathy. Many plants are naturally resistant to herbicides. Think about your lawn. Spraying 2,4D on your grass to kill dandelions and other weeds won’t harm your lawn. Grasses, which include corn and wheat, have a natural tolerance to that chemistry. Biotech may be allowing plants to do new things, but we are really just mimicking something nature has already shown us is possible.

I see many people say that seeds are soaked in glyphosate which is the active ingredient in Roundup. I’m not really sure where that idea comes from, but seeds are not somehow filled with herbicide. I think it’s possible people are confusing herbicides and insecticides thinking Bt and Roundup are the same thing. Bt traits protect crops like corn and cotton from pests like European corn borer.

Another fallacy is that GMO crops failed in the drought of 2012.  As if somehow during the worst drought since 1988 or maybe even the Dust Bowl era nature was supposed to give us a normal yield because our crops are able to protect themselves from pests and be resistant to certain herbicides. Drought tolerant varieties of corn were not widely available to growers in 2012. I’ve grown Pioneer’s version of drought tolerant corn in a test plot. It beat everything else in the plot hands down. Wide availability of drought tolerant corn varieties will spread in the next year or two. Drought tolerance and water use efficiency could be game changers for water use in the highly irrigated areas of the Great Plains. It should also be noted that all the corn being marketed as drought tolerant was brought to fruition by conventional breeding techniques except for Monsanto’s. Theirs will be the one genetically modified version. Farmers make plans on how to plant and manage their crops several months before actual fieldwork begins.  In the end we all understand that weather will be the ultimate factor in determining the success of those plans. In agriculture there are countless variables in play when managing a crop, and the one thing you have no control over is the weather. It can rain too much or not enough. Temperatures may be great for crop growth, or they may be too hot or too cold. Farmers must do all they can to realize the potential of a seed, but nature will always dictate a large portion of yield. [END]

So, do you still think Monsanto is an evil empire out for world domination? Why don’t we just leave it at a company like any other, trying to make money. Some people call this greedy, but the rest of us also spend most of our lives making money. So if you dislike (or hate) Monsanto, then maybe it’s time to encourage other bio-tech innovations to make seeds better, cheaper, or both, to offer to Brian and other farmers like him a better deal. (As Dr. Kevin Folta told me in my interview with a scientist, there are many seeds paid for with tax dollars sitting on shelves around the country that are better in several respects than what Monsanto has provided us. As long as they are shielded from competing against these seeds, farmers do have limited choices. You can read my interview with him here.) Competition and a dynamic marketplace is what gives consumers the most choice and power, and now, Monsanto pretty much stands alone having cornered a majority of the market. Much of their practices are rooted in this power and laws (not in the science and seeds), so let’s go about encouraging innovation and competition.

And if you are against the consumption of GMO foods, there is no need for it. There is already a label that tells you the exact same thing, ‘Certified Organic’ is another way to say “GMO free”. GMO food is in 80% of your supermarket, so it’s a safe bet that anything you see in the supermarket has a GM ingredient in it. There is no need to create ever more regulatory hoops to label GMO food, when the opposite label means the same thing. As for me, though I live for the moment in Europe where I can’t get GMO food, even if I wanted to, I’ll not shy away from it in my travels, it is my opinion that they are the future of food. (Note: I am not saying I think organic production is going away, or that everyone should eat GMO food because I said so; as long as there is a market, there will be self-interested people looking to make money by providing that product.)

Biotech seeds have been the fastest adopted agricultural technology in history. Pandora’s box has been opened, there is no closing it, only managing it, so let us manage it better, and that will only occur if farmers are convinced. So if you have issues, have them not with the science or technology, but the handful of controlling companies who are only responding to the incentives the market has provided them. Competition is needed, not an outright ban, which is probably impossible anyway. But, it is heartening to me, that family farmers are not disadvantaged by using what is available now. (I know that Monsanto has disadvantaged other family farmers, or just farmers, but this is not a bias against GM seeds, it is against the company, and it doesn’t mean they are out to screw everybody else as well. They act in their own interest as does any other company.) And as for the subject of chemicals that always comes up, let us put them in the proper context:

“Every compound you can name, no matter how scary, has a safe level; and every compound, no matter how natural, has a toxic level.” ~ Brian Dunning (Author)

Thanks Brian, for making food for the rest of us. We, or at the very least I, are grateful, and I trust that you know what you’re doing.

Fourat Janabi is a writer, entrepreneur, photographer, explorer, and idiot. So, he likes to think he's important. He has worked in Baghdad while a war was raging, in Bahrain while the Arab Spring was in full swing, and in Saudi Arabia where women don't exist. He wrote a book called Random Rationality, which you can buy for Kindle. You can follow his thoughts on his blog of the same name.

Originally published on March 22, 2013 in at www.randomrationality.com. Reprinted with permission from the author.

Fourat Janabi

Last year (those who’ve read the first edition of my book will know) I was anti-GMO. Why? Well, I thought I had the evidence on my ‘side’. But I can now honestly say it was because I had no idea what I was talking about. (Need further proof I’m an idiot?) My knowledge of the subject was inadequate; much of that knowledge I got from biased sources; and I’m sure there was some social conformity bias somewhere in there. (I’m sure there were many more biases; but honestly, listing my own biases is depressing. I’d rather much do it to others. That’s where the fun is at!) I’ve just released a 2nd edition of my book, Random Rationality, and that stance has been rectified.

In the meantime, I’ve delved into some of the literature and involved myself in a debate with friends on the nature of GMO on the safety issue. In doing that, I also reached out to Dr. Kevin Folta last week (his profile and academic history here, and check out his highly informative blog here) to confirm what I had learned, and find out why GMO’s are so misunderstood. Dr. Folta is a plant geneticist who works at the University of Florida. He’s a scientist who specializes in plant molecular biology and he was kind enough to share his thoughts with me on his area of expertise. Our exchange is below, you’ll find it brief, but extremely informative. (I’ve bolded some of his statements, those that I consider important.)

Fourat (Me) - What is the main thing (or is it general) about GMO’s that the public routinely confuse, or get wrong, when discussing and debating their impact?

Kevin Folta - There are so many misconceptions. The first is a fundamental one, that being that there is a debate at all. There is no debate among scientists in the discipline of plant molecular biology and crop science. Sure you can find someone here and there that disagrees, but there is no active debate in the literature driven by data. There are no hard reproducible data that indicate that transgenics are dangerous or more potentially dangerous than traditionally bred plant products.

If I had to nail down the most annoying misconceptions they would include that all scientists are just dupes of big multinational ag companies. Anyone that presents the consensus of scientific interpretation of the literature is immediately discounted as some corporate pawn. There’s nothing further from the truth. Most of us are hanging on by a thread in the days of dwinding federal, state and local support for research. The attacks on the credibility of good scientists hurts our chances to stay in academic labs and consider the cushy salaries and job security with the big ag corporate monstrosities we chose not to work for when we took jobs working for the public good. That’s pretty sad.

There is this allegation that we hide data or don’t publish work that is inconsistent with corporate desires. They need to get one thing straight. We’re not in the public sector because we are excited about listening to some corporate mandates. No thanks. We’re here for scientific freedom and to discover the exceptions to the rules and define new paradigms.

If my lab had a slight hint that GMOs were dangerous, I’d do my best to repeat that study, get a collaborator to repeat it independently, and then publish the data on the covers of Science, Nature and every news outlet that would take it. It would rock the world. Showing that 70-some percent of our food was poisonous? That would be a HUGE story — we’re talking Nobel Prize and free Amy’s Organic Pot Pies for life! Finding the rule breakers is what we’re in it for, but to break rules takes massive, rigorous data. So far, we don’t even have a good thread of evidence to start with.

The other huge misconception is that you can “prove something is safe”. Nothing can be proven safe. We can only test a hypothesis and show no evidence of harm. You can’t test all variables — nobody could. We can ask if there is a plausible mechanism for harm. If there is, we can test it. If there isn’t, we can do broad survey studies. A scientist can search for evidence of harm — a scientist can never prove something is safe.

Me - In what ways might GMO’s be most beneficial to our biosphere, and why might organic’s not be as good as to get us there?

Kevin Folta - There is no doubt that transgenic plants can be designed to limit pest damage with lower pesticide applications. That is well documented by the National Academies of Science, the best unbiased brains in our nation. Most data is for cotton and maize, and show substantial reductions (like 60%). Transgenic potatoes were amazingly successful in Romania until they joined the EU and had to go back to insecticide-intensive agriculture. Even glyphosate resistance traits, for all of their drawbacks in creating new resistant weeds, replace toxic alternatives.

Conventional farming takes fuel, labor, fungicides, pesticides, nematicides and many other inputs. Water and fertilizer are in there too. There are genes out there in the literature that address most of these issues. Scientists in academic labs discover these genes and define their function in lab-based GMOs that never are used outside the lab. The regulatory hoops are too difficult and expensive. Only the big companies can play in that space. Even little companies like Okanagan Specialty Fruits have to deal with the nonsense from those that hate the technology. Opposition to the science keeps the big guys in business, because nobody else can compete.

Who loses? The farmer, the consumer, the environment, the academic scientist and most of all the people around the world that don’t get enough food and nutrition. Who gains? Big ag.

Me - What do you consider the most important aspect of differentiating the good from the bad when it comes to considering science? i.e., what is the first thing you look for after reading a study

Kevin Folta - In the short-term I consider the system studied. Was it an animal system or cells in a dish? Most of the anti-GMO work is done on cells, especially cell lines that sound scary (like ovary, testis or fetal cells) but have little relevance to the complexities of animal systems. If done in animals, was the experiment properly controlled? Do the researchers SHOW the controls (like they conveniently omitted from Seralini’s 2012 rat-cancer work in Figure 3). Many studies that look good compare a GMO to an unrelated plant type. It is just not a valid comparison. Plants produce toxins and allergens, so you need to test the same exact plant without the added gene. If they do the rest of this properly then they need to run sufficient numbers and use good, common statistics. If they do all of this the work is publishable after peer review and should go into a decent journal, not some low-impact journal that publishes incomplete work or work that over steps the data.

A lot of junk escapes peer review. Reviewers and editors are overstressed and overburdened these days. We do the work as service for the field. Occasionally a paper slips by in a lower-impact journal. You’ll find most of the anti-GMO papers there.

Another important attribute of good work is demonstrating a mechanism. For instance, just don’t tell me that you found some evidence of GMO harming cells. Tell me how. How does it happen? If the phenomenon is real the mechanism should be dissected out in a year’s time. Omics tools are incredibly sensitive and we can detect small differences in gene expression and metabolic profiles. If GMO harm was real, the authors would define that mechanism, then collect their Nobel Prize and Amy’s Pot Pies.

The ultimate test is reproducibility. You’ll see that the best “evidence” for harm from GMOs comes from obscure journals, aging references that were published and heavily refuted by the scientific community (Puztasi, Seralini, etc), and work that was never repeated by outside labs. These are flash-in-the-pan works that never are expanded beyond the seminal study. The best sign of real science, good science, in an edgy area is that it grows. You see more scientists pile on, more research, more funding and bigger ideas. Models expand, mechanisms grow.

That just does not happen in the anti-GMO literature. The same authors publish a paper and then it goes on the anti-GMO websites and gains attention — while it dies in the scientific literature with no follow-up.

Me - Is there any split in the scientific community as to the safety of GMOs? If so, where does the split lay?

Kevin Folta - There are splits in the scientific community like there are splits for climate change and evolution. You have scientists like NIH Director Francis Collins that support creationist leanings. You have a small set of meteorologists and atmosphere scientists that claim that climate change is not real. There’s always room for a dissenting opinion out there, but they usually don’t have good evidence, just belief.

The same is true in biology and plant science. There are a few out there that let philosophy rule over evidence, but they are not at the edge of research. In the circles I work with there is consensus about the safety and efficacy of the technology. Even those that study organic and other low-input production systems support biotech as a way to do their jobs even better. That’s a strange relationship many don’t expect. You’ll not see anti-GMO writing from too many tenure-track scientists at leading universitites.

There is confusion on this. The Union of Concerned Scientists is frequently used as evidence that scientists are against this technology. When you read who they are and what they do, they are activists. They don’t do research or publish in the area of biotech. There are also others that claim to be experts or exploit some tenuous university affiliation to gain credibility. They should be looked at as deceitful, but they are accepted and believed with great credibility. People like Mercola, Smith and others sure sound like they know what they are talking about but they are not experts. Even Benbrook, a guy with a great career and a wonderful CV, goes off the deep end on the topic.

Readers need to apply all of the filters we discussed here today. What the data really say, who did the work, and if it was reproduced independently are the most important criteria in separating reality from fiction in the GMO topic. [END]

If you stand for scientific integrity, and going where the facts take you, then please share this Q&A so it may reach a wider audience. Almost every factoid from the Anti-GMO crowd has been thoroughly refuted, debunked, and repudiated by the scientific community. Millions of lives depend on the future of our food production, that means they depend on scientific experimentation and information untainted by ideology. The science is settled, and has been for some time. And as Dr. Folta above, and others, have elucidated, the intense opposition to the GMO technology has only intensified Monsanto’s grip upon the market. Facebook it, tweet it, re-blog it, or Google Plus it. Give my blog credit, don’t give it credit; I don’t really care. Good science matters more than pageviews (though pageviews are still nice), and more scientists like Dr. Folta should have their voices heard instead of the fear-based, fake-facts groups out there shouting from the rooftops who don’t know the first thing about genomics, evolution, or reality. (If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy my last one on science in general, read it here.)

Ready. Set. Share!

Fourat Janabi is a writer, entrepreneur, photographer, explorer, and idiot. So, he likes to think he's important. He has worked in Baghdad while a war was raging, in Bahrain while the Arab Spring was in full swing, and in Saudi Arabia where women don't exist. He wrote a book called Random Rationality, which you can buy for Kindle. You can follow his thoughts on his blog of the same name.

Originally published on March 18, 2013 in at www.randomrationality.com. Reprinted with permission from the author.

A couple of weekends ago, I did something that I never imagined I would do in my adult life. I volunteered to go to a pig farm to see where all of the wonderful pork that the Houseful loves to consume comes from.

Boy did I get an eye AND nose full!

As part of my participation in the Illinois Farm Families, I visited the hog farm of Steve Ward and his family in Sycamore, Illinois. I wasn’t entirely sure of what we were in for, but I was open to the fact that I would learn something. You always should be, correct? I’m eternally grateful to Steve and his family, including his very gracious father and mother, for opening up their farm to us.

On the bus to the farm, we were given a talk by a couple of the farmers who were along with us on general farming concepts. Acreage (did you know that an acre is roughly the same size of a football field?) and the massive amounts that lot of farmers have. We’re talking 1200 acres of land to take care of on a daily basis. I think that I would faint with just one acre of land, and these families are taking care of 1200. Steve even let us know that if he worked from sun up to sun down during planting season, he would be able to get through one hundred acres of land. Catch me now as I faint from exhaustion. I did get to pretend to drive a tractor. The thing is massive. Literally. One wheel is taller than I am, and the cabin is so far off the ground that those of us who are a little afraid of heights may not deal well, but we pretend and take a photo anyway.

The learning process started immediately. We were told that Steve’s farm was a wean to to finish hog farm (meaning, they get pigs that have been weaned from their mothers and raise them until it’s time for them to be processed.) for Illini Farms. He has four hog houses – two for the smaller pigs, and two for pigs that are about 75 pounds and over. If you should ever get to this farm, as they do tours and the such, make sure you ask Steve how to wrangle a pig. It’s quite an art.

One thing that most city people would not really be prepared for would be the smell. It hits you before you even step foot in the door, however when you enter, you wonder where it’s coming from since the pens are literally spotless. Well thanks to modern innovation, the pens all have slotted flooring, so that all urine and fecal matter can drop into an 8 foot pit and not contaminate any of the pigs food. If you’re thinking that they shouldn’t care about the food being contaminated since it’s all slop anyway, you would be wrong my bacon loving friends. The food is delivered in a timing system, and consists of grains such as corn, soy and wheat. They eat from stainless steel troughs and they are quite happy with it.

I do remember learning when I was younger that pigs were social animals. I found out that my teachers did indeed know what they were talking about. As soon as our group walked through the doors, the pigs were pretty excited to come and interact with us. They also followed Steve around as he walked through the pens randomly petting or checking them.

The things that I really enjoyed learning were:

1. The pigs are kept in climate controlled housing instead of outside to fare in the very random Illinois weather.
2. Pigs are fed a diet that consists of grains and not random slop
3. Pig pens are not messy in the least. They are formatted to make sure that the pigs have sanitary areas to eat, sleep and live in.
4. Overcrowding is not an issue on this farm. All pens have enough room to allow the pigs to roam around as necessary.
5. The “processing” of the pigs are done with as little stress as possible. No electricity and no knives (which is what I always thought.) Farmers realize that food must come from somewhere, and everyone is not going to be a vegetarian. They want to make sure that those who do consume pork products are given the best product that they can find.
6. Pig scent stays with you for a couple of days. I know that Mr. Houseful loves me, because he kissed me BEFORE telling me that I was smelly.

Are there things that you would be interested in finding out about a hog farm? Ask your question below, and I’ll do my best to find out for you!

 Natasha Nicholes, Chicago

The Illinois Farm Field Moms had the wonderful opportunity to tour a Hog Farm at the Old Elm Farms in Sycamore, IL (February 23, 2013) 

Give them a label-Not a name

"Don't get attached, the hogs are our income and food." This is the advice Steve Ward, president of Dayton Farms of Sycamore, IL, gives his two children Sarah and Dayton, when a new litter of piglets are born.

It's in the Marketing

Of course it's in the marketing. Marketing is key; it is what sells the product. So from that said did you know that hog producers never give hormones to their hogs, EVER! So why does that packaged pork you just picked up today at the grocery store say NO Hormones Added? To clarify Steve Ward and other hog farms like his just are the wean to finish farms and have nothing to do with the label you see in the grocery store. The final destination (or grocery store) of each of Steve Ward's hogs is unknown to him. The big companies who sell the finished product may add that "No Hormones Added," label. According to the Ward family this is just a marketing scheme to make the buyer believe they are getting a healthier piece of pork for their family.

To Market to Market

To buy a fat pig. Two hundred and eighty pounds that is.  Free Range, Barnyard, Organic Pork? You might want to re-think this option next time you buy your pork at a grocery store especially if you are on a budget. Tim Maiers who works for the Illinois Pork Producers Association questions what exactly makes that choice of pork healthier. Tim, along with Steve Ward and his father John Ward, president of Old Elm Farms, described the possible uncleanly conditions of hogs raised in the outdoors and the added cost of grain needed to keep the hogs warm in the winter(hence the markup in price at the supermarket). We learned that these hogs have to share their living space with other rodents and birds that may carry diseases. Hogs raised inside such farms like the Ward Family Farm provide a more controlled environment which means less grain is needed for consumption since it is all climate controlled. The hogs living conditions inside the farm are very clean and the hogs definitely have more roaming room then I previously envisioned. However, what this all comes down to are choices for the consumer. Steve and Tim stress nutrition-wise, free range or not, they are both the same.

Five Key Observations

I’d like to recap my experience with five things that I learned and found to be very interesting.

1. The children who are born and raised on the farm willingly take on the responsibility at an early age to help their parents with much of the work on the farm.
2. The hog manure never goes to waste but instead is plowed into the corn fields.
3. Farmers recycle almost everything.
4. Hogs are killed by means of gas.
5. Old Elm Farms got its name from the oldest living Elm tree in Illinois. It lived to be 375 years old until it was cut down due to Dutch Elm Disease.

Christina Lee
LaGrange Park

Being a typical mom who wants to feed her family well, I was very excited when our Field Mom program officially started on February 23. I was determined to find out myself how our food is produced and by whom. It is not hard to panic in today’s environment when it comes to food production. Should I buy organic? Is the meat safe? Where did the meat come from? How do I buy locally produced food? And what does politics have to do with food production?

I joined the other field moms and a few farmers on February 23 when we started our year together, all full of questions. We had a lot of them answered on the bus on our way to Sycamore. Deb, Pam, and Jim were able to give us very concrete background information on farming in Illinois today.

While we were mostly talking about pork production, it was also obvious that all farmers have a lot in common: family farms are still the most common form of farming in Illinois where 94% of all farms are family-owned. Children join their parents from young age and learn to work on the farm. Some of them enjoy it and want to stay on the farm, some of them want to leave as soon as they are done with high school. But the common theme was the children’s attitude to work and their pride in growing up on a farm.

Our visit to the Ward family’s pig farm could not have been more informative. The farmers, John and Steve, were willing to answer all of our questions about pigs’ lives from birth to the slaughterhouse. How the pigs are fed, whether they are given antibiotics (only for medical reasons), are they given hormones (no), etc. We also had a long discussion on GMOs, why a farm is or is not organic (requirements on available space to access to organic feed), corn and soybean crops, the needed equipment, and the availability of land in Illinois where subdivisions are creeping closer and closer to farmland.

On our tour of the pig sheds, Steve was once more willing to answer all of our questions about the pigs. Why are the pigs kept inside (controlled environment, health and nutrition of the pigs); what the pigs eat (corn, soybean meal, bakery products); and how you make sure all of the pigs are doing well (an experienced farmer sees signs immediately). Yes, there is a smell in the sheds, but the pigs were surprisingly clean and they are able to move around. There were absolutely no signs of animals that had been mistreated (I expected chewed ears and tails as signs of stress).

My first visit to an Illinois farm (or any farm in the U.S.) was eye-opening. The amount of work, investment and time needed to farm is enormous. My guess is that even though there are differences between farms, the basic work and commitment to a lifestyle is the same for all of them. One of my reasons for joining the Field Mom program was to be able to tell my children where our food comes from and we have now been able to have several discussions on pigs and meat production in general. I’m looking forward to our next visit and learning about other farms.

I had an extremely informative day at the Ward farm, thanks to both generations of the family!

Five things I learned on our trip to a pig farm (there would be many more, but here are the first five):

• The price of farmland whether you buy or lease in Illinois is very high. It is hard for farm families to be able to buy more land to support more than one family.
• The life cycle of a pig from birth to slaughterhouse. I had no idea about the time it takes for a pig to grow to market weight, etc.
• The tour of the buildings where the pigs are raised was important. Heating/air-conditioning, cleanliness, etc. were important pieces of information.
• Information on how the pigs are slaughtered was informative and useful.
• Information on the use of hormones and antibiotics was useful.

Tanja Saarinen, Oak Park
Field Mom

 

Last Saturday was a busy day at our farm. We hosted 16 Field Moms from the Chicago-area for a tour, showing them how we raise pigs. The moms asked a lot of great questions, one in particular I often get asked is: 

What’s the difference between organic and non-organic pork?

The term organic speaks to a particular method used to farm. Generally speaking, pork that is certified organic comes from pigs that never receive synthetic vaccinations or antibiotics, are provided access to the outdoors, and meet animal health and welfare standards. The animals eat feed that is organic as well, meaning it is grown without most commonly-used synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. (There are some fertilizers and pest control products organic farmers can use on their crops.)

How is that different from my pigs? On my farm, we meet or exceed health and animal welfare standards too. We also use farming practices that include options like GMO crops and giving medicines when needed. For example, the feed my pigs eat consists mostly of corn and soybeans which may or may not be the same feed used in organic farming. On my farm, some of the grain comes from GMO seeds. Using GMO seeds and biotechnology actually allows me to use fewer chemicals on the plant as it grows, making less of an impact on my land and making it safer for the consumer and the farmer as we handle fewer chemicals. (If you want to know more about GMOs, click here.)

While on our farm, we do our best to keep all our animals healthy throughout their lives. Just like we give our kids vaccines to prevent illness and disease, the pigs on my farm are vaccinated early in their lives to ward off common illnesses. I’m in my barns every day monitoring the health and eating habits of the pigs. Like with my kids, I can tell by looking at their eyes and noses if they aren’t feeling well. If that’s the case, I pull that pig aside and, with my veterinarian, decide how to get them healthy again. Sometimes that means giving them medicines, like an antibiotic. If I do give them an antibiotic, I follow strict label directions and make sure that the animal doesn’t go to market until all the medicine has cleared their system. The pigs from my farm are marketed under the Farmland® label. Once my pigs arrive at the Farmland plant, like all meat, they are inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food Safety Inspection Service. I feel good about the pork I raise; my family enjoys it regularly.

Consumers today can choose to pay more for organic meat, but I hope they know it’s not safer or more nutritious than the pork from my farm. I’m confident the pork I raise is safe and healthy and contains no antibiotics. By the way, the moms also asked me what our family’s favorite cut of pork was – it’s the tenderloin. Here’s a recipe you can try tonight.

I hope I’ve helped answer the question. Post your thoughts and comments below and we’ll continue the conversation.

Steve Ward
Old Elm Farms
Sycamore, IL

Chicago blogger Emily Paster writes about food almost every day. She's also been interested in learning more about where her food comes from. In the fall of 2011, she accompanied the Field Moms on their tours of Illinois dairy and crop and livestock farms. Last week she was in New York to continue the conversation about food and farming. Here's her latest blog post on a topic many consumers want to know more about: 

My Thoughts on Antibiotics and Food
Let me begin this post by saying that I am serious when I say that these are my thoughts on the issue of antibiotics in farming. I speak for no one but myself. And I am by no means an expert on this topic. I am not a scientist, a veterinarian nor a farmer. I am a simply a concerned consumer.

I am fortunate in that, through this blog, I have had unique opportunities to ask my questions about antibiotic use in animal agriculture directly to scientists, veterinarians and farmers. Most recently, I attended the latest in the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) series of Food Dialogues, which took place in New York City on November 15. One of the three panels that USFRA presented that day was entitled “Antibiotics and Your Food” and featured a diverse group of panelists, including two large animal vets one who is also a dairy farmer and one who works for the American Veterinary Medical Association; an Iowa pork producer; a pediatric nutritionist; and Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union. The panel was very informative and I encourage you to watch it for yourself here. I will also share with you my impressions.

Before I get into my thoughts on antibiotics and food, I want to disclose that I was at Food Dialogues in New York as a guest of the USFRA.  I was actually there to help judge the Faces of Farming and Ranching contest, a nationwide search for five farmers or ranchers who will have a unique opportunity to share their stories with audiences throughout the country. These farmers and ranchers were a passionate, inspiring group of men and women, old and young, from South Carolina to Oregon and everywhere in between and I loved hearing their stories. I encourage everyone to check out the finalists and vote for your favorites between now and December 15. I promise that you will enjoy hearing from this interesting and knowledgeable group and they may even change your image of what a farmer is. Because I was in New York to judge the contest, my travel was paid for by USFRA and I was compensated for my time.

However, even though I was at Food Dialogues under the auspices of the USFRA, I am not on any particular side in this debate. I do not have an ax to grind. I am neither pro conventional agriculture and anti-organic or the reverse. I am simply a consumer who cares deeply about the quality of my food, food safety, nutrition, equal access to healthy food for all, sustainability, and animal welfare. USFRA did not ask me to write about my experience at Food Dialogues, nor is the organization paying me for anything other than my work as a guest judge.  These thoughts are truly my honest impressions. And I may get some things wrong. If I do, I hope someone will tell me — in a civil manner of course.

We are all familiar with antibiotics. We take them ourselves; we give them to our children and our pets for infections such as strep throat or sinusitis. Maybe you or someone you love has battled a more serious infection and has need antibiotics to survive. My daughter Zuzu had a rare infection as a newborn and was hospitalized for six days. The antibiotics that she received likely prevented her from being permanently disfigured. So, we all know that antibiotics can do tremendous good.

Many of us also know that scientists and doctors are concerned about antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, which seem to be increasing. The concern is that we will not have effective treatments for these bacteria going forward. There are many theories about why these resistant strains of bacteria are on the increase, such as doctors overprescribing antibiotics or patients not finishing courses of antibiotics.

There are also some scientists who believe that the use of antibiotics in agriculture has contributed to these resistant strains of bacteria. Let me stop right there to emphasize this point. It’s really important that we understand what the concern is when we talk about antibiotics and food. The concern is NOT that there are antibiotics in the meat we eat or the milk we drink. Animals that are being killed for food or cows that are milked cannot have antibiotics in their systems. The FDA tests for that. (The FDA only tests for a limited number of drugs, of course, which may raise concerns for some people.) The law requires that an animal that receives antibiotics for any reason cannot be used for meat or milked for a mandated period of time to allow the antibiotics to work through their systems. In short, we are not ingesting antibiotics in meat or milk.

The concern of consumer advocacy groups like the Consumers Union is that the use of antibiotics in agriculture is contributing to the increase of resistant strains of bacteria. Now, to understand this concern, it is important to understand how antibiotics are used in agriculture. In conventional agriculture, antibiotics are used both to treat sick animals and also prophylactically to prevent disease and to promote growth.

I’m going to pause here for a minute to discuss the difference between conventional and organic meat and milk. Organic milk and meat comes from animals that are never treated with antibiotics. That means that if a cow on an organic dairy farm develops mastitis — a common infection in animals that are nursing, including humans — the farmer cannot treat that cow with antibiotics if he or she wants to continue to milk that cow once the cow recovers from the infection. (No responsible dairies, conventional or organic, would continue to milk a sick cow.) I have asked numerous sources what happens to the cow in that instance and I haven’t gotten one clear answer. Some people say that the farmer can hope the infection clears up on its own; or the farmer can treat the cow with antibiotics but then has to sell her. I still am not sure what happens. I wrote a lot more on the difference between conventional and organic milk here if you are curious.

Even those scientists and activists who want conventional agriculture to reduce its antibiotic use acknowledge that it makes sense for farmers who want to do so to use antibiotics to treat sick animals, just as it makes sense to use antibiotics to treat sick people. (Of course, it is important to understand and factor in the wide-ranging effects that antibiotics can have on the so-called good bacteria that is part of everyone’s biome. The October 22 issue of The New Yorker contained a fascinating article on how little we understand about the role bacteria plays in our health.) Their concern is about the antibiotics given to animals to prevent disease and promote growth. As panelist Jean Halloran asserted, the concern is that this use of antibiotics is contributing to resistant strains of bacteria.

The farmers and vets on the panel dispute this assertion and claim that there is no proven link between this prophylactic use of antibiotics in animals and the rise of so-called resistant super-bugs. They argue that the use of antibiotics to prevent disease and to promote growth enables them to raise animals in a more efficient manner, which is both more sustainable and leads to reduced costs for the  consumer. They also dispute the notion that farmers are giving drugs willy-nilly to their animals and point out that antibiotics are expensive. Farmers have every incentive to use them wisely and indeed can only give antibiotics to their animals under the supervision of a veterinarian.

Where does that leave the consumer? Probably confused. I still am. But here’s my take-away. Resistant strains of bacteria are a real concern for us all. We all need to do our part to ensure that antibiotics are used responsibly. We shouldn’t demand antibiotics for every sniffle and when we do genuinely need a prescription for antibiotics, we should follow the instructions on that prescription.

As for food, if you want to buy organic milk or meat for whatever reason, please do so. But let’s all understand that there are no antibiotics in conventional milk or meat. Conventional meat and milk are safe products and no one should feel bad for buying them. I personally think that it is an acceptable and even commendable practice to treat animals with antibiotics when sick, as conventional farmers do. I don’t know much about animal welfare, but it seems potentially cruel not to treat a sick animal.

Do I continue to have concerns about the use of antibiotics as disease prevention or growth promotion? I do. While I am not convinced that there is hard proof that this use of antibiotics has contributed to the rise of resistant strains of bacteria, I find it plausible that it has done so. And I found many of panelist Jean Halloran’s arguments that we can produce safe meat and milk without a significant increased cost while reducing our use of antibiotics to be convincing. In short, it seems to me that benefits of reducing our use of preventative antibiotics in animals outweigh the costs. But I continue to have many questions and I will continue to explore this controversial topic.

Do you have concerns about how antibiotics are used in agriculture? Do you worry about resistant super-bugs? If so, have you changed your behavior as a result?

Emily Paster Chicago area
Emily Paster is a Chicago mom and food blogger. She shares her passion for all things food at www.westoftheloop.com. This blog was shared with permission from the author.

Day 2: Why we plant genetically modified seeds on our farm. Part 1.

Fear. Misinformation. Marketing. Fear. Health. Children. Fear. Fear.

All this and more is playing into the discussion involving GMOs these days. And here on the farm, it feels like old news. Fifteen-plus years ago, we evaluated the technology, learned we could plant it and use fewer and less-potent pesticides, have fewer weeds and less required labor. It was a business decision. We got on board. We've gone on to plant Bt corn (using products from DuPont, Syngenta and Monsanto), LibertyLink corn (a Bayer product), RoundupReady corn and beans (using Monsanto and Syngenta products), rootworm-resistant corn (both Monsanto and DuPont products).

But off the farm, in parts further west, let's say, people are downright angry. California's Proposition 37 is being sold as people's "right to know" what's in their food. And if you'd like a logical look at both sides of the argument, check out this point-counterpoint blog.

On its face, I would agree with the right to know. Yet common sense might suggest that given 95% of the U.S. corn crop is planted to biotech seed, you can safely assume any food not labeled organic or GM-free has a product in it that's derived from biotech seed. And further, consider the extensive exemptions being offered even under the "Right to Know" Proposition 37. Even with Prop 37, I'm not sure California consumers will know as much as they want to.

But I digress.

I think much of the problem here is that people just don't understand each other. We sit here in the Midwest and think how those poor consumers just don't know what we do and if they only understood how nice we all are and how much we love our farms and our families, they'd leave us alone and let us carry on with our business. And from what I hear, they sit in their cities and on their coasts and think we farmers are a bunch of poor, overall-wearing saps who are beholden to Monsanto and the rest of Big Agribusiness.

So, here's what I think we need to understand in farm country:

*  Consumers are concerned about the long-term health effects of biotechnology. They're looking at down-the-road diseases like cancer, heart disease, obesity, the "unknown."

*  Saying we produce the safest, most abundant food supply in the world doesn't resonate with consumers. When you say safe, they hear short-term safety (which they expect anyway) and when you say abundant, they hear too much food (which is making us obese).

*  They want transparency. This is one of many reasons why I love this blog. He offers up all the details. In PDF form, no less.

* We need to be less about "telling our story," and more about answering their questions.

What would I like them to know? In the interest of the final point above, I would respond to their questions. And I think immediately of an ongoing conversation I've been having with a California friend-of-a-friend. She could not be nicer and more convinced of her opinions, and I respect that. I really do. But in talking with her, I can see some of her underlying information about how corn is grown is just, well, incorrect.

I don't want to quote her directly here without her permission, but to paraphrase, she believes Monsanto has a monopoly on the seed market, that it sends investigators to farms to see if seeds have blown over into another farmer's field, and then they sue those farmers. She also thinks farmers can't afford non-GMO or non-Monsanto seed, or even alfalfa because Monsanto has a monopoly.

I have to reiterate, she is not alone in thinking this, which is why I'm sharing it. From what I have seen, these are commonly held assumptions. Perhaps that means there's an organization sharing this kind of misinformation among California consumers. I don't know.

But here's what I do know:

*  Monsanto does not have a monopoly on the seed market. Among the many companies we buy seed from is Golden Harvest, which is owned by Syngenta. Syngenta is one of five companies who have patented genetically modified seed traits. Monsanto is not the only one. They do have a lot of market share, but there are still other options. We plant a wide variety of seed on our farm, including from small, family-owned seed companies.

*  Seeds don't blow from one farm to another. Seeds are planted in the ground, where they sprout and grow into plants. Corn plants produce a tassel that's laden with pollen. The pollen falls from the tassel and lands on the silks that sprout from the top of each ear of corn. Each silk goes to a single kernel on the ear. Now pollen? Pollen can blow from one field to another. Generally, farmers try to work together and if their neighbor is planting non-GM, they try to plant in a way that reduces pollen drift.

*  About 15 cases have worked their way through the court system, regarding Monsanto suing farmers. Really, I've never heard of a farmer being sued because pollen drifted into their field and Monsanto wants them to pay for it. It's actually more the other way around. You can read here or here about a Canadian farmer and his odyssey through the Canadian court system with Monsanto. In short, he knew (or ought to have known) he had saved and planted Roundup Ready seed back in 2001, violating the agreement he had signed. He appealed in 2002 and all 17 grounds were dismissed by a three-member court. He appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court in 2004 and lost again.

*  Non-GM seed costs less than GM seed. In the farm world, we talk about traited and non-traited varieties, and when you're talking traits (like rootworm or roundup or corn borer resistence), you're talking more money. This makes sense. If there is extra technology in that seed which allows us to, say, use less weed control products, or helps the plant grow better in a drought, or lets us use less insect control products, we should pay for it. Again, it's good business sense. It's an added value, and that value adds to the cost.

*  Monsanto has a very small share of the alfalfa seed market. I don't know what else to say about that. It just does.

I don't know that this will sway someone who is a die-hard supporter of Prop 37, or who considers GM foods to be poisoned. Maybe they can make a more well-informed decision, even if they vote for Prop 37.

I don't know that this will make a difference. But I have to believe it helps, if only to make a better informed decision.

**A note: I had the crazy idea that I could cover biotechnology in one post. Silliness. Look for another post on biotechnology and the research surrounding it.
Holly Spangler
Marietta, Illinois

Holly Spangler is a farmwife to John, mother to three little farm kids and farm writer for Prairie Farmer, all from their farmstead in western Illinois. You can follow her blog, My Generation. 

This post, used with permission, was first published on November 2, 2012: http://farmprogress.com/prairie-farmer/blogs.aspx/30-days-prairie-farm-biotechnology-3779

And certainly, I haven't watched daytime TV since, well, I can't remember when. But I have read enough of Dr. Oz to know neither I, nor anyone else, can logically expect to get sound diet or medical advice from him. And as an aside, who wears scrubs all the time?   And then I came across this: a letter from Dr. Bruce Chassy to the producers of Dr. Oz's show, written in response to their efforts to have him appear on a Dr. Oz show about GMOs and food production. Chassy is a professor emeritus of food science at the University of Illinois. When I was on campus, he was head of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and later became Assistant Dean for Science Communications. This is all to say, he knows his stuff and he's been around the block a time or two. Reading the letter, it's clear he had grave misgivings about their ability to produce an unbiased show. As it turns out, the show is set to air just before the election, and (not coincidentally) just before California votes on Proposition 37, which would require labeling of any GM product. Give the letter a read. My favorite line from Dr. Chassy: "Your assurances and the tactics of the Dr. Oz show fall short of even the lowest standards of media and medical ethics." Zing. And a further aside: it all makes me wonder what sort of back room deals Wayne Pacelle struck with Oprah to keep real hog producers like Matt Kellogg from having an open mic during her animal welfare show. It's tough to think that even the scientists and the farmers can't get a fair shake on some of these shows. But that's another blog for another day.