The USDA recently proposed recommendations that would require foodmakers to label their products if they contain genetically modified ingredients.
Genetically modified crops have been portrayed as everything from a dangerous health risk to a miracle solution to tackle world food shortages. But among all this debate, many of us may not really know what a “genetically modified organism” (GMO) even is.
This hour, we ask: what does it actually mean for food to be genetically modified, and should we care if it is?
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GUESTS:
- Dr. Margaret Smith - Professor of plant breeding and genetics, specializing in corn breeding, at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. She also works with New York farmers through Cornell’s extension program
- McKay Jenkins - Professor of English, Journalism and Environmental Humanities at the University of Delaware, and author of Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet (@mckayjenkins)
- Rodger Phillips - Farmer at SubEdge Farm in Farmington, Connecticut (@SubEdge )
READING LIST:
Washington Post: Mandatory GMO labels are coming to your food (May 4, 2018) - “Foodmakers will soon be required to disclose when their products contain genetically modified ingredients — but those labels may not be as obvious, or as comprehensive, as consumers expected.”
Scientific American: The Truth about Genetically Modified Food - “Proponents of genetically modified crops say the technology is the only way to feed a warming, increasingly populous world. Critics say we tamper with nature at our peril. Who is right?”
Washington Post: We’re having the wrong argument about GMOs - “In his new book, “Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet,” Jenkins makes the case that it’s not GMOs we should single out for criticism — it's the industrial agricultural system that they power.”
