GMO's - risks and benefits

One of the most challenging things about being human is the constant conflict between being an element of nature and simultaneously being a destructive member of it, or at least an agent of change. What makes things worse is our quasi-meta-understanding of our own reality, and yet its inherently limited scope.

Agriculture has, post-Mendel, post-Lysenko (...), post-WWII, and post-gene technology, really come into the forefront of our collective consciousness. Arguments abound on how we can best balance having "natural" food products, high-quality organic or traditional produce, vs. the pressing food needs of the world where genetic and biological engineering will simply be necessary to at least some extent to feed our growing population comfortably.

The center of the debate almost boils down to the U.S. vs. Europe, as partially highlighted in the following article:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1970471,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0hmTAlyTK

We have the U.S. on one side: swatch-bucklingly arrogant in its view of science, a giant agroeconomy relentlessly driven by the food industry until a demand for fresh, local, and organic produce has slowly brought back smaller-scale agriculture. The numbers themselves say a lot about how we treat food; 1-2% of the US population are farmers, responsible not only for feeding the nation but also for an export surplus. Meanwhile, in countries such as Germany and Italy, 5-7% of the population are farmers, roughly 3-7 times the number as in the States. These nations are thus capable and willing to sustain a non-GMO food base. But meanwhile, as food prices continue to creep up and in an increasingly globalized economy, they are (unfortunately in my opinion) feeling the pinch and are being forced to keep up.

What I found irritating in the above article was the following assertion:

"Europe's opposition to GMOs is a backlash against science," says Willy De Greef, secretary general for Europabio, the European biotech lobby. "We have a lot of catching up to do. While the U.S., Brazil, India and China have forged ahead in genetic engineering, we have lost a generation of good scientists."

There should always be a backlash against science; nature will and should always supercede science, as science is by definition the study of it (and technology / engineering the manipulation thereof). Not having moved ahead in genetic engineering is by no means losing a generation of good scientists. It is simply having chosen conservative science vs. innovative but potentially dangerous work.

Regardless of opinion, it's clear to me that more studies need to be done on GMOs. Certainly the number of things that could and should be addressed are innumerable, but our knowledge of the consequences of GMOs at the moment is clearly inadequate. Their effects on the ecosystem, on local herbivores, on the environment, and most obviously, on their consumers, are as of yet barely understood.