I'll try to keep my POV brief. I grew up in an area where "RoundUp ready" soybeans, and Bt-corn.
The good:
- Bt-corn contains a protein that is toxic to insects. Before Bt, if you turned on an outside light out in the country during summertime, swarms of corn borer moths would appear. Using insecticides was expensive and ineffective. After Bt, the same area sees very few of the moths, no insecticide chemicals required. Before anyone panics that this will kill humans, the way it was explained to me, the protein binds in their tiny insect stomachs causing them to starve. I've eaten A LOT of Bt-corn for many years now and I certainly haven't starved.
- "RoundUp ready" soybeans have a gene which allows the plants to be sprayed with RoundUp and not be killed. RoundUp is effective at killing weeds. Before this GMO, farmers would always be experimenting with a variety of herbicides to get the weeds and save the beens. After GMO, RoundUp can be used without killing the crop. While I wouldn't call RoundUp "healthy", I believe I've been around many more toxic herbicides on the farm.
The bad:
- Ah, evolution! Weeds are now beginning to appear that are resistant to RoundUp. So, "RoundUp ready" soybeans will lose their value. For Bt-corn, they also grow non-Bt-corn in an effort to prevent strains of Bt tolerant insects from breeding/evolving. So far, Bt-corn is very effective at keeping borer populations way down.
- Plants have become corporate property. Throughout history, farmers would keep some of their seeds from last years harvest to plant the next year. That became less common when hybridization appeared around the "Green Revolution". Purchased seeds were specially developed to produce better than farmers would get from their own heirloom seeds. Lots and lots of seed companies grew up and improved yields. Still, many farmers would keep soybeans from good yielding areas of the farm to replant next year. But when GMO came along, they were patented. If a farmer bought any GMO seed, he better not replant anything harvested from it, or he'll get sued. That's patent infringement. So rather than corn really being a commodity, you can't just buy some farmer's corn and go plant it in your field. If it's GMO, it's property of a corporation regardless of who buys it. So when companies say "GMO corn is the same as non-GMO corn", that isn't a legal statement. Because of patents, they are NOT the same.
- Similarly, but worthy of it's own paragraph, with the rise of GMOs the selection of seed companies has narrowed down to very few that have the patents or licenses to use the patented genes or specialize in non-GMO. Consequently, those seeds have become much more expensive. While it's considered to be worth the price, I'm not so sure when I hear the yield stats.
Okay, I really tried to keep it brief.
To summarize, I don't have many concerns about GMO safety in the food supply, but I understand those who are concerned and would prefer caution. I'm more concerned about the legal issues and the fact that here in the US in corn country, it's now hard to find good non-GMO seed. As far as labeling in the USA, you might as well conclude that a product contains GMO corn unless otherwise labeled as non-GMO.
Organic is great. I'd encourage anyone to choose that... particularly because I have non-JW relatives in the business. But honestly, the world's population is too large to suggest that everything should be switched to non-GMO and organic. People want cheap food, and organic isn't cheap. When this subject has come up in my conversations with people that don't have any kind of farming background and they start ragging on farmers for using chemicals, etc., I tell them, "So, raise your own food!" Then they look at me with shock and horror. Even still, much of what I eat was harvested by my own hand.
