The world’s population is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050. A significant challenge in sustaining this population would be ensuring a steady, secure supply of food. Genetically modified organisms have already been proven to be a useful tool in reaching higher levels of agricultural efficiency. Although I am in favour of the use of genetically modified crops, I believe that the management of this technology could be more efficient.

A really popular example would be Roundup Ready soybeans, developed by Monsanto. Farmers originally used herbicides other than glyphosate to manage weeds on their farms, since glyphosate also affected the crops that were grown. However, with roundup ready soybeans, the genome had been modified to include a gene that encoded for a glyphosate-tolerance enzyme. This allowed farmers to use glyphosate, without worrying about the negative consequences it may have on yield. Additionally, glyphosate is considered relatively safer than other herbicides. It also reduced the effort required to manage weeds or prepare fields for crops.

However, the introduction of this technology also had consequences. Naturally, more farmers chose to buy Roundup Ready soybeans, as it was a safer, more efficient alternative. Since Monsanto had patented Roundup Ready soybeans, it was the only supplier of these seeds. This led to a single company having a monopoly of the seed market, for soybeans. The company was able to inflate the prices. Additionally, farmers were not allowed to save seeds for the next growing season, forcing them to buy new ones next year. Another issue would be that since glyphosate would not affect the crops, there might be excessive use of the herbicide to ensure that that there is no growth of weeds.

The issues surrounding transgenic salmon are pretty similar. It would have the benefits of increasing the amount of salmon production, which would meet the current demands more effectively than fishing. There are issues that would have to be resolved/thought about: management of the waste produced by the fish, the ethics of aquaculture and the monopolisation of the salmon industry (Which would affect relatively small-scale businesses).

Overall, genetically modified organisms have the potential to increase the efficiency of food production. However, the management of these crops or animals could be improved or regulated to prevent damage to the environment or the formation of monopolies.

Last Monday, I attended a Table Talk  on GMO salmon introduction to Canadian markets involving about eleven people in total. In the Rose dining room, filled with a cacophony of voices, I could not really hear what people were saying, but the bits that I did catch led me to consider the peripheral dangers of GMO salmon.  I do not know the nuances of the industries practicing genetic modification on plants nor the ones attempting genetic modification on animals for commercial food sale. I am concerned, however, that only attempting to meet consumer demand for food through biotechnology places too much emphases on meeting demand without restructuring potential underlying forces of unsustainable resource consumption. Also, I fear that this debate over GMO safety, labeling etc. overshadows other, arguably more important, debates surrounding the nature of the modern agriculture industries found in America and other developed countries that rely on CAFOs, confined animal feeding operations, and fish farms for producing animals to be eaten. Regardless if one supports killing an animal for food or not, these industries have undeniable, negative environmental implications and often present hazardous work environments for livestock workers. Thus, this growing GMO debate might overshadow conversations that really should be had about other aspects of global food production.

Last Monday I attended the Table Talk about the impact of GMO Animals. Admittedly, this is a topic that I know very little about. I am not very uneducated about the more scientific side of genetically modified foods, but I know enough to hold the opinion that they are a largely positive thing. Upon reading about genetically modified animals, however—specifically salmon—I was immediately a little bit skeptical.

As a self-described environmentalist, my first concern always lies in how something could negatively impact the global ecosystem. Introducing a fish to the environment that grows twice as fast could have potentially devastating effects on the entire food web surrounding it. After voicing this concern, however, I was informed that the company pioneering the effort to make these genetically engineered fish has put in many different precautions to prevent this exact scenario. The eggs are produced in a completely different hemisphere from the farm itself, and they are also triploid which effectively renders them sterile. Additionally, the farm is in central Panama, away from the coast. In the small chance that one were to escape the facility, it wouldn’t be able to reach the ocean anyway.

This fear assuaged, my next concern was for the fish themselves. What are the conditions like at these farms? Are the fish treated fairly? Though information is difficult to find, it seems (to me, at least) safe to assume that the answer is no. The industry standard not just for fish but meat tends to be sub-optimal for the animals. This is less a qualm with the genetically engineered salmon than it is for the food industry as a whole, however.

Despite this, I do hope that the GMO salmon reach the global market. They are a much more sustainable solution for getting protein, as other protein sources (especially beef) come with a huge carbon footprint. If used correctly, this could not only be a win for the reduction of overall emissions, but for the movement to end world hunger too. Unfortunately, the fact that these salmon have taken upwards of twenty years (and counting!) to reach US supermarkets makes me wonder if this might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Last Monday GRF Tyler Moeller led a discussion about the recent approval of transgenic salmon into the Canadian food supply. The technology behind the salmon is nothing novel, overly innovative, or exceptional with regards to other achievements in the field of biological engineering, and the fish themselves that have been modified to grow at twice the rate as wild type salmon have existed for over 2 decades. Why then are we only just seeing the introduction of these fish in 2017 (and not in the US despite established FDA safety clearance)? To me this is a classic example of the tiring over-regulation and bureaucracy that exist around genetically engineered food that force applied progress in this field to a painstakingly slow crawl. The time, money, and overall process required for regulatory approval is not justified from a scientific standpoint (see Conko et al., 2016 in Nature Biotechnology for an excellent overview on the backward nature of the bureaucracy surrounding regulatory approval of genetically engineered foods in this country), and for me, the salmon we discussed are just another long overdue step in the development of our food system that is increasingly demanding a more diversified, accessible, and economical food supply that in turn must grow and adapt to not just the needs of the consumer but even more so to long-term sustainability.

There is a global shortage of salmon (see report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] for more information) that is causing large increases to the global price of salmon, and as a result, there is now a greater incentive to turn to natural sources of salmon to meet the present demand. Exploiting natural areas that proliferate with wild salmon in an attempt to meet the global demand will not be sustainable in the long term, and as is the case for a variety of other species, over-harvesting will lead to a loss of population biodiversity and overall species vitality. The genetically engineered salmon represent a high-throughput method of salmon production that can help alleviate pressures on wild populations to prevent over-harvesting and the subsequent harm to species biodiversity.

Advances in human civilization have always been met with similar advances in food production to address food security for a species ever-growing in population and complexity. The demand for salmon will not decrease in the near future, and genetically engineered salmon should be seen as the next step in the intensification of our food production system that must occur to satisfy consumer demand in a sustainable manner.

This week’s table talk on GMOs in meat was really interesting. This past week I actually had a lecture in FDSC 2000 on regulation of GMOs in food and different methods of gene transfer. With all of the background, both from previous knowledge learned in class and from the suggested reading for the talk, it was interesting how everyone had slightly different opinions on how GMOs should be introduced to general consumers and what it should be used for. I was amazed that some people didn’t think GMOs should be labeled partly because it could hurt their introduction financially and partly because it would be contradictory to label GMOs and not other forms of selective breeding. To me, it had always seemed the obvious choice for GMOs to be labelled for transparency’s sake, so it was really eye-opening to hear why people thought they shouldn’t be labeled.

It was also interesting to talk about all the possible implications of expanding GMOs to animals and not just plants, now that genetically modified salmon are approved by the FDA to be sold in the United States. There are so many recent changes to GMO policy with the introduction of GMO salmon being approved for sale and the requirement of GMOs being labeled in the United States that it was just great to talk about these changes and how people felt about it.