In March 2009, the White House lawn was broken and plowed: First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic farm in front of the White House (TheWhoFarm, n.d.). This organic farm served as an educational display for youth to understand the importance of “consuming healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables” (Regenerative Organic, 2021). The practice of organic farming in the White House signifies the awareness of sustainability Americans have uptook. However, although the awareness of food sustainability has been raised in the US, the public ignores the key part of the discussion: what is sustainability. As the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (n.d.) officially puts, sustainable agriculture should not only maintain and enhance the wellness of the environment but also “sustain the economic viability of farm operations, [and] enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.” This criterion includes three aspects of sustainability: environment, economics, and society. However, the current agricultural practices in the US don’t meet all aspects of the requirement for the aforementioned sustainable agriculture. The public has a limited understanding of sustainability which only considers organic food, weighting environmental sustainability over economic and social sustainability. To combat this situation, as noted by multiple scholarly research, only through combining organic farming practices and genetically modified (GM) crops technology can the US realize sustainability in agriculture. The US government must reform the current agricultural product label system to include transgenics for organics. In this way, it could proliferate the overall economic efficiency, maintain social inclusion, and upgrade environmental wellness. Only then, the true social awareness of sustainable agriculture could be restored.
The increased social awareness of climate issues has brought a considerable growth of the organic agriculture industry in the US. The CEO of Organic Trade Association contends that “Organic has proven it can withstand short-term economic storms…Americans are still investing in the environment” (Organic Trade Association, 2023). It indicates that the concept of sustainability is the key to the growth of the organic industry’s market value. With an increased environmental awareness, more and more Americans have paid attention to their food choice and reduced carbon emissions through their food consumption. Indeed, in the US, when thinking about agricultural sustainability, the most relevant thing people consider will be organic foods. Searching “sustainable agriculture” on Instagram, the first post is a recommendation of sustainable farms. Among the seven farms introduced, they all brand themselves as organic farms (Crowfarming, 2023). Furthermore, in various consumer behavior researches toward sustainable consumption, people naturally equate sustainable food to organic products (Maciejewski, 2020; Shafiea and Rennie, 2009; Kostadinova, 2016; Vermeir and Verbeke, 2005). Americans have taken for granted that organics has been the only topic in the conversation of sustainability. The link between sustainability and organic food has been deeply rooted in people’s perspective.
Although people choose organic food based on considerations of sustainability, is organic farming truly sustainable? Regarding the USDA criteria for sustainable agriculture, organic farming is not socially and economically sustainable due to its less productivity and inclusiveness. From the Organic Trade Association report (2023), even though the organic agriculture industry has doubled the market value to over $60 billion in the last decade, it only accounts for 6% of all food sales in the US in 2022. Why can’t such a large market serve more consumers? First, the high price of organic produce has turned most US customers away. USDA discovers that, on average, organic foods are 20% more expensive than non-organic counterparts (Carlson, 2016). By calculations, if an ordinary household only consumes organic foods, solely eating will take up 10% of its income (Measom, 2023; Guzman & Kollara, 2023). As a result, many will consider it financially incompatible. Second, organic farming’s low productivity limits its supply. Scholar of Agriculture and Food, David Connor (2021) observes that “equal production [for organic farms] requires 2-3 times the land area of conventional farms.” With a lower input-output ratio, organic farming cannot provide enough food for all societal members. In this way, the economic efficiency of the whole society is diminished as the financial input of the organic industry doesn’t match the expected output of feeding more people. Furthermore, the high price constraints that consuming organic foods is the privilege of a small portion of the population. Revisiting USDA’s definition of sustainability, current organic agriculture fails to enhance equity of life and sustain economic viability (USDA, n.d.). As a result, organic farming doesn’t meet the criteria of sustainable agriculture since it’s neither socially nor economically sustainable.
After acknowledging the unsustainability of organic agriculture, the public needs to pay attention to another kind of food: Genetically Modified (GM) crops, since they are more socially and economically efficient. In the Journal of Biotechnology, Husaini and Sohailon (2023) underscore that, on average, solely adopting GM crops decreases pesticide use by 37% and increases productivity by 22%. This highlights that GM crops require fewer farm supplies but provide larger food yields for society. Besides, because of the modified genes, GM crops inherently utilize soil nutrition more efficiently. Research in Science Journal shows that Arabidopsis plants (a kind of GMO) “incorporate 28% more nitrogen into their tissue” (Ferber, 2004). With less requirement for soil fertility, GM crops save fertilizers for farmers. Because of the reduction in agricultural input, GM crops cut the “greenhouse gas emissions equivalent in 2018 to removing 15.27 million cars from the roads” (Conrow, 2020). Overall, these strengths of GM crops reduce the cost of running a farm and increase social and economic benefits by ensuring farmers’ interests and producing low-price foods. As a result, regarding economic and social sustainability, GM agriculture outweighs conventional counterparts. In essence, GM agriculture meets the needs of “sustain the economic viability of farm operation” and “enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole” proposed by USDA’s sustainability clause (USDA, n.d.).
However, the reason why GM crops have not been widely put into sustainable agricultural practices is the concerns of pesticides. Indeed, scientists have made GM crops to decrease or increase the use of pesticides. As a result, GM crops can be categorized into two groups. The first kind of GM crops is represented by Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) crops, in which scientists have implanted “naturally occurring bacterium [which] produces proteins specifically active against certain insects” into the crops (Hsaio, 2015). Thus, the crops can inherently resist certain pests. However, the genes implanted couldn’t target all pests and weeds, so farmers still need to remove those untargeted by herbicides and insecticides (Tabashnik & Carrière, 2019; Hsaio, 2015). Another kind of GM crops is genetically modified to better survive pesticides. For example, the strongly opposed glyphosate, a pesticide that is possibly carcinogenic to humans, is heavily sprayed on GMOs because they can thrive under large amounts of pesticides (Hsaio, 2015). As a result, the concerns about the excessive use of pesticides on GM farmlands are reasonable. Even disease-resistant GM crops, like Bt crops, demand a small amount of pesticides, not to mention there are GM crops created to adapt to pesticides. If USDA examines GM agriculture with sustainability standards, it can’t meet the criteria of environmental sustainability. Although GM farming has merits in low cost and high productivity, it unavoidably hurts the environment due to the use of pesticides.
While GMOs concern environmentalists in terms of the usage of pesticides, as mentioned above, they have strengths in other aspects, such as high yields, but these strengths are often washed away by misconceptions against GMOs. Social institutions must address misleading information toward GMOs in public policy to reconstruct a neutral social outlook of GMOs. In today’s society, although USDA has a definition on sustainable agriculture, other public institutions don’t view GMOs with a neutral standpoint. For example, major parts of the guidance of today’s agriculture system were guided by an article published in 1998 by the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), which excluded the use of GMOs from organic production since it was believed that GMOs would place “unacceptable threats to human health” (Amjad & Muhammad, 2018). However, this statement was based on dated data and research decades ago. Today, more than 100 Nobel Laureates have supported that GMOs are not unhealthy (Amjad & Muhammad, 2018). During two decades of in-depth scientific research, the authorities have clarified the healthiness of GMOs. Although IFOAM’s statement has negatively influenced public perspectives on GMOs, today’s science doesn’t consider IFOAM objective anymore. In the last two decades, IFOAM might have urged public policies to stigmatize GM farming, but it’s time to revisit those policies and build a better system. Therefore, the current conceptualization of agricultural sustainability needs to be changed. The US government should consider the latest scientific research with a neutral standpoint. It should develop a critical perspective on sustainable agriculture, neither be carried away by the overemphasis on the organic industry nor the irrational concerns on GM crops. Only when viewing the issues through a lens of science, can the US government carry out agricultural policies that truly encourage sustainability.
A combination of GM and organic farming is the ultimate solution to this problem. This proposal has appeared with high frequency in scientific research in the last five years but is barely known by the public (Husaini & Sohail, 2023; Amjad & Muhammad, 2018). Literally, this type of agriculture encourages a combination of organic farming techniques and the usage of biotechnology. For example, farmers could use environmentally friendly farming practices (known as organic farming) to grow genetically modified crops with the assistance from agricultural modernization technologies, such as the importation of disease databases (Husaini & Sohail, 2023). Such a model of agriculture draws on the strengths of both organic and GMO agriculture, combining them to create environmental, economic, and social values that are higher than those of each alone.
Under the utilization of modern biotechnology, farming is much more efficient because GM crops can ease the farming process by decreasing the demand for agricultural supplies. With less operational cost on farming, farmers could gain more profit from production, and the food price could become lower on the consumption end. The utilization of organic farming techniques would ensure the environmental friendliness of agriculture by preventing the excessive use of pesticides to protect both ecosystems and farmers’ health. Moreover, the adoption of agricultural modernization technology could help farmers calculate various environmental indicators, such as carbon emissions, to build a friendly relationship between humans and the ecosystem. In this way, GMOs allow for higher productivity and food affordability, organic farming practices ensure environmental sustainability, and agricultural modernization empowers farmers to manage their farms in a more sustainable way. Transgenics for organics would be a practice that meets all the USDA criteria: environmental sustainability, economic efficiency, and social equality.
This solid solution for sustainable agriculture production will motivate the US government to establish a modernized system of organic GMO agriculture. By doing so, the US will level up the overall social good. As mentioned above, applying transgenics for organics will increase the affordable food supply without deteriorating the environment. It meets the country’s interest by ensuring the well-being of its residents and environment. With true sustainable agriculture, the US could step into a brighter future of benefiting economics, society, and environment at the same time. With promising environmental, social, and economic returns, the US government should uptake this policy immediately. To encourage the adoption of organic GM agriculture, the US government should reform the labeling of agricultural products. The institution should foster a systematic change to update the label system of agricultural products to not only label “organic” but also label the above-mentioned “organic genetically modified food.” Having sufficient reasons to reform the agricultural labeling system, the US could help raise the social awareness of sustainable agriculture.
This policy can reconstruct the relationship between humans, agriculture, and the environment. A label of “transgenics for organics” can erase people’s misconceptions against GMOs and acknowledge the complementary relationship between GM and organic agriculture. They can realize that organic food is not the only choice, and that transgenic organics can be even more sustainable in terms of economic efficiency. Thus, consumers could have more sustainable food options. For fans of organic foods, they could continue sticking to organic products for their preference. For other consumers, they could purchase more affordable organic GM foods. The availability of options carries a sense of social inclusiveness. The promotion of this labeling policy will enable more people to satisfy their wallets, stomachs, and environmental attitudes at the same time. The concept of sustainable farming will no longer be the prestige of a small group of people; now, all individuals can choose sustainable foods without being deflated by the high price. Carrying out this label reformation, the US government will ensure the overall development of society. With a single practice of changing food labels, not only do farmers have more economical farming methods, but consumers have more affordable food choices, and society can protect the ecosystem. The US government can restore a healthy relationship between humans and the earth and raise public awareness of true sustainability.
As Michelle Obama states in her speech at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “[putting] science at the heart of our environmental policies and decisions… will not only save our planet; it’s going to transform our economy… All of our children will grow up in a healthier environment” (UCSB, 2009). Standing at the crossroads of technology and tradition, we should arm ourselves with scientific evidence and make educated decisions based on them. In this scenario, transgenics for organics will be the only solution to balance the need for environmental wellness and socioeconomic considerations. To ensure the sustainable and affordable food supplies for our children, the US government needs to take action and reform the agricultural labeling system immediately.
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