Ethics of food production

Food

Genetically Modified Crops -- America says 'Yes' while the European Union and the Sudan says 'No!

Recently, the famine-stricken nation of the Sudan turned away an entire load of crops and seeds that could have filled the bellies of many of its hungry citizens. Why did it do so? Was it madness? No, it was because of the fact that the products in question contained genetically modified crops. "Eat GM or Starve," said the United States, according to an association designed to prevent the introduction of GM crops into the international as well as the national food supply. (OCO, 2004) Proponents of these crops, however, pointed out that the genetic modifications were to make the crops more disease resistant and hardier to the harsh climates of the Sudan.

Genetically modified crops remain one of the most controversial agricultural issues today. Despite fears regarding the safety of these so-called franken-foods, and the resistance of the European community in particular to their usage and introduction into the national food supply, as a destruction of ways of traditional methods of farming, the United States has quietly and seamlessly, some would say courageously integrated these products into our own food supply. Organic foods can be more resistant to harmful bacteria, as well as more attractive and have a longer shelf life. Some see them as a solution to hunger and the difficulty of transporting fresher, healthier produce to an increasingly disease-infested, obese, and diabetic-prone world.

But even American consumer surveys indicate that the vast majority of consumers do not want GM food on their plates, even those consumers who actually eat the crops unwittingly and unknowingly. There remains a broad consensus that at the very least consumers should have the right to choose whether to eat or not GM food, whether this is scientifically valid or not. (COC 2004) Choice is an American byword when it comes to consumer behavior, for better or for ill. After all, one could contend, that one has the right to chose to consume products that are poor for one's health, why should not have consumers have equal right to turn away from products that may or may not threaten one's health through "GMO contamination?"

But the poignant example of the Sudan shows that individuals' consumer choices in the first world still affect the Third World, as Sudanese citizens and the Sudanese government feared becoming a colonial genetic experiment of the Americans. The treating of genetically modified foods as different creates a public relations disaster on a global level. If American and European consumers fear these foods, and Americans must be 'tricked' into buying genetically modified foods without labeling them, while the EU rejects these foods entirely, surely, the Sudanese rationalized, something must be amiss with these apparently harmless and well-intentioned products the United States was 'giving' away?