Can Green GM Crops Convince Enviro-Minded Consumers?

The anti-GMO movement has been positioned as a "green" cause since its inception. Messing around with ecosystems is bad, goes the thinking, and messing with plant DNA must be the ultimate messing with ecology. But studies have shown genetically modified crops as having a net environmental benefit, like a new one demonstrating the success of biotech’s banner crop, Bt corn, in reducing the use of pesticides.

The new study, out in the Journal of Economic Entomology, looks specifically at the greenness of Bt sweet corn. The findings here are hardly surprising: Crops that produce their own pesticide need less pesticide applied. Neat.

Bt corn is corn that produces a bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis. This bacterium is harmful (via toxins it produces) to pest insects like beetles and nematodes, but harmless to humans (and, crucially, bees). Bt, when applied from a bottle, is actually considered organic.

“One of the most spectacular examples occurred in New York plots in 2010: the Bt sweet corn had 99 to 100 percent marketable ears without any sprays and, even with eight conventional insecticide sprays, the non-Bt corn had only 18 percent marketable ears,” said Cornell entomology professor Anthony Shelton. “This wasn't much better than the 6 percent marketable ears produced in the plots that received no sprays at all."

The study is significant in scope, covering farm plots in five different states: New York, Minnesota, Maryland, Ohio, and Georgia, all with different climates, pest pressures, and management practices. In all of these locations, the Bt sweet corn performed better than non-Bt corn treated with conventional pesticides.

Curiously, the accompanying press release seems mostly concerned with increasing the crop's marketability with green consumers. Unfortunately, the connection between real-world greenness/ethics and why yuppies shop at Whole Foods is debatable. Sure, if people see that Bt corn lowers pesticide use, then perhaps they'll demand it more.

But will more actually be planted for humans? The Bt corn variety is planted widely, but so far its use has mostly been for products like corn starch and animal feed. Moreover, the seeds are banned in a number of European countries, the result of popular anti-GM outcry. And that same outcry is why Bt corn hasn’t had much success making it into grocery stores for human consumption. As the Food Renegade here asserts, it’d be like eating poison. (It’s not.)

The anti-biotech wave will eventually pass, but a possibly more fundamental problem remains. Among conventional crops (e.g. not labeled organic), to what degree is it even possible to market a product as “green?” At very small scales, “local” substitutes well enough for organic, but we’re not talking about farmer’s markets here.

The battle isn’t among conventional corn varieties; it’s against organics—or the organic certification’s exclusion of GM crops—and one of the slickest marketing campaigns in history. Organics have been marketed just as much as their environmental friendliness as their lack of pesticides, but what's actually more green: Organic sweet corn with low yields, or Bt sweet corn—also pesticide free—that produces more per acre? And even if Bt corn is more efficient—thus more green—can consumers even be sold on the concept? At the moment, it's a challenge.

While "greenness" is the press release pitch, the major finding of the study is for farmers. Bt sweet corn yields a lot more per acre (less is lost to pests), which means more money and less effort. It's no wonder the corn has caught on so well with feed corn producers. Unfortunately, with sweet corn, it's not the farmers that need convincing.

@everydayelk