Get to Know GMOs Month - The People who Study and Grow GMOs

October is Get to Know GMOs Month, and GMO Answers is bringing you information about biotechnology in agriculture. So far this month, we’ve discussed the biggest misconceptions about GMOs, GMO basics and the science of GMOs. This week, we reached out to the people who study and grow GMOs to share their perspectives with you here. 

The People who Grow GMOs

Out in the field, family farmers use GMO seeds to grow crops.

We interviewed Lawson Mozley, a sixth generation Florida farmer and cattle producer, about how he chooses seeds to use on his farm. Lawson explains the role that GM crops play in his daily farming operation in this video. He discusses which crops he grows on his farm, and how specific GM traits help impact his production costs, including traits for herbicide and insect resistance.

We also interviewed Jillian Etress, who farms with her husband in southeast Alabama. According to Jillian, her family “farms around 600 acres in southeast Alabama and northwest Florida, and [their] primary crops are peanuts and cotton. [They] also grow a little bit of corn, soybeans and a few tomatoes for the fresh market.”

While Jillian’s family does produce crops that aren’t available as GM varieties, she explains, “We use crops improved with GM technology when planting cotton, corn and soybeans. These allow us more flexibility when controlling pests and problem weeds. The improved seeds help us limit the amounts of pesticides and herbicides that we use, which is really important because we farm in an area of Florida that is part of a first magnitude spring basin. By limiting the use of these pesticides, we are able to help preserve the environment around our farm.”  

Want to get to know more farmers who grow GMOs and other crops?  There are several farmers who contribute to GMO Answers including:

• Brian Scott, a farmer in northwest Indiana who raises corn, soybeans, corn, and wheat
• Mary Mertz, whose family raises grain and livestock
• Rosalie Ellasus, who grows corn and rice in the Philippines
• Katie Pratt  and her husband, Andy, are seventh generation farmers raising farm kids, corn, soybeans, and seed corn with Andy’s family in Illinois
• Brandon Hunnicutt, a fifth generation farmer utilizing the latest technology to grow corn and soybeans on his 100+ year old homestead

Additionally, there are a number of places online to connect with farmers about how food is grown, including:

• Find Our Common Ground – volunteer farm women starting a conversation between women who grow food and women who buy it
• U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance – consists of more than 80 farmer and rancher led organizations working to engage in dialogue with consumers who have questions about how today’s food is grown and raised

The People who Study GMOs

We reached out to the scientists who study GMOs, including consultant Steve Savage with Savage & Associates, and postdoctoral research fellow Xiaohua Yang from Cornell University.

Steve tells us, “I had no farming background, but became interested in plant biology as an undergraduate at Stanford. That’s also when I first learned about genetic engineering in 1977. I went to the University of California, Davis, to study diseases of plants. Since then I’ve worked in many different aspects of agriculture technology, such as viticulture, fungicide discovery (at DuPont) and biological control (at Mycogen). Since 1996, I’ve been an independent consultant working on a wide variety of projects including many associated with biotech crops.

We asked Steve what impacts GM crops could have on a global scale, and he said, “I don’t like any statement in the vein of ‘technology X will feed the world.’ Only farmers will feed the world. That said there are some important contributions that could come via genetic engineering.”

He goes on to explain: “The increased pest control efficiency that has been seed via herbicide tolerance and Bt-based insect resistance could help in a great many other crops. Biotech would be a way to move resistance genes from wild crop relatives into crops for which doing that by conventional breeding is either far too slow or which would disrupt complex quality traits. Biotech solutions could help save entire crops from exotic pests which threaten to destroy the industry in various geographies.” 

Xiaohua’s research focuses on how different factors such as crop load, nitrogen level and canopy position affect the metabolism of apple trees and fruit quality. Some of her previous research topics include plant architecture, plant hormones and increasing salt tolerance of rice through genetic engineering.

She explains, “My introduction to genetic engineering was rather natural. I needed to solve a scientific problem (increase the salt tolerance of rice) and genetic engineering was one way to do it.” She adds, “I only started to appreciate the non-scientific aspects of the technology and the complexity of the issue after I took a course at Cornell with World Food Prize winner Professor Per Pinstrup-Anderson. The course was focused on food safety and globalization. Per often asked the question: what are the alternatives? I still find that an effective way to facilitate thinking when facing complex problems with no obvious or less than perfect solutions.”

Want to get to know more experts and scientists who study GMOs and related topics? Learn about the experts who contribute to GMO Answers, including:

• Kevin Folta, Professor and Chairman, Horticultural Sciences Department, University of Florida
• Andrew Kniss, Associate Professor of Weed Ecology & Management, Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Wyoming
• Dr. Peter H. Raven, President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden