Author’s note: This article is adapted from a talk given at Objective Standard Institute’s Innovation Celebration 2023 conference.
Do you know what genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are? Could you explain it clearly to a twelve-year-old? If your answer to these questions is “no,” you’re not alone. In a survey of Americans, 48 percent said they know “very little” about GMOs, and 16 percent said they know “nothing at all.”1 Eighty-one percent of Polish students surveyed answered that they either “know very little about” GMOs or that it’s “unlikely” they know what GMOs are.2 In Latvia, half of survey respondents said that an ordinary tomato does not contain genes, but a genetically modified (GM) tomato does.3
Despite widespread ignorance of what GMOs are, the dominant attitude toward them in most countries is decidedly negative (in the best cases, it’s neutral). For example, a Pew Research poll in 2015 found that 57 percent of Americans (excluding scientists) regard GMOs as unsafe to eat.4 Yet by some estimates, as much as 75 percent of processed foods Americans eat contain at least one genetically modified ingredient.5 Given the prevalence of GMOs, it’s important for consumers to understand the arguments and evidence for and against them to better evaluate claims about their safety and policy proposals regarding their legalization and labeling.
What actually are GMOs? The term refers to crops whose genes have been “modified” or “edited” in one or more specific ways. Because genes essentially provide instructions for the organism to produce the proteins that make up its cells and organs, a change in the genes can cause a significant difference in the resulting organism. Of course, humans have been genetically modifying crops and animals for thousands of years via selective breeding. But in the past eighty years, scientists have discovered techniques that allow us to do so in ways that are more precise and quicker, as well as having more applications than traditional breeding techniques. The products of these technologies are typically referred to as genetically modified (GM) or gene-edited (GE).
Current gene-editing technology has its roots in the 1950s, when Marc Van Montagu and Jozef Schell discovered that agrobacterium, the cause of lumpy tumorlike protrusions on trees called crown galls, creates those lumps by “snipping” the tree’s DNA and inserting its own genetic material.6 The genes then “instruct” the tree to create additional proteins along with the proteins it normally produces. Montagu, Schell, and other scientists worked to replicate this process through a variety of techniques, eventually synthesizing the enzyme that agrobacterium uses and streamlining the whole process. The first GM food, the Flavr Savr tomato (which, as the name implies, was supposed to retain a better flavor for longer), was introduced to the U.S. market in 1994.7
The potential applications of gene-editing technology are virtually endless. It’s been used to simplify the process of synthesizing insulin (which previously had to be extracted from pigs), to simulate diseases for medical research, to create alternative fuel sources, and to cure or treat various genetic diseases.8 However, many commercially available GMOs are crops, including human food, animal feed, and industrial crops such as cotton.
Commonly available GMOs include crop varieties that are resistant to insects, herbicides, or diseases. Insect-resistant GMOs are often called Bt crops, because most varieties have had the genes that code for a protein naturally produced by a bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis inserted into their genetic makeup. When certain insects consume this protein, it crystallizes in their digestive system, and they die.9 Thus, the plant acts as its own pesticide. This is an enormous boon for agriculture. For example, the use of Bt eggplant in Bangladesh, where it is a staple crop that has been attacked by beetles called borers, led to a 19.6 percent increase in yields in 2019.10
Herbicide-resistant GMOs are useful because, so far, no one has produced an herbicide capable of being fully selective such that it kills all weeds but not crops. However, if a crop is not affected by a given herbicide, then farmers can spray the whole field indiscriminately, all the weeds will die, and the crop can flourish. Without weeds competing for nutrients, water, and sunlight, the desired plants grow larger and more quickly.
When no safe and effective treatment is available for a given plant disease, perhaps because the pathogen has become resistant to the available pesticides, disease-resistant plants are a scientific blessing. For example, the fungus Aspergillus flavus produces a toxin called aflatoxin in corn, and available fungicides are not effective at treating it.11 Aflatoxin causes various health problems, including increased risk of liver cancer. So, researchers genetically engineered a variety of corn to be resistant to the fungus.
Currently, the research team is conducting testing, first in greenhouses and later in fields. Their hope is that, over the long term, they can get enough support to make the GMO corn a widely available product.
“This will make a difference in the U.S., but it will make the biggest difference in the undeveloped world,” said Monica Schmidt, a researcher on the team. “There they don’t test corn (for aflatoxin), and about 4.5 billion people consume the toxin.”
In Africa, aflatoxin contamination creates a loss of $670 million USD each year, with countless lives lost to liver cancer—at least 5,000 yearly in Nigeria alone. There and in other parts of the world where aflatoxin runs rampant, kids face stunted growth and weakened immune systems due to exposure.
“It can save lives,” Schmidt said. “I’d love to see it go to Africa.”12
Despite these clear advantages to agriculture and the production of food, many people, organizations, and governments fear and object to GMOs. Indeed, the European Union strictly regulates them, and more than half of its member states ban them outright, as do various African, South American, and Asian countries.13
Why? One alleged reason is concern for human health.
GMOs and Human Health
The most serious charge against GMOs is that they are somehow bad for people, despite the fact that a large number of scientists, scientific organizations, and research papers have concluded otherwise. Indeed, hundreds of studies on the effects of GM food on human health (one literature review included 1,783 such studies) have concluded that there is no evidence that GMOs are harmful to human beings.14
Perhaps the most common claim about GMOs and health is that they cause cancer. However, the only paper that ostensibly supports that conclusion is a highly controversial one by Gilles-Eric Séralini, from a study conducted on rats. The paper was subjected to intense criticism (and later retracted) for a variety of reasons, the most serious being that Séralini didn’t use a control group. Scientific experiments intended to test the effect of something must include, as a minimum, the group receiving the treatment and a control group that is not receiving the treatment. If all else is held constant, then any differences between the groups can be attributed to the treatment being tested. In this case, some of the rats should have been fed non-GM food while others were fed GM food (some could be fed various mixtures of the two), with all other factors being kept identical. But this is not what Séralini did. Instead, he fed one group GM corn, one group GM corn treated with RoundUp (an herbicide), and one group non-GM corn plus water treated with RoundUp.15 Perhaps unsurprisingly (especially given that rats don’t typically eat a diet of 100 percent corn; they are opportunistic omnivores), almost all the rats developed cancer, though the rats that ate GM corn developed it slightly faster than the others. This experiment, riddled with problems as it was (Séralini also didn’t track how much food the rats ate; when asked, he said he let them eat as much as they wanted), cannot be held as a serious test of whether GM food causes cancer.16
Further, farmers who raise animals in the United States have largely adopted GM feed for their livestock (according to the Food and Drug Administration, 95 percent of animal feed in the United States is GM). Yet, there’s been no increase in cancer rates among livestock in the United States since the widespread adoption of GM feed; nor has there been any increase in cancer rates among livestock in the United States compared to regions that haven’t adopted GMOs, such as the European Union.17 The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded in its 2016 report on GMOs (i.e., its most recent) that “In addition to experimental data, long-term data on the health . . . of livestock that span a period before and after introduction of GE crops show no adverse effects on these measures associated with introduction of GE feed.”18
Some claim that GM crops are less nutritious than their non-GM counterparts. However, the NAS has found that although differences between the composition of GE and non-GE plants do exist, those differences “fall within the range of naturally occurring variation found in currently available non-GE crops.”19 This is likely because a wide range of factors can affect the nutritional content of plants, including the soil they’re grown in; the acidity of the water used for irrigation; whether any fertilizers are used and, if so, what kind; as well as the genetic makeup of the plant. No evidence suggests that GM crops are less nutritious than non-GMOs.
In short, we have no reason to believe that currently available GMOs are harmful to human health. Of course, producers have a responsibility to engage in due diligence to ensure that the products they sell are safe, and it is in their interests to do so. (Harming or killing customers is hardly good for business.) This does not mean that producers should be expected to foresee every possible problem, which would be impossible, but that they should test new varieties for safety as they are developed.
Contrary to claims that GMOs harm human beings, certain GMOs improve human health. Some of this improvement is indirect; for instance, the use of insect-resistant crops reduces the use of pesticides, thereby reducing cases of pesticide poisoning (more on this later). An example here is the use of Bt cotton, which reportedly prevents “several million cases of pesticide poisoning in India every year.”20
GMOs also can directly improve human health—and even save lives—by providing micronutrients and countering micronutrient deficiencies.
Severe deficiencies, such as those found in poor countries where people depend heavily on one or two crops, can cause severe health problems, disabilities, and death. Vitamin A deficiency is an example. Severe, chronic vitamin A deficiency can cause problems in the immune system, blindness, and even death. In 2016, an estimated 1.3–1.9 million people died of vitamin A deficiency, many of them children under five. That’s more deaths than caused in that same year by HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.21 As the World Health Organization explained in 1992, “Improved vitamin A nutriture alone could prevent 1.3–2.5 million of the nearly 8 million late infancy and preschool-age child deaths that occur each year in the highest-risk developing countries.”22
Enter GMOs: A group of GM rice varieties collectively referred to as “Golden Rice” (due to their yellowish color) can help increase vitamin A intake in countries where rice is a staple crop and thus prevent many deaths. These varieties have been modified to include beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A in the body. Research shows that the beta-carotene in the GM rice varieties converts approximately as well as that found in other plant sources. Depending on the variety, a child could get the recommended daily amount of vitamin A from Golden Rice alone—thus preventing blindness and immune problems caused by vitamin A deficiency—by eating between 40 and 120 grams each day (about one or two bowls’ worth). Adults need between 75 and 200 grams of Golden Rice to satisfy their daily vitamin A needs from rice alone (two to three bowls).23 In short, by substituting Golden Rice for the non-GM rice that commonly makes up a large proportion of diets in many poor countries, millions of deaths could be prevented annually.
Similar projects are underway all over the world and have been for decades. But some have met with resistance. In 2005, for example, a group called Banana21 embarked on a project to develop “Golden Bananas” in Uganda—bananas that contain beta-carotene and iron to address common nutrient deficiencies in that country. Banana21 quickly developed such bananas and began field trials in 2010. As of 2021, however, the Ugandan government would not let Banana21sell its life-saving seeds.24
GMOs can enhance human health and save lives—if governments recognize and protect the rights of producers to create and sell them.
GMOs and ‘the Environment’
Another widespread objection to GMOs is that they harm “the environment” in some way. This claim is not specific enough to evaluate without further clarification. “Environment” literally means an organism’s surroundings; however, many use the word to mean everything on Earth except for humans and human creations. Many environmentalists focus on plant and animal life, water, and the atmosphere, implying or explicitly stating that such things have intrinsic value and should be preserved even at the cost of human quality of life or at the cost of human life as such. I will not here address the problems with this antihuman approach to “the environment” except to say that it is antihuman and thus immoral. My concern here is solely with the environment insofar as it is beneficial to human life.
Humans interact with the natural (nonhuman-created) world on a regular basis and rely on certain aspects of it. To the extent that humans depend on or derive benefits from plants, animals, bodies of water, and the atmosphere, there is reason to value or preserve these things. With that in mind, we can address claims to the effect that GMOs are bad for the environment.
First, many claim that because GM plants are better able to withstand pests and diseases, these plants can outcompete others in their surroundings and “take over,” choking out native plants, some of which may have life-serving value to the people living near them, including providing food, medicine, and aesthetic enjoyment. However, no instances of this occurring have been recorded. A few stray GM plants have appeared on properties where they were not intentionally planted or under supervision or control. But this is the case for most crops. Despite widespread adoption of GM crops in the United States, no forests or fields have been overtaken by them. This is probably because, although some GM crops have a competitive advantage over their non-GM counterparts (e.g., due to disease- or pest-resistance), they are still crops—plants that have been bred by humans for human purposes, and as such typically require a lot of maintenance (e.g., irrigation, pest and disease management, soil management). Just as most flowers in your garden wouldn’t survive as long in the forest as they do under your care, most crops can’t survive or propagate without human attention and care.
A subtler but related concern is that genes from GMOs will pass to other organisms (potentially including non-plant organisms) and have undesirable effects. This phenomenon is called gene flow. However, the evidence suggests that gene flow from GMOs is lower than from non-GMOs.25
One somewhat valid concern is the creation of herbicide-resistant weeds, popularly called “superweeds.” Just as bacteria in a hospital can evolve to become “superbugs” resistant to the antibiotics prescribed to destroy them, some weeds, over a period of years, become resistant to the chemicals designed to kill them. This poses a major challenge to farmers, who often depend on herbicides to manage weeds in their fields. (Hand weeding, as many of us do in our gardens, is impractical in large-scale agriculture.) Herbicide-resistant weeds have been evolving, and will continue to evolve, with or without GM plants. Herbicide-resistant crops encourage the repeated use of one type of herbicide (the type that the crop is resistant to). For example, the use of glyphosate (RoundUp) has risen notably in the United States since the introduction of glyphosate-resistant corn, soybeans, and cotton.26 So, it makes sense that the combined use of herbicide-resistant crops and herbicides has caused an increase in the amount of herbicide-resistant weeds. But the solution is not to ban herbicides or herbicide-resistant crops. Rather, the solution is to protect property rights and respect the rights of farmers and scientists to experiment and produce superior products. If GMOs are developed that are resistant to other kinds of herbicides, then farmers can rotate which kind of GM crops they plant, and correspondingly, which herbicides they use, thus slowing down the creation of herbicide-resistant weeds dramatically.
A further argument against GMOs is that they reduce “biodiversity,” or the number of species in a given area. As with “the environment,” “biodiversity” is treated as an intrinsic value—a value apart from and irrespective of human needs or the requirements of human life. But human values properly are grounded in, and in service of, human life. So, I will address biodiversity only insofar as the species in question have positive or negative significance for human life.
A diversity of species in a given area can be beneficial to human life—if the species in question somehow serve human life. For example, a diverse system of bacteria, fungi, worms, and other small organisms supports “healthy” soil—soil that contains nutrients and the appropriate texture for water and air retention and drainage—which sustains crops, gardens, and forests for human use and enjoyment. However, ecosystems are not like spun glass, liable to shatter at the slightest disturbance. Removing one (or even a few) species will cause a change, but it’s not necessarily the case that such a change will be detrimental to the remaining organisms or to humans. Indeed, some organisms, such as most species of mosquitoes, threaten human lives, so eliminating them would probably be a net positive.
In an agricultural context, maintaining soil health is vital for continuing to grow crops, and a diversity of species in, and above, the soil can support such health. GMOs help here, too. For example, the areas around fields planted with herbicide-resistant crops and sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate show similar or increased helpful weed diversity compared to fields with non-GM crops.27 Similarly, insect-resistant crops can increase the variety of helpful insect species in the surrounding area compared to areas planted with non-GM crops.28
GMOs can also reduce the need for tillage, a practice commonly used to minimize the amount of weeds in a field. Because tillage uses heavy machinery, it compacts the soil, making it harder for microorganisms to thrive and easier for erosion to occur. But herbicide-resistant crops reduce or eliminate the need for tillage, saving farmers time and money, as well as improving soil health.29
The relevant facts surrounding the issue of GM crops and “biodiversity” are that GM crops planted in the United States have reduced insecticide use (saving farmers money and reducing workers’ exposure to potentially toxic or irritating chemicals), reduced use of the most dangerous herbicides, increased the frequency of low-tillage and no-till farming (again, saving farmers time and money), and improved soil quality (important for supporting continuing production on the same plot of land).30
GMOs and Small Farmers
Some people claim that GMOs harm small farmers.31 To evaluate such claims, we must understand this use of “harm.” GMOs do not physically harm farmers. But do GMOs negatively affect small farmers in some other way?
These opponents of GMOs point out that in dealing with non-GM crops, farmers typically save the seed from one crop to plant the next year, so they needn’t buy new seed each year. Because GM seed is patented, however, farmers who purchase it typically must sign an agreement not to save the seed but to purchase new seed each year that they opt to continue planting the GM crop. (It’s worth noting that some GM seed producers provide seeds for farmers in poor countries without this requirement.) In accordance with this voluntary agreement, farmers who continue to plant GMOs purchase new seeds each year. If a given farmer thinks it is in his best interest to use the GM seeds, he should continue to do so. If he doesn’t, he shouldn’t. The relevant questions include whether the GM crops save him money on pesticides (and labor to apply them), whether they earn him a larger profit through higher yields—which includes the question of whether there is a market for those yields. If so, then it may be worth the cost of the GM seeds. Statistics suggest that, for many, especially in developing countries, farmers think GM seed is worth the extra cost—and many have clearly benefited from acting on that judgment. A report in GM Crops & Food explains:
Over the period 1996 to 2020, the economic benefits have been significant with farm incomes for those using the technology having increased by $261.3 billion US dollars. . . . The cumulative farm income gains have been divided 52% to farmers in developing countries and 48% to farmers in developed countries. Seventy-two percent of the gains have derived from yield and production gains with the remaining 28% coming from cost savings.32
For an individual farmer in a developing country, this works out to an average profit of “$5.22 for each extra dollar invested in GM crop seed.”33
GMOs do not physically harm small farmers nor violate their rights. But GM seeds can and often do help them to succeed and flourish.
GMOs and Neocolonialism?
Some particularly vitriolic opponents claim that GMOs are a form of neocolonialism—just one more pernicious Western influence on the rest of the world. One such activist, Vandana Shiva, claims that Western science and its products, including GMOs, are a “local tradition” that has been spread through “intellectual colonisation.”34 Although the processes and basic technologies used in modern gene editing were discovered and developed in Europe and the United States, claims to the effect that GMO adoption in developing countries is akin to colonialism overlook a key difference between science and free trade on the one hand, and dogmatism and colonialism on the other. No one is forcing anyone to accept the value of GM crops or to use GM seeds. Companies employ scientists and farmers, who work together to develop and test products before they go to market. Once the products are on the market, farmers can choose to purchase the GM seed, or not to do so. No force is involved. No one’s rights are violated. Everything here is voluntary.
Further, to suggest that technologies developed in the West should stay there is to cut off those who happen to be born in poor, underdeveloped countries from all kinds of useful advancements and knowledge that could enable them to escape poverty and live better lives. And it is to deprive people in the West of the benefits of trading with people in these countries.
Far from constituting colonialism or any kind of coercion, GMOs are a way for people who lack the wealth and opportunities of those in more developed countries to voluntarily partake in and benefit from these values.
GMOs Aren’t ‘Natural’
Yet another claim against GM foods is that they aren’t “natural.” Of course, if we take “natural” to mean that no human thought or action were involved in creating them, that’s true. But, so what? Disease is natural; medicine isn’t. Parasite-ridden water is natural; clean drinking water on demand isn’t. Dying of exposure is natural; temperature-controlled, waterproof housing isn’t. Flooding is natural; a dam isn’t. As author Johan Norberg puts it, “Artificial is good if we tailor it to our needs. Natural can be good, too, but a lot of it kills us.”35 If the standard of moral value is the requirements of human life (and it is), then the question of whether something is natural or not is irrelevant.
GMOs and Crop Yields
One of the key benefits of GMOs is that they increase crop yields. Between 1996 and 2020, for example, cotton yields in eleven countries increased between 1.8 and 30.5 percent (an average of 14.5 percent) using insect-resistant cotton. During the same time, corn yields in twelve countries increased between 5 and 23 percent (the average being 17.7 percent) through the use of insect-resistant corn.36
The increase in yields isn’t good only for farmers, who can make a higher profit, but also for consumers, who can buy cheaper food.37 This is, in part, a consequence of the fact that GMOs enable more efficient use of land. With GMOs, farmers can use less land to grow the same amount of food, leaving the excess land free for other uses (including selling or renting it to others). As agricultural economist Graham Brookes put it,
If world agriculture wanted to maintain global production of the four main crops in which GM seed technology has been widely used [corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola] at 2020 levels, but without using the GM technology, this would require farmers to plant an additional 11.6 million ha [hectares, or 28.7 million acres] of soybeans, 8.5 million ha [21 million acres] of maize, 2.8 million ha [6.9 million acres] of cotton, and 0.5 million ha [1.2 million acres] of canola, an area (23.4 million ha [57.8 million acres] in total) equivalent to the combined agricultural area of Philippines and Vietnam.38
In 2020, the use of GM crops freed up an area seven times the size of Belgium. Imagine if governments that currently prohibit the use of GMOs stopped doing so how much more land would be available for housing, industry, nature reserves, and myriad other uses.
GMOs and Disease Resistance
A great variety of pathogens affect plants and can destroy entire fields of crops if not effectively countered. An estimated 14 percent of crops worldwide are lost each year to disease. In dollars, this is a loss of about $220 billion.39 In terms of human lives, this would be hard to calculate, but we can look to history for an indication. Plant disease caused the Irish Potato Famine, in which about 35 percent of the potato crop was lost over four years (1845–1849).40 This resulted in one million deaths and as many as two million people fleeing their homes.41 And that was the effect of just one diseased crop, in a relatively small region, for just four years. Imagine the consequences of 14 percent of crops worldwide being lost to disease year after year. Although pesticides have been developed that can effectively treat or prevent many plant diseases, for some this is not the case (and in some cases, the pathogens have become resistant to available treatments). GM crops help to solve this problem. Plants can be modified to not be affected by the disease, making its presence irrelevant to the crop’s health.
Because disease resistance reduces the need to spray pesticides to prevent or treat the disease, these kinds of GM crops can be useful to farmers all over the world. But they’re especially valuable to farmers in developing countries, who often depend on one or two staple crops. A disease affecting these crops that’s not easily treatable can cost them their livelihood—and many lives. One example is cassava, a staple crop in Africa, which has been affected by a variety of viruses.42 Scientists in Kenya, Nigeria, and elsewhere have developed resistant varieties using GM technology. But many governments in these areas have either banned GMOs outright or erected steep regulatory barriers making it time-consuming, costly, and difficult—if not impossible—to bring the life-serving products to market.43
Heat-Resistant Plants
As many regions are becoming warmer than they have been in recent decades, to ensure a steady food supply, farmers need crops that can tolerate higher temperatures.44 GM technology can provide just that. For example, scientists at Baylor College in Texas found a gene that makes plants able to handle a sustained increase in temperature of up to two degrees Celsius with no decrease in yield. And they successfully tested it in tomatoes.45
GMOs versus Traditional or Mutational Breeding
Traits such as heat- and disease-resistance can often be bred into crops through the traditional methods of crossbreeding or mutational breeding, but genetic engineering is much faster. Traditional crossbreeding typically takes eight to ten years to produce a sellable plant with a new characteristic.46 Genetic mutations that produce desirable traits occasionally occur naturally, but they can also be induced through radiation or chemicals such as colchicine, which reduces the time to six to seven years. Compare this to modern gene-editing techniques: Producing a sellable variety takes a mere two to three years—three to four times faster than traditional breeding and far more useful for dealing with such time-sensitive issues as disease outbreaks.47
***
Contrary to decades-long, well-financed efforts to discredit and prohibit GMOs, gene editing is a profoundly life-enhancing technology. GM crops can and have saved lives, improved health, enhanced the soils they are planted in, freed up land, and increased profits for farmers—especially in the developing world. But this technology can serve human life only to the extent that governments keep their coercive hands off businessmen, scientists, farmers, and others involved in the process of producing and using this biological gold.
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15. RoundUp is a common herbicide, often used with GM crops that are resistant to it, marketed as “RoundUp Ready” crops.
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27. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Genetically Engineered Crops, 146.
28. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Genetically Engineered Crops, 146.
29. Kate Hall, “Why Soil Health Matters & How GMOs Play a Key Role,” Forbes, December 7, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/gmoanswers/2016/12/07/soil-health-matters/.
30. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010), 3, 5, 214.
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35. Angelica and Thomas Walker-Werth, “Johan Norberg on Openness, Innovation, and Flourishing,” The Objective Standard, August 19, 2022, https://theobjectivestandard.com/2022/08/johan-norberg-on-openness-innovation-and-flourishing/.
36. Brookes, “Farm Income and Production Impacts,” 171–95.
37. Brian Wallheimer, “Study: Eliminating GMOs Would Take Toll on Environment, Economies,” Purdue University: Agriculture News, February 29, 2016, https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2016/Q1/study-eliminating-gmos-would-take-toll-on-environment,-economies.htm.
38. Brookes, “Farm Income and Production Impacts,” 171–95.
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43. H. Peter van Esse, T. Lynne Reuber, and Dieuwertje van der Does, “Genetic Modification to Improve Disease Resistance in Crops,” New Phytologist 225, no. 1 (January 2020): 70–86; Joseph Maina, “Scientists Develop Disease-Resistant GM Cassava in Kenya,” Science Africa, August 17, 2022, https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/scientists-develop-disease-resistant-gm-cassava-in-kenya/; Ebuka Onyeji, “Why We Support Field Trials of Genetically Modified Cassava in Nigeria—Scientist,” Premium Times Nigeria, January 15, 2018, https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/255546-support-field-trials-genetically-modified-cassava-nigeria-scientist.html?tztc=1.
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