Parsing questions about GMOs

Parke Wilde at U.S. Food Policy helpfully parses the potential questions about genetically modified food:

But, exactly what question are we picking sides on?

Question A is:

Could there ever exist a GMO technology worth supporting?

Questions B1, B2, B3, and B4 are:

Are current oversight systems inadequate to protect against food safety failures and environmental harms? Do current GMO technologies promote increased chemical use? Have current GMO technologies been oversold prematurely? Does the current regime of intellectual property rights favor multinational corporations over farmers?

I have no answer to Question A right now. I'll find out the correct answer in a few years.

Here's where I am more confident: If you oppose GMOs, it benefits you to remain friendly with everybody who shares your answers on Question B, regardless of their answer to Question A.

I'll interpret from the wording of Question A that Parke is skeptical of GMOs. First, from a clarity of argument/logic perspective, it seems to me like a stretch that we could conclusively prove that GMOs are never worth pursuing within the next few years. Second, like Michael Specter, I tend to be more positive on at least giving GMOs strong consideration, simply because no one has convincingly demonstrated that future food demand of the entire world can be met relying solely on traditional (or "wholesome" organic) food production systems.

I wish promoters of organic agriculture would engage more substantively with the broader debate of how food production can satisfy both growing population and growing per capita consumption throughout the developing world, rather than the blindered rich-world-centric view that's implied by many of their arguments (e.g. the Michael Pollan/Vandana Shiva argument that "industrial agriculture makes food too cheap", as I've pointed out before).


Update: I've been meaning to post this Michael Roberts post but wasn't sure exactly what to say about it, so I'll awkwardly append it here and excerpt some quotes relevant to the above discussion:

I think higher food prices--the kind the poor will see much more than anyone reading this blog post--are one of the biggest risks from global warming. If you don't care about whether the poor eat or not, I think you will care about the civil conflict that would accompany their hunger. If GMOs solve the problem, great. But I'm kinda skeptical that they will...

... and...

For people in the United States these dramatic predictions are actually of little direct concern. Raw commodities make up such a tiny share of retail food prices we would hardly notice a 10-fold increase in corn prices. The price of a quarter-pound hamburger (produced from corn-fed beef) would probably go up by less than a dollar. It’s hard to believe we’d buy much less meat as a result. Indeed, demand growth today comes less from population growth and more from rising incomes and meat consumption in China. (Keep in mind that it takes five to 10 calories of staple grains to make one calorie of meat.)

But three billion people — nearly half the planet — live on $2.50 per day or less. The poor typically spend a third to half of their income on food, composed mainly of staple commodities. If food quantities go down and prices go up, it’s the world’s poor who consume less.