The Next Food Technology Worry?

It's nanotechnology.  A blog post at Scientific American raises concerns about the use of nanotech in food.  According to the piece:

A new report from an environmental health group, As You Sow, raises concern about nanoparticles in some popular sweets. The group says it found particles of titanium dioxide less than 10 nanometers in size in the powdered sugar coating on donuts from Dunkin’ and Hostess (now sadly defunct). The group argues that the nanoparticles have no business in any kind of food until safety testing is done; in this case, the tiny bits could make donuts even unhealthier.

Nano-sized particles, roughly one-billionth of a meter in diameter (much smaller than the width of a human hair), have been in food for decades at least, often an unintentional byproduct of processing techniques. But a whole range of novel nano-sized particles—ranging from tiny flakes of titanium dioxide to whiten powdered donuts to submicroscopic silver bits to kill microbes—are showing up today in food and food packaging on purpose.

Are these nanotechnologies dangerous?  I don't know.  I do know scientists have been working for years on a variety of nano-tech developments and many products we use today (particularly sunscreen) have nanoparticles.  

It will be interesting to see if nano-tech becomes the next bio-tech in attracting controversy.  I suspect it will be harder to vilify nano-tech foods (should we call them NTFs?) relative to GMOs.  The reason is that many of the nanotech developments were developed specifically with the consumer in mind to make their end-experience better by improving shelf life (often through improved packaging), nutrition, and taste.  These are much more tangible benefits for the consumer than the harder-to-see benefits that have accrued via food biotechnology (mainly reduction in the price of food).  Moreover, unlike GMOs, for NTFs it will be harder to find a company like Monsanto around which conspiracy theories can form.     

Are Plant Patents the Problem?

There is an interesting article at Slate.com by Frederick Kaufman on GMO seeds.  Although I don't agree with his conclusion, this is the sort of nuanced view about GMOs that deserves more attention.

In short, my take is that Kaufman sees some GMOs are good and some as bad, and the bad are mainly (in Kaufman's) view the result of plant patents.  Here is Kaufman:

Intellectual property laws need to be rethought. A copyrighted movie or book remains the same movie or book, but when food becomes a legal construct or an intellectual property right, it stops being food. Of course, you can eat patented popcorn the same way you can consume its unpatented cousin. But unlike an iPhone or a flatscreen TV, everyone needs food, and we need it every day. . . . Since everyone must participate in the food market to the tune of 2,700 or so calories a day, food property rights allow those who hold food patents a guaranteed portion of profits from a guaranteed purchase, which is fundamentally unfair. Why should Big Ag possess privileges beyond any other sort of business on earth? The rules that govern patents for electronics and entertainment should not be the same rules that govern the most vital element of human life.

I'm not at all convinced by the "we need food to live" argument that somehow makes the patent and copyright laws for food different than those for software, electronic books, or other technological innovations.   

The thing that Kaufman discounts is the incentive that patents give the innovator to innovate.  He seems to think many scientists will innovate from intrinsic motivation.  This is made explicit in the following quote:

Like many scientists, Dr. Ronald’s primary motivation is not profit, but insight into the workings of nature.

While that might be true of some, I doubt it is true for most.  And it is almost certainly not true for those innovators at the margin.  Patent (and copyright) laws try to balance two competing factors: 1) the incentive to innovate and 2) allowing the invention to be more widely distributed in the population so the gains are more widely shared.  I am open to the argument that these two things need some re-balancing - perhaps by shortening the time a patent or copyright is in effect.  But, to totally ignore the incentive to innovate is, I think, unwise.

Finally, I think we've got to take a step back and ask what a world would look like if Monsanto couldn't patent seed - if farmers could freely replant progeny.  Monsanto might very well use their terminator technology.  But, even if they didn't, they'd almost certainly change their pricing.  Here is what I had to say about the issue a couple months ago:

What do you think will happen to the price of the first generation seed if farmers are able to freely replant the progeny?  

As Steven Landsburg points out in his wonderful (and recently re-released) book The Arm Chair Economist the indifference principle must always be at work.  The principle suggests that at current prices, (the marginal) farmer must be indifferent to buying Monsanto seed given that he cannot replant the progeny and must buy seed again next year.  However, if the Supreme Court rules that Monsanto does NOT own the progeny, then the value of the seed to farmers rises since they can re-use the seed.  The marginal farmer is no longer indifferent.   For the indifference principle to hold (i.e., for equilibrium to be restored), the price must rise.  Monsanto will charge more for it's initial offerings if farmers can freely replant.      

As an analogy, consider the market for textbooks.  Bailey and I wrote an undergrad textbook on Agricultural Marketing and Price Analysis a few years ago (in which we somewhat ironically discuss the indifference principle).  Buying a new copy of the book is pricey (Amazon.com has the current price of a new copy at $97.41).  What do you think would happen to the price of the initial offering of the textbook (i.e., the price of a new copy) if Bailey and I (and the publishers who actually sets the price) could receive royalties when the used textbook is resold in bookstores after the semester?  The initial price for a new book would almost certainly fall.  

The Monsanto case is simply this example working in reverse.  

I'll conclude by admitting that I'd probably write fewer books if anyone could copy or distribute my work without attribution or compensation.  I think a lot of geneticists and plant scientists would feel similarly about their work.

Food Ethics Blog

I just ran across The Food Ethics Blog by Chris MacDonald.  It looks very interesting, and I was especially intrigued by a couple posts on whether we have the right to know what's in our food and whether food companies have a moral obligation to label GMOs.  Be sure to read the back-and-forth in the comments section, which is just as good as the original posts.  

What Do Cage Free Eggs Have to Do with Gay Marriage?

Brandon McFadden, one of my inquisitive Ph.D. students, stopped by today and asked if I'd looked at the county-by-county breakdown of the vote on Proposition 37 on mandatory GMO labeling.  I hadn't, so we pulled up the maps.

Here is the county-by-county outcome for Prop 37 on mandatory GM labeling.

Brandon astutely pointed out that this map looked very similar to  the one on the gay marriage proposition back in 2008 (a no vote on Prop 8 was essential a vote in favor of gay marriage).

Back in 2008, there was also a ballot initiative (Prop 2) that (in essence) banned battery cages in egg production.  This map also looks very similar to the one above on Prop 8 in 2008.  So, Brandon down loaded the data from Prop 2 and Prop 8 in 2008 and did a little analysis somewhat like one we conducted earlier (the final voting tallies for Prop 37 aren't yet available in downloadable format).

Here is what he found:

(fraction of county voting for Prop 2 in 2008) = 0.326 + 0.572 x (fraction of county voting NO on Prop 8).

A hypothetical county with everyone voting no on Prop 8 (for gay marriage)  would be expected to have 32.6+57.2=89.8% voting yes on Prop 2 (for banning battery cages).  By contrast, a hypothetical county with everyone voting yes on prop 8 (against gay marriage  would be expected to have  32.6% voting yes for prop 2 (against banning cages).  

This little equation explains a remarkable 87% of the variation in voting outcomes associated with Prop 2!  A vote against Prop 8 was almost a guaranteed yes vote for Prop 2.  The people who want gay marriage are apparently also the same people who want cage free chickens.  

So, that raises the question I posed as the title of this post: What do cage free eggs have to do with gay marriage?  I might similarly ask: What does GMO labeling have to do with gay marriage?

Ostensibly, gay marriage has nothing to do with eggs or GMOs.  Yet, there seems to be a clear underlying factor (probably political ideology) that is driving votes on all three issues.  But, the facts on these propositions are so very different that is hard to imagine most reasonable people falling in line on all three.  

The results seem to suggest interesting areas of research related to political ideology and food choice.

Peru’s Congress Approves 10-Year GMO ban

According to this source:

Peru’s Congress announced Friday it overwhelmingly approved a 10-year moratorium on imports of genetically modified organisms in order to safeguard the country’s biodiversity.

It is always useful to look beyond a country's (or a person's) stated reason for an action for the real motivations.  Peru says it wants to ban imports of GMOs to protect biodiversity.  I notice they didn't point to health or safety concerns - probably because the World Trade Organization has already ruled that such issues were not a valid trade barrier for GMOs (see here for the WTO ruling in relation to the US-EU debate more than a decade ago).

So, if it isn't really about biodiversity (or only partially about biodiversity), what is motivating Peru's actions?  Here I can see two possible (additional) motives at work.  The first, is that this is a standard non-tariff trade barrier.  Peru can't slap a standard tariff on corn and soybean imports without running afoul of international trade laws.  But, they can protect their domestic producers (at the expense of domestic consumers) by putting other trade restrictions in place  that limit competition from international producers (Argentina and Brazil are big, nearby growers of GM corn and soybeans) .  The second is alluded to in the above story.  Peru is apparently a large exporter of organics.  The cost of maintaining segregated supply chains increases with a larger GMO market.  So a non-tariff trade barrier helps Peru maintain a relative advantage in international trade.   

I raise these issues because there will no doubt be some anti-GMO activists who emerge to say things like "see even countries like Peru have decided GMOs are too risky for human health and the environment."  But, as you can see the motives are far more complicated than that.