Buried in the comments section of an article in the Guardian about a UK retailer selling some American brands that contain GMOs was this comment that made me laugh:
“It should be noted that Frankenstein was not even a hybrid, let alone a gmo. He was a grafted individual, much like today’s grapevines in vineyards and apple trees.”
Pollan, Bittman et al. opine on desire for national food policy in a Washington Post editorial (I agree with their call to eliminate current farm subsidies, though they don't seem to really understand their effects; the rest is full of platitudes and ill-conceived policies that are unlikely to withstand a serious cost-benefit analysis. It's this kind of writing that led to the Food Police)
USDA approves a new, healthier GMO potato
I was surprised at this statistic: the most recent water withdrawals data show that withdrawals in 2010 were lower than at any time in the past 40 years back to 1970 (not only are we using less water today, but apparently what is used is much more productive - we're getting more from it).
That was the question I attempted to answer with several colleagues (John Cresip, Brad Cherry, Brandon McFadden, Laura Martin, and Amanda Bruce) in research that was just published in the journal Food Quality and Preference.
We put people in an fMRI machine and recorded their neural activations when they saw pictures of (or made choices between) milk jugs that had different prices and were labeled as being produced with (or without) added growth hormones or cloning.
What did we find?
“Our findings are consistent with the evidence that the dlPFC is involved in resolving tradeoffs among competing options in the process of making a choice. Because choices in the combined-tradeoff condition requires more working memory (as multiple attributes are compared) and because this condition explicitly required subjects to weigh the costs and benefits of the two alternatives, it is perhaps not surprising that greater activation was observed in the dlPFC than in the single-attribute choices in the price and technology conditions. Not only did we find differential dlPFC activations in different choice conditions, we also found that activation in this brain region predicted choice. Individuals who experienced greater activation in the right dlPFC in the technology condition, and who were thus perhaps weighing the benefits/costs of the technology, were less likely to choose the higher-priced non-hormone/non-cloned option in the combined-tradeoff condition.”
and
“Greater activation in the amygdala and insula when respondents were making choices in the price condition compared to choices in the combined-tradeoff condition might have resulted from adverse affective reactions to high prices and new technologies, although our present research cannot conclusively determine whether this is a causal relationship. In the price condition, the only difference between choice options was the price, and the prices ranged from $3.00 to $6.50, an increase of more than 100% from the lowest to the highest. Such a large price difference could be interpreted as a violation of a social norm or involve a fearful/painful/ threatening response, which, as just indicated, has been associated with activity in the amygdala and insula. Kahneman (2011, p. 296) argues that these particular brain responses to high prices are consistent with the behavioral-economic concept of loss aversion, in this case, a feeling that the seller is overcharging the buyer.”
The punchline:
“Estimates indicate that the best fitting model is one that included all types of data considered: demographics, psychometric scales, product attributes, and neural activations observed via fMRI. Overall, neuroimaging data adds significant predictive and explanatory power beyond the measures typically used in consumer research.”
An article in Modern Farmer says (HT Bailey Norwood):
“Earlier this fall, researchers from the National Institute of Health finished up a landmark 20-year study, a study that hasn’t received the amount of coverage it deserves. About 84,000 farmers and spouses of farmers were interviewed since the mid-1990s to investigate the connection between pesticides and depression, a connection that had been suggested through anecdotal evidence for far longer. ”
It could be that something in the chemical make-up of the pesticide leads to increased depression among farmers, and the article itself speculates about nerve disorders caused by pesticides.
But, isn't it also possible that farmers are depressed when their crops are attacked by pests (which coincides with the application of pesticides)? Isn't also possible that farmers don't like having to pay unexpected bills to protect their harvest from invading pests? This budget from University of Illinois suggests that about 15% of the direct costs of growing corn (about $60 to$66/acre) go toward pesticides. That's the expected cost. Now imagine the cost of an unexpected infestation. Makes me depressed just thinking about it.
None of that is to make light of depression among farmers. But, as the original story revealed, rates of depression among farmers is lower than for the general population. It will take more than these types of correlations in observational data to indicate whether it is the pests or the pesticides causing depression.
Writing in Choices magazine, several agricultural economists discuss the impact of a virus that has adversely affected Florida citrus growers and the nation's citrus consumers.
“Huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening, has emerged as an increasing threat to the economic viability of citrus production in Florida. Citrus greening was first observed in non-commercial, backyard citrus in South Florida in August 2005. By February 2009, citrus greening had spread throughout the traditional citrus areas of the state. Thus far, quarantine, tree removal, insecticide applications, heat treatments, and foliar nutritional techniques designed to mask the disease symptoms are the only available, but not completely effective, techniques for managing citrus greening. The disease directly affects the citrus tree resulting in reduced yield and fruit quality following an initial incubation period, eventually making the tree unproductive and contributing to greater mortality.”
The impacts?
“consumers would be expected to lose $154.9 million due to higher prices and less consumption. Despite higher prices, producers would be expected to lose $18.09 million because the decrease in sales would outweigh the increase in price received. Hence, the total economic cost of greening is estimated to be $173.0 million. However, these estimates may understate the economic cost of citrus greening ”
What's being done?
“To solve these problems, researchers are putting tremendous time and effort into finding solutions to HLB. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allocated $24 million for fiscal year 2014 specifically for citrus disease research. The money is allocated to researchers through a competitive grant process under the Specialty Crop Research Initiative/Citrus Disease Research and Extension program. Proposed projects from researchers at many institutions include developing and testing compounds to cure the disease itself, developing and testing improved insecticide programs to increase efficacy and reduce resistance development, and developing and testing alternative psyllid controls such as the use of biological options. Other possible solutions include genetically modifying citrus trees to be resistant to the disease or genetically modifying psyllids to be incapable of vectoring the disease. Thus, substantial time and effort have been allocated to finding solutions to the problem, but most possible solutions will take time to develop and test before growers will be able to benefit from them.”