If social media existed around 8,000 B.C., I have a feeling our food supply would look a lot a different than it does today. Cereal grains would be far less abundant. Strawberries would be the size of M&Ms. Almonds would either be too bitter or too poisonous to eat. Ears of corn would be about an inch long. We would be snacking on cabbage and lettuce heads not much bigger than Brussels sprouts.
Why? Because crop domestication – or the earliest instances of genetically modified food – took root in prehistoric latrines. Don’t believe me? Read Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize winning chronicle of human development Guns, Germs, and Steel. Naturally occurring mutations made certain fruits and vegetables more attractive to early hunter/gathers. Those fruits and vegetables contained seeds that required digestion to germinate. When they were eaten and evacuated, those seeds gave rise to crops containing the preferred mutation. Those crops were harvested and replanted, ensuring that the mutation would eventually become the norm. The cycle was off and running.
Imagine the
“@CroMagnon – Are you really going feed your kids foods that grew in our toilets? #I’llSticktoGathering”
“@Neanderthal – Did you know those peas you’re eating passed through my bowls? #Yuck”
“@HomoErectus – Who cares if these developments in food production are the key to human settlement and development? #I’dRatherWander”
Ten thousand years ago, fear might have spread virally across the continents and forever changed the course of human history. Why? Because emotion has always trumped science, and never more so than when it comes to the new definition of genetically modified foods (GMOs).
At a time when 59% of Americans (at a minimum) now turn to the Internet for nutritional advice, the top ten GMO opposition groups maintain more than one million Twitter followers, two million Facebook likes, and 80,000 YouTube subscribers. According to a recent Nielsen poll conducted for the Wall Street Journal, they have swayed public opinion to the point that 61 percent of consumers have now heard of GMOs and almost half say they try to avoid eating them. Their top concern? It "doesn't sound like something I should eat."
The shift in public opinion is also having an impact on public policy. Grassroots activists are pushing for mandatory labeling of GMO foods with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in several states across the country. Vermont passed the first such law back in May. It goes into effect in 2016.
All of this is happening despite the fact that every crop we eat has been through millennia of human-induced genetic modification; that we’ve been eating foods that meet the modern definition of “GMO” for more than 20 years; that not a single accredited study in the United States has ever found them to be unsafe; and that they impart numerous benefits, such as resistance to disease and insects and a far more abundant and affordable food supply.
Now, because of mounting public pressure, major food companies including
This isn’t a tactical retreat by the food industry; it’s a smart shift in strategy that respects the ways in which anxiety overcomes logic in consumer behavior. GMOs aren’t going anywhere; but until the public has had time to digest (pun intended) what they are, what they are not, and what they mean to the future of food production on planet Earth, food companies are now willing to meet the public halfway. They are respecting emotional reactions to GMOs and, to rehash the headline above, providing a spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
This is evident in the fact that the uptick in “Non-GMO” product availability has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in awareness efforts on the part of the food industry – especially on the critical digital front. Just one example is the content rich website established by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, www.factsaboutgmos.org. Another is the industry website www.gmoanswers.com, which opens with an olive branch: “Skeptical about GMOs? We understand.”
Both sites, and others that are popping up on the Web, base their arguments on science, but they make emotional appeals as well with vivid imagery and video, benefits-based messaging, and personal stories about the ways in GMOs are saving lives in developing regions. But most important, they recognize that many people harbor legitimate and understandable fears about genetically modified food.
The combination of greater “Non-GMO” product availability and intensified awareness campaigns is a smart approach that I believe will aid in the acceptance of GMOs. It respects consumers enough to meet them on their own terms and let them take their time in making an informed decision.
Food companies and their trade associations have intelligently come to accept a trait of human behavior that has been around since the dawn of human history. Where emotion is entrenched, logic takes time to take hold. By not denying that fact, and thinking like consumers, those companies are taking the GMO debate to the next stage and demonstrating a level of respect of which even Mary Poppins could be proud.
Richard Levick, Esq., is Chairman and CEO of LEVICK, a global strategic communications firm.
