Shane Burrows
Interpretive Response #1
The Serpent in the Garden
In his article “Playing God in the Garden,” Pollan maintains that the American food chain is in need of reform, but can biotechnology be its savior? Crops like New Leafs, a potato genetically engineered by Monsanto to produce its own insecticide, “can protect themselves from insects and disease without being sprayed with pesticides” (Pollan). Monsanto, an American multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation, is leading this new version of sustainable agriculture but they just might comminate organic farmers who established sustainable farming. Pollan doesn’t trust his genetically altered seed because genetically engineered foods are unpredictable, untested and unlabeled. At the same time that I believe the biotech revolution is a great idea and may be helpful at making farming more sustainable, I also believe that consumers need to have information about the foods they are consuming.
What are these biotech crops really all about? Is Mr. Potato Head now a reality? Will augmented carrots now be able to help stranded castaways in spotting rescue ships? Not quite. These biotech seeds, which at the time this article was written were planted on 45 million acres of American farmland, have been designed to combat herbicides or generate their own pesticides. Pollan suggests that according to the biotech industry “these plants… will make farming more sustainable, feed the world and improve health and nutrition.” However there are critics, who have objected to genetically modified foods sometimes referring to them as “frankenplants” and demanded these foods be labeled in the market. According to Pollan, “Though Americans have already begun to eat genetically engineered potatoes, corn and soybeans, industry research confirms what my own informal surveys suggest: hardly any of us knows it.”
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