OPINION:
Chipotle’s recent GMO-free announcement confirms a disturbing trend: the inescapable appeal of anti-scientism in executive boardrooms. It’s really just business as usual — an extension of a campaign that reduces farming to laughable caricatures and elevates Chipotle’s “wholesome” brand.
If you’re going to eschew genetically modified foods (coincidentally the most loaded phrase ever), then you should adopt the paleo diet, but only at crop centers of origin. Do you fancy corn, but don’t hail from Oaxaca, Mexico? Then globalization be damned — geotag those kernels and keep it local. After watching your menu shrink, sup on crops that bear little resemblance to their improved kin. Don’t forget those estrogens and bitter tasting pesticides, all produced in-house by the plant itself. No GMO bogeyman needed. All in the name of being “au naturel.” I hope consumers wise up to the anti-science shenanigans. Whatever the method, crop improvement has been a modern-day success story, so much so that off-farm employment is a reality for most of us. For the true ’2-percenters,’ our farmers, I salute you and your sacrifice. Bon appetit.
TIM DURHAM
Adjunct fellow
Center for Global Food Issues
Callaway, Va.
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