Mercola.com leads the fight against GMO by launching a rally and urging for donations to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). The goal of the movement is to boost organic market share and achieve "global moratorium on genetically engineered food and crops."
Dr. Joseph Mercola, the founder of the site, stresses, "GMOs pose one of the greatest threats to life on the planet." The site has even published several articles about the negative effects of GMO. Mercola was able to donate $250,000 for "GMO Awareness Week" to the OCA, which earned over $3 million in revenue.
However, a lot of critics are against this movement. A contributor from Forbes argues that "GE technologies are safe and beneficial to consumers, farmers, the environment, and the needy in developing nations." A lot of other large corporations are against this movement, as well, such as Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, Hershey's, etc (see the article about Anti-GMO Labelling Movement).
In order to understand how this debate escalated, here's a rundown of the common arguments against GMO (according to Genetic Literacy Project):
1. Superweeds
- Some GMOs have genetic traits that can tolerate herbicide, which, in effect, can develop weeds that can tolerate herbicide, as well. However, not all GMOs cause this type of strain.
2. Pesticides
- It is true that a lot of GMO crops are covered with pesticides, however, so are non-GMO products. Pesticides are necessary in order for fruits and vegetables not to me consumed by pests.
3. Monocultures
- Again, most GMO crops are monocultured (which means the harvesting of a single type of vegetable or fruit in a plot of land all year round). There is a rising fear that this practice would increase the number of crop resistant pests.
The rise of the anti-GMO movement escalated recently and a lot of consumers have been adamant that this practice is stopped even while there is scientific proof of the advantage of genetic engineering.
