Penn State Student From Maplewood Writes Opinion Piece on the Future of GMO's

I am a current college junior studying Environmental Systems Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. As part of the curriculum, I am required to take a course entitled Geography 30 that explores environmental sustainability and human environment interactions. This class has inspired me, to say the least, to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the ways that I effect the world and how I can be a more socially aware citizen when making choices that affect the environment . As part of our final project, we are required to choose and research a “human-environment issue” we feel strongly about and introduce and describe a policy recommendation we believe would act as an appropriate solution.As a resident of Maplewood NJ, I am choosing to use the Maplewood Patch as my platform to exercise my voice and opinions as a citizen at the local level in hopes of spreading my ideas and sparking real change.

One of the most important human- environmental interactions that we as people engage in is growing and consuming food. It’s crucial to understand the cycle our food must go through before it reaches our plates and equally important is knowing and understanding the harm of GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms ) so that we are better able to develop alternatives to genetically engineered food. Numerous studies have been conducted on the harmful impact GMO’s have on our bodies including but not limited to organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Although GMO’s provide quicker and more efficient ways to mass produce food, this leads to increased herbicide use on crops which do immense damage to the surrounding environment and are incredibly unhealthy for our bodies. So if GMO’s do more harm than good for us, the real question is why are they still being used and who benefits from their implementation if not the people who consume them. If GMO’s benefit a smaller demographic of interests then why is it that those interests are deemed more important than human health- and most importantly should it come at the expense of the people.While researching, I came across a study conducted by The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Essentially, the study states that current GMO usage has nothing to offer in the goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability. In fact, GMOs dish out money and resources that would otherwise be spent on more safe, reliable, and appropriate technologies.This fact alone has made me really want to understand why we cant develop healthier alternatives that are better for the environment and the people.

In Maplewood as well as the rest of Essex County, most of us receive our food from the grocery stores and not from local farms. Even in grocery stores that claim to offer organic, GMO, and pesticide free foods like Trader Joes and Whole Foods, many of them in fact do . In the neighboring towns of Newark, Irvington, East Orange, and Orange its even less likely for people to find access to fresh fruits and vegetables in places that are considered to be food deserts. For these reasons, I propose that there be multiple steps taken to reverse the incredibly large role GMO’s play in our lives. First, the biggest issue is the we are not knowledgable on the food that we consume. We should require schools to teach classes that educate us on how our food choices affect our health and the environment- much like Geography 30 does. I believe that once we are more informed we are able to make better decisions on the foods we choose to put into our bodies and open the discussion on weather it is morally right to genetically engineer food for the purpose of mass production and distribution. Secondly, I think we need to increase the availability and affordability of farmers markets across the county, the state, and eventually the country. In Maplewood NJ, our weekly farmers market is definitely a start in the right direction. The farmers market is provided by various local farms such as Alstede Farms, Stony Hills Gardens, Hoboken Farms and more that are committed to providing fresh produce to the people. Lastly, I believe that we should take steps to encouraging community members to start our own community gardens that will provide fresh produce for ourselves and the rest of the community. I believe that if our government refuses to stop the mass production of foods that are produced using GMO’s and pesticides, we must take matters into our own hands and work towards a world free of GMO’s one community at a time.