Avoiding GMOs is immoral

So claims this article from the Washington Post, noting that GMOs are so much more efficient in producing crops given resources (i.e. greatest production from lowest resource cost) that avoiding them under the guise of protecting health or the environment is completely wrong-headed. While the first is true- there has never been any solid work linking GMOs to health harms- the environmental issues are a little more complex. For example, Roundup Ready soybeans may be cheap to produce, but they also lead to increased application of herbicides. That may be better than the alternative, but it's not an open-and-shut case.

Anyway, take a look at the brief Post article. It's a strongly made case.

Prices

A lot of Economics boils down to prices. If prices were perfect, reflecting all the costs associated with a given product, then all it would take is rational consumers (admittedly not as easy as once thought) to get society to the "right" AKA socially optimal level of consumption. The problem for today is that prices aren't as perfect as we'd like: they really ought to include the costs of associated pollution, and they don't, as you may have learned in your microeconomics or environmental Econ class. That's not a big deal if that additional cost is small, but in today's news:

Cost of pollution is higher than we think

There are particular applications to food. We want an agricultural production system that produces food with costs as low as possible, including all costs. So, agriculture that creates pollution should have that cost factored in. Also, governmental subsidies hide some of the costs, but as noted by this author, maybe not as much as we think when it comes to some products. Prices are unfortunately hard to get right!

Oh, another one! Cool. Check this out: if we could change the prices of 7 foods by just 10%, we could save 23,000 lives per year in the USA. Prices MATTER!