McDonald’s “Pesticide Conundrum” and the Solution it Will Probably Not Pursue (Part 2)
This is a follow-up to a previous blog about a pesticide reduction commitment that McDonalds has made and why that will be challenging in terms of their potato supplies and quality.
Roundup Ready® soybeans were commercialized in 1996 and quickly came to dominate plantings in the US, Argentina and Brazil. NewLeaf® insect resistant potatoes were also introduced that year. These potatoes were genetically engineered to produce the same Bt protein insecticide that was used as a spray-on product on potatoes and which was also approved for Organic use. The second generation of GMO potatoes was on its way around 1999, which also protected against the key potato leaf roll virus, which required spraying to control the aphids that spread the virus. Potato growers I interviewed at that time were excited about these technologies. Without having to spray for these two primary pests, biological control was largely taking care of the rest of their insect pest issues. They were also glad because they didn’t have to spend the money on most of their normal insecticide sprays.
This seemingly happy scenario came to an abrupt halt in 2000. Anti-GMO activism was starting to build and the leadership of McDonald’s got an arrogantly insufficient response from the leadership of Monsanto when they asked what was going to be done about the situation. McDonald’s defaulted to the “brand protection” mode and with three phone calls to the major frozen French fry suppliers, killed GMO potatoes in the US and Canada (Frito Lay and other brands joined in the defacto ban). That was only possible because increasing GMO potatoes was so much slower than increasing seeded crops and so only 5% of the crop was biotech. McDonald’s and all other fast food restaurants could never afford to ban the GMO ingredients that were in their frying oil or high fructose corn sweeteners because biotech adoption was so rapid for soy and corn. So McDonald’s still sells many products from GMO crops, just not potatoes because that would be much higher profile. There is absolutely no health risk issue here, but there is at least some irony.
- » See also: Why “Organic” Fertilizers are Not the Solution to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico
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Today, if McDonald’s wanted to make dramatic reductions in the pesticide use on the potatoes they buy without any danger to supply or quality, they could do so by asking their grower-suppliers to plant insect and virus resistant, GMO potatoes. There is also a GMO trait to control the Potato Tuber Moth, a new threat that early stages of global warming has allowed to over-winter in the Pacific North West for the first time (this requires sprays near harvest). There are GMO potato traits to allow potatoes to be stored colder so that chemicals are not needed to prevent sprouting and so that less intense pest control is necessary to prevent soft rot in long-term storage. There are also GMO potato traits to increase the starch content of the potato so that it absorbs less fat during frying. For a difficult-to-breed crop like potatoes, biotechnology could have been a great option.
Thirteen years and more than 2 billion acres of plantings of other GMO crops have shown that there are no human health or environmental problems from growing such crops. Reason would suggest that the best option McDonald’s could pursue to meet it’s pesticide reduction goals would be to encourage GMO adoption and use their considerable resources to make the case for why that is a safe and desirable thing to do. Reality says that such a courageous stand is extremely unlikely for an entity with such a valuable, consumer brand. My vote would be for courage (and yes, I’d like fries with that).
French Fry image by Sun Dazed
[...] Potatoes have a lot of problems that require pest control chemicals. Groups that have threatened to damage MacDonald’s brand have forced them to agree to put pressure on their potato suppliers to reduce pesticide use. How can they satisfy the activist groups without threatening the viability of their supply chain? This is MacDonald’s pesticide conundrum. They absolutely need pesticides to be used to generate the quantity and quality of potatoes they must have. They have a threat to their brand that has forced them to promise pesticide reductions. What can they do? See part two of this blog. [...]
snow peas have alot of problems also. we should inject them.
Pretty well-written. The only issue is spell-checking–it’s “McDonalds”, not “MacDonald’s”.
Kind of hard to have green cake and eat it too!
The green movement is so broken up into bite and pieces that you can’t tell what people are really trying to do.
To many off the wall types who scream the loudest manage to overrule a more common sense majority.
I would be interested to see the studies on GM potatoes that caused you to conclude that GMOs do not pose health or environmental risks.
On the contrary, the article you linked in the last paragraph states that there has been insufficient testing and there is no scientific consensus on this issue, which has always been my understanding.
Use of GMO potatoes is one way McDonald’s could handle the pesticide issue, but it is certainly not the only or the best way.
@Jess
There are studies, but at the scale of GMO commercialization world-wide, the “experiment” is global adoption of GMOs on 2 billion acres over 13 years. I don’t know what it would take to convince you that there is not a problem here. You say that using GMO potatoes is not “the only or the best way.” What is your alternative?
We had a similar “experiment” with corn-fed beef. We are now discovering the widespread health ramifications - far more than 13 years after the practice began. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that many people do not want to be in the test tube for these kinds of experiments.
You argue that McDonald’s would have sufficient influence to cause their suppliers to plant GMO potatoes. Could not that influence be used to encourage suppliers to plant strains of non-GMO pest-resistant potatoes and begin moving towards organic farming methods?
Jess,
I’m not sure what you are talking about in terms of health ramifications of eating corn-fed beef. There really are not “non-GMO pest-resistant potatoes” that would meet their needs. Moving towards organic farming methods would actually be an environmental disaster on that scale (see my earlier post about the carbon footprint of organic fertilizers: http://sustainablog.org/2009/07/27/an-inconvenient-truth-about-composting/
As to the beef, I was referring to lower Omega 3 and Vitamin E, higher saturated fat content, all of which have (it can be argued are already having) unforeseen health ramifications in the long term. How long did it take us to discover the problems with DDT? I am not actually anti-GMO, but I don’t think a level of caution is unreasonable here. It can take a long time for us to identify causal relationships or even correlations with health and environmental issues.
As to the carbon footprint issue, is it wise for carbon footprint to be the only metric by which we measure environmental impact? It seems that waste is going to break down and produce methane in a landfill or if it’s composted, so this is not a case of additional GHGs being produced as a result of composting. I definitely don’t know the science on that though, and could be very wrong…
It just occurred to me that this whole conversation has a touch of the absurd, as eating at McDonald’s is generally not good for one’s health or the environment, their use of GMO crops notwithstanding.