How can a product which can be made for free be profitable? It happens all of the time. Words are free, for example, yet the Wall Street Journal sells good ones to its customers. Science 2.0 was built on open source tools but lots of consulting companies do the work for people less skilled in programming.
So it goes with genetically modified organisms - GMOs - like vitamin-A enriched "Golden Rice", which provides health benefits yet is not owned by a corporation. Yet 15 years after the development of 'Golden Rice', environmental activists are still paying lobbyists to block transgenic biofortified crops and promoting fear and doubt in local populations suffering from malnutrition. To date, none of those GMOs are approved for cultivation, unlike GMOs with agronomic traits.
A new analysis by Ghent University finds that transgenic biofortified crops can be good for people and the bottom line. As with medicines and cell phones, giving something away cheap or free is often done, but it requires uptake in rich companies for that to be possible.
Credit: Allow Golden Rice Now.
It just requires taking a page out of the organic marketing playbook. They have created a $105 billion Big Ag juggernaut by implying their food is healthier - biofortified transgenic foods are actually verifiably healthier and the analysis finds that consumers are willing to pay more for GMOs with health benefits, just like they do gluten-free or organic, with premiums ranging from 20% to 70%. Contrast that to GMOs that only help on the growth side - in regular food, where process rules, cost is still paramount.
Improving public health
Several studies show that these GMOs have positive impacts on human health. As expected, the enhancement of multiple micronutrients in the same crop by genetic modification, yields the best results. This method generates aggregated health benefits at a relatively low cost.
It's not cleansing or organic food or some other miracle solution to public health, but GMOs with health benefits offer a complementary and cost-effective alternative when other strategies are less successful or feasible.
Published in Nature Biotechnology. Source: Ghent University
