The organic fetish is a chapter in the book titled Denialism by Michael Specter. The chapter analyses the organic food movements and their negative reaction towards GMOs. The chapter hits out at the organic elite occupying a position of moral superiority that does not accommodate contemporary food production practices. It lashes out at opponents of the organic farming claim that this type of farming is more expensive than organic farming. However, America has fully gone organic due to the increased use of biotechnology in food production. This has led to the evolution of the movements of anti-organic food that call for the return of traditional and natural ways of food production.
According to this author, the organic elite who oppose the use of biotechnology in agriculture claim that scientists and farmers are assuming a Godly role by transferring genes. However, the organic movements fail to realize that even natural food has been modified genetically by human beings for centuries through breeding and cultivation. The mutations that occur in different generations create variation and the evolution of life is dependent on these variations. Without mutation, there would be no variation hence no evolution and that is why the organic movements should understand that genetic modification is partly a natural process that occurs without the aid of a biologist.
The world population is growing and the demand for food is going up. However, the amount of arable land that can be used to grow food is diminishing due to human factors like desertification, construction, and irresponsible irrigation that destroy the land. This means that the use of biotechnology and GMOs will reduce the pressure exerted on land while at the same time enhancing global food security. The organic movements are just being influenced by the traditional rural nostalgia that shuns mass production of food that is regulated by technology. They fail to realize that the contemporary food situation, which is complicated by an upsurge in population and pressure on land, cannot be solved by using the conventional McDonald fantasies.
The author argues that the use of GMOs has reduced the danger posed by the use of pesticides. Pesticides are harmful to the human body and the environment at large and the chemicals that are used in GMOs are less toxic and cannot accumulate in the environment, unlike pesticides. The organic movements have not opposed the use of biotechnology in the manufacture of insulin neither have they opposed the biological process called mutagenesis which applies similar technology as in the GMOs. This means that the movements are guilty of applying double standards.
In conclusion, the organic movements do not have plausible reasons that they can use to oppose the use of GMOs and technology in food production. The use of GMOs and food technology in food production is one of the contemporary measures that have successfully managed to enhance global food security which has been threatened by rapid population growth and depletion of arable land. The world is racing against time as it tries to devise new methods of ensuring that its population does not starve. This means that improved methods of feeding the world are necessary. It is dangerous and delusionary to think that conventional agricultural practices can be very effective in the contemporary global setting and the organic elite should stop whining.