I would like to thank my opponent for joining me in this debate. I wish him the best of luck. With that said, let’s get straight to it. 

Introduction

I affirm the resolution: on balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms. In this debate, I will prove that GMOs have been beneficial in three specific areas: health, economic, and ecological. 

Observation 1: Everything is a GMO

The first thing I want to point out is that everything we eat is genetically modified. This is simply how evolution works. For thousands of years, humans have been artificially breeding animals and plants to select the traits that they want to improve and pass down. Let's take a look at the banana, for example:

If you enjoy fresh bananas, then you can thank genetic modification via artificial selection.

Genetic modification works the same way except that we can make the traits we want much faster. Let's now look at the three areas which GMOs have improved our lives.

Area 1: Health

A) GMOs are safe

The scientific evience overwhelmingly states that GMOs are safe to eat. More than 3,000 studies came to the same conclusion. GMOs do not negatively impact our health. In fact:

B) GMOs improve health

GMOs can help improve the nutritional value of foods. "An example is GMO soybeans with healthier oils that can be used to replace oils that contain trans fats." - Source.

Another example is golden rice which has signiifcantly increased the nutritional value. The PNAS writes: "The consumption of the genetically modified rice variety known as Golden Rice (GR) offers a potent and cost-effective strategy to combat VAD. But this innovation has been cast aside owing to fear or false accusations, resulting in numerous lives needlessly lost (1–3). With the recent exception of the Philippines, governments have not approved the cultivation of GR (5). We believe it should be broadly approved and given the opportunity to save and improve lives."

Area 2: Economic

Because GMOs can singiicantly increase the produciton yield this has translated to a signiciant economic benefit for farmers. PG Economics notes:

"Crop biotechnology helps farmers earn more secure incomes due mainly to improved control of pests and weeds. The net farm level economic benefit in 2014 was $17.7 billion, equal to an average increase in income of $101/hectare. For the 19 years (1996-2014), the global farm income gain has been $150.3 billion;

The total farm income benefit of $150.3 billion was divided almost equally between farmers in developing (51%) and developed countries (49%)..."

This has lead to a noticable reduciton in suicide among farmers. The genetic literacy project demolishes the false claim that GMOs have increased suicide rates:

We find that the suicide rate for male Indian farmers is slightly lower than the non-farmer rate. And Indian suicide rates as a whole are not notably high in a global context. The pattern of changes in suicide rates over the last 15 years is consistent with a beneficial effect of Bt cotton, albeit not in every cotton-growing state.

The Conversation noted:

the available data does not support the view that farmer suicides have increased following the introduction of Bt cotton. Taking all states together, there is evidence to support the hypothesis that the reverse is true: male farmer suicide rates have actually declined after 2005 having been increasing before then.

Finally, Stuart J Smyth noted:

Research examining the relationship between farm suicide and Bt cotton adoption revealed a plateauing of the suicide rate following the commercialization of Bt cotton (Gruère and Sengupta, 2011). Farmer suicides were trending upward from 15 000 per year, peaking in 2004, the year after Bt cotton was first commercialized in India. By 2007, the actual suicide rate was 25% below the extrapolated suicide rate. Cumulatively, the reduced rate of suicide associated with the adoption of Bt cotton represents the prevention of a minimum of 75 000 farmer suicides.

Area 3: Ecological

The final area I will look at is the ecological impact of GMOs. The FDA notes:

Overall, studies have shown GMOs can have positive environmental impacts and can be important tools for addressing the causes and effects of climate change...

When farmers grow Bt crop varieties, they can apply less insecticide while still preventing insect damage to their crops. This in turn allows for a higher diversity of beneficial insects. For example, insecticide application among U.S. corn and cotton farmers decreased by over 80% from 1996 to 2017

The GMO answer project noted:

Herbicide-tolerant crops help farmers control weeds more effectively, and in turn farmers plow fields less frequently if at all, to manage weeds. Because the soil isn’t turned, the carbon naturally stored in soil stays there (soil carbon sequestration). Because machinery isn't used to plow fields, less gasoline is needed, resulting in fewer CO2 emissions from engines.

These benefits add up: In 2020 alone, the GM crop-related CO2 emission savings from reduced fuel use and additional soil carbon sequestration were equal to the removal of 15.6 million cars from the road3 - two million more than all the cars registered in California!4

Conclusion

GMOS have had significant benefits in multiple areas. The resolution is affirmed. Please vote PRO

Thank you, Leaning, for your arguments. I am sorry I had very little time over the past few days so I may not get to everyhting. I want to at least touch on the major points.

Area 1: Health

GMOs have exhibited and possess potential for a great deal of harm

Nutrition,

My opponent completely misrepresents their first source. The source was not comparing GMOs to non GMOs but rather comparing organic farming to conventional farming. This is evidence by the title of the paper: "Are organics more nutritious than conventional foods?..." The paper dealt with the hypothesis that organic foods are healthier than conventional foods. The paper itself concludes:

Therefore, if a belief in the nutritional superiority of organic foods over conventional foods is established among consumers, such a belief can only be grounded in subjective knowledge.

GMOs are only one part of conventional foods and conventional farming. This is not a comprehensive study showing that GMOs are nutritionally equivalent to non-GMOs.

Pesticides, Safe? Unsafe?

My opponent griped about corporatoins and also blatantly cherry picked their own source:

Since the mid‑1990s, Monsanto has filed suit against 145 individual U.S. farmers for patent infringement and/or breach of contract in connection with its genetically engineered seed but has proceeded through trial against only eleven farmers, all of which Monsanto has won

So in the past 30 years Monsanto (which no longer exists as a company) only took 11 individuals to trial. Further, from the same source:

As Monsanto argued, the principle behind a farmer’s seed contract is simple: a business must be paid for its product, but that a very small percentage of farmers do not honor this agreement. While many lawsuits involve breach of Monsanto's Technology Agreement, farmers who have not signed this type of contract, but do use the patented seed, can also be found liable for violating Monsanto's patent.[11][10]: 581  That said, Monsanto stated it will not "exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seed or traits are present in farmer's fields as a result of inadvertent means."[12] The Federal Circuit found that this assurance is binding on Monsanto, so that farmers who don’t harvest more than a trace amount of Monsanto's patented crops "lack an essential element of standing" to challenge Monsanto's patents.[13]

What do companies like?

Oh no, not the profits! God forbid if a company actually makes a dollar. The horror!

Corproations will always try and make a profit whether it is with GMOs or non GMOs. The fear mongerring of ProFiTs are not relevent ot the scientific data. Going off of my opponent's own standards they would be forced to reject non-GMO products:

Labeling Food GMO-Free Is Now A Multi-Billion Dollar Business

To receive the label, a product has to be certified as containing ingredients with less than 1 percent genetic modification. Westgate says that’s a realistic standard, while totally GMO-free is not. She says natural foods stores began the process of defining a standard, involving other interested players along the way, including consumers. Now, General Mills is just one of the big food companies selling non-GMO products.

Sales of food labeled as “Non-GMO” ballooned to over $3 billion in 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Companies chase profits. If they can gain a profit by selling non-GMO products then they will. Profits =/= GMOs are dangerous and not beneficial. Cross-examination for con: Are companies not allowed to make a profit? What is the maximum profit a company should be permitted to make and why? If you don't explain this then your entire argument about profits collapses.

Pesticides

First, my opponent's source is highly questionable. The site promotes a lot of pseudoscience nonsense and even has an entire section promoting COVID conspiracy theories. Second, the article overstates the dangers of glyphosate.

1) It is listed as an IARC group 2A carciogenic "This designation is applied when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans, as well as sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals." To compare night shift work is listed in the same category of carciogenic as glyphosate.

2) The EPA found:

In February 2020, after receiving and considering public comments on the glyphosate proposed interim decision, EPA published the interim decision registration review decision (ID) for glyphosate. As part of this action, EPA found that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label. EPA also found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen. The ID also identified potential ecological risks to non-target organisms, primarily non-target plants through spray drift. The ID identified interim risk mitigation measures in the form of label changes, including spray drift management language, herbicide resistance management language, a non-target organism advisory, and certain label consistency measures. It concluded that the benefits of glyphosate outweigh the potential ecological risks when glyphosate is used in accordance with labels.

Area 2: Economic

Are 'farmers making money, or are corporations?

The question that I ask to my opponent once again: Are corporations not allowed to make money? If not, why not? Is there a maximum profit dollar that they should make? What's that standard and why?

Once again, my opponent blatantly misrepresents his first source:

https://www.farminstitute.org.au/getting-the-story-right-on-the-marsh-baxter-gm-case/

The picture that emerges from the published findings of the judges is one where, instead of the normal situation where the offending canola stalks would have been quickly collected up and removed, or the neighbour asked to collect them and remove them, the situation was escalated all the way to the courts as a consequence of actions by the organic farmer, the over-zealous and incorrect actions of his organic certifier NASAA, and ultimately a band of anti-GM campaigners who saw the case as an opportunity to inflict some damage on those supporting GM crops.

The case has backfired on the anti-GM campaigners rather spectacularly. First, the judges have pointed out that merely having some GM crop plants present on a farm does not constitute ‘contamination’; that in any event contamination implies harm or damage and there is no available evidence that GM crops have ever caused harm or damage; and finally that as a consequence of losing the case, it is possible that all the costs of the case will have to be borne by Steve Marsh.

As noted in relation to the first court decision, it seems that the Judges are hinting quite strongly that the party most to blame in this situation was the organic certifier NASAA, and the organic standard which sets a zero tolerance requirement, contrary to the more realistic and practical standards that apply everywhere else in the world.

All those anti-GM campaigners who so willingly jumped on the bandwagon now face the difficult moral decision about whether they are prepared to open their wallets and help pay for Steve Marsh’s likely costs.

There is still the possibility that this case might be appealed to the High Court, but it appears this would simply be inflicting more stress and uncertainty on the two protagonists and further fattening the pockets of lawyers. The reality is that neighbouring farmers have dealt with these sorts of problems in a practical and cooperative manner for generations, and resorting to the courts every time a sheep strays or weeds appear will never be a solution.

My opponent blatantly is lying through their teeth.

My opponent then cites the statistic that The Top 10 Percent Own 70 Percent of U.S. Wealth. While this is true this is completely irrelevent and actually strengthens mine. If there's positive economic benefit for farmers then that bolsters my case.

Area 3: Ecological

PESTS

DAMAGES TO HUMANS

My opponent cites the GMO project: "engineered to resist weedkillers and produce its own insecticide." but fails to actually prove why this is bad or what the harms could be. This is an unproven point.

ESCAPES

My opponent cites horizontal gene transfer but doesn't explain what that is, how it works, or the connection on GMOS.

Some guy off redit - sounds quite reliable (not).

Pesticide

A 2019 paper noted that the decline of the butterflies far predated the use of GMOs:

The recent decline of the monarch butterfly has attracted a great deal of attention. One of the leading hypotheses blames genetically modified (GM) crops, ostensibly because of the impact of GM-related herbicide use on the monarch’s food plants, milkweeds. Here, we use museum specimen records to chart monarch and milkweed occurrence over the past century (1900 to 2016), dating well before previous datasets begin (in 1993). We show that monarch and milkweed declines begin around 1950 and continue until the present day. Whatever factors caused milkweed and monarch declines prior to the introduction of GM crops may still be at play, and, hence, laying the blame so heavily on GM crops is neither parsimonious nor well supported by data.

Herbicide-resistant crops, therefore, are clearly not the only culprit and, likely, not even the primary culprit

Conclusion

I'm low on time and space so whatever I didn't address in this round I will try to addrss in the next round. My opponent's case is weak. They've repeatedly misrepresented their own sources.

Thank you, Leaning, for a great debate.

Area 1: Health

Nutrition, Organics, GMOs

My opponent is correct that by definition organic is not GMO. However, my opponent has failed to prove their central hypothesis that organic is inherently healthier than GMO. Con's own source proved that

"most of the comparative analyses (275; 41.9%) showed no significant difference between organic and conventional foods. "

As a reminder: Conventional foods =/= GMO.

My opponent needs to do more than say "Organics don't use GMOs, pesticides, herbicides, etc." If my opponent wishes to win on this point then my opponent needs to prove that organic foods are significantly healther than conventional foods which they have not done. All what con did in this section was assert a fact but failed to tie this to the resolution of the debate.

Monsanto

As a company Monsanto leaglly does not exist any more. Moreover, my opponent failed to tie this to the resolution as a whole. If I conceded this entire point all what con managed to prove is that the corporatoins themselves are bad and need reformed - not that GMO themselves are bad. This is, yet again, another point that my opponent failed to tie to the resolution.

Again, why are corporations not allowed to make contracts and enforce those contracts in court? Why are corporations not allowed to make profit? Why is it bad when conventional companeis make a dollar but good when organic companies do? I asked this central question in the last round which they failed to reply to.

Glyphosate

Questioning the origins of COVID and spewing well-known debunked conspiracy theories seriously damages the credibility of the source.

My opponent's first source from CNN was reporting on this source. A few things to note:

The paper says:

"Using the highest exposure groups when available in each study, we report the overall meta-relative risk (meta-RR) of NHL in GBH-exposed individuals was increased by 41% (meta-RR = 1.41, 95% confidence interval, CI: 1.13–1.75).

In other words, this paper was comparing those with the absolute highest exposure groups and not to the general public as a whole.

When reporting on the known limitations, the paper notes:

There are several possible mechanistic explanations for the increased NHL risk in humans and lymphomas in animals. The etiology of NHL remains largely unknown; however, potential risk factors include autoimmune diseases, infection with viruses and/or bacteria, immunosuppressant medications, and exposures to some pesticides [83,84]. Although not a formally recognized risk factor for NHL, endocrine disruptors have been associated recently with risk of B-cell neoplasms [85], most of which are NHL

Finally, the 41% figure isn't as terrifying as the claim appears. 41% does not mean that 41% of the highest exposed individuals would get cancer. Essentially this is like going from 2 in 100 people vs 2.8 in 100 people.

THE EPA

Once again their source had nothing to do with the resolution. The article was about PFAS. Glyphosate is NOT as PFAS.

Area 2: Economic

Companies

I agree that monopolies are bad. But once again, I fail to see how my opponent's case connects to the resolution of the debate. How do the profits made by corporations make GMOs inherently dangerous?

In the previous round I emphasized that organics and non GMO is also a big busniess and makes profits. By my opponent's own standard they woud be forced to reject organic / non GMO. As I mentioned in the last round organic / non GMO is a $1 billion + business. Why is one bad but the other good? Why should we believe organic / non GMO business has our own interest at heart?

Lying Claim

It is lying when your soures claim the opposite of what you are claiming.

Again, let's look critically at the Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser case cited by my opponent. In their own source:

Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser [2004] 1 S.C.R. 902, 2004 SCC 34 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on patent rights for biotechnology, between a Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, and the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto. The court heard the question of whether Schmeiser's intentionally growing genetically modified plants constituted "use" of Monsanto's patented genetically modified plant cells. By a 5-4 majority, the court ruled that it did.[1] The case drew worldwide attention and is widely misunderstood to concern what happens when farmers' fields are accidentally contaminated with patented seed. However by the time the case went to trial, all claims had been dropped that related to patented seed in the field that was contaminated in 1997; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's 1998 fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted from his 1997 harvest. Regarding his 1998 crop, Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.[2]

At the time, Roundup Ready canola was in use by several farmers in the area. Schmeiser claimed that he did not plant the initial Roundup Ready canola in 1997, and that his field of custom-bred canola had been accidentally contaminated. While the origin of the plants on Schmeiser's farm in 1997 remains unclear, the trial judge found that with respect to the 1998 crop, "none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality" ultimately present in Schmeiser's 1998 crop.[5]

The issues of patent infringement and "farmer's rights" were settled, in Monsanto's favour, at the trial before the Federal Court of Canada[4] and upheld at the appeal level before the Federal Court of Appeal. Both courts found that a key element in Mr. Schmeiser's patent infringement in his 1998 crop was that he knew or ought to have known the nature of the gylphosate-resistant seed he saved and planted.

... on the balance of probabilities, the defendants infringed a number of the claims under the plaintiffs’ Canadian patent number 1,313,830 by planting, in 1998, without leave or licence by the plaintiffs, canola fields with seed saved from the 1997 crop which seed was known, or ought to have been known by the defendants to be Roundup tolerant and when tested was found to contain the gene and cells claimed under the plaintiffs’ patent. By selling the seed harvested in 1998 the defendants further infringed the plaintiffs’ patent."[4]

The courts at all three levels noted that the case of accidental contamination beyond the farmer's control was not under consideration but rather that Mr. Schmeiser's action of having identified, isolated and saved the Roundup-resistant seed placed the case in a different category. The appellate court also discussed a possible intermediate scenario, in which a farmer is aware of contamination of his crop by genetically modified seed, but tolerates its presence and takes no action to increase its abundance in his crop. The court held that whether such a case would constitute patent infringement remains an open question but that it was a question that did not need to be decided in the Schmeiser case

This case was a pretty blatant violation and infringement of Monsanot's IP. Monsanto actually had a real case. This is not a case of corporate lawfare to inflict pain on a small town farmer. Monsanto had a real legal case and the court decided the case correctly.

Area 3: Ecological

"Horizontal gene transfer

I'll let my opponent's source speak for itself:

GMOs benefit mankind when used for purposes such as increasing the availability and quality of food and medical care, and contributing to a cleaner environment. If used wisely, they could result in an improved economy without doing more harm than good, and they could also make the most of their potential to alleviate hunger and disease worldwide. However, the full potential of GMOs cannot be realized without due diligence and thorough attention to the risks associated with each new GMO on a case-by-case basis.

Monarchs,

First my opponent completely ignored the key finding of my main source that the monarch's decline started long before GMOs and glyphosate. Again, let's look critically at my con's sources. Their source states:

In the last three decades, monarch butterfly populations have declined by 80- 95% due to drought, loss of milkweed and native habitat, loss of breeding grounds and climate change.

In other words, the source verifies my other source that the monarch's decline started long before GMOs and glyphosate, and it ackowledges other contributing factors. But if we follow the source my opponent's source cited this paper. A few things to note: This paper was about pesticicdes. Glyphosate is a herbicide.Interesting, the paper does not mention glyhposate but does mention two other herbicides: dacthal (DCPA) and diuron as potential contributing factors. Glyphosate was not found in any of them.

None of the chemicals listed are directly related to GMOs as a whole because they are used in both GMO and non-GMO conventional practices.

Pesticide Groundwater

Again, this fails to connect to the resolution as a whole. These chemicals are used in both GMO and non-GMO conventional practices.Conclusion / Voting issues

The debate resolution is "On balance, the benefits of genetically modified foods outweigh the harms. Per the BOP note: "Both sides are tasked with weighing the benefits and harms of GMO foods against one another"

The biggest weakness with my opponent's case is that they did not actually tie their arguments to the resolution. How would removing GMOs from the food supply be better than the status quo? Even more damaging to their case is that every single criticism is not unique to GMOs. If my opponent wants to win on the pesticides and herbicides claim then they need to show how they are unique to GMOs and how removing them is better than status quo.

With that I am out of space. Please vote pro!