How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom

by Matt Ridley

Mark Lynas’s verdict on the GMO episode is unsparing: ‘We permanently stirred public hostility to GMO foods throughout pretty much the entire world, and – incredibly – held up the previously unstoppable march of a whole technology. There was only one problem with our stunningly successful worldwide campaign. It wasn’t true.’ As with the opposition to coffee, it is now clear that the opposition to genetically modified crops was wrong both factually and morally. The technology was safe, environmentally beneficial and potentially good for small farmers. The anti-GM movement caught on amongst wealthy people with plentiful, cheap food. It was not pressing and relevant to their lives to increase crop yields. Those who paid the opportunity cost of the prohibition were the sick and starving who had no voice.