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22 POTATO GROWER | JANUARY 2017 TOP 10 Consumer questions about GMOs and how to answer them With genetic technology becoming increasingly more mainstream, it's not uncommon for growers to get questions from consumers about these crops. While many of these questions seem elementary and even silly to many in the ag community, they are honest, legitimate concerns for folks at the other end of the supply chain, and growers and others should be armed with sincere, truthful answers. GMO Answers conducted a nationwide survey with the Opinion Research Council to gather consumers' top 10 GMO-related questions. Following are those questions in order of interest, followed by the best answers for each. DO GMO CROPS HAVE AN IMPACT ON BEES OR BUTTERFLIES? Chris Sansone, bee ambassador for Bayer and former professor at Texas A&M University, says this: "Genetically modified plants and their impact on honey bees have been widely studied, and the results indicate that GM plants are not harmful to bees." There are claims that GMOs and herbicides (specifically glyphosate) are contributing to the decline in milkweed, a primary food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars, and that the butterflies have been harmed by eating pollen from GM Bt corn. University of Wyoming weed ecologist Andrew Kniss says the cause for the milkweed decline is a complex issue, concluding that while herbicides may have played a role in the decline of species like milkweed, "the research does suggest that there are more important factors than herbicides responsible for the decline of native plant species near crop fields, including milkweeds." DO SEED COMPANIES HAVE AN INFLUENCE ON WHETHER FARMERS GROW GMO S? "There is a notion out there among the general public that if farmers like myself buy seed from Monsanto, Dow, Dupont Pioneer or Syngenta, I've suddenly lost choice in the way I run my business," says Brian Scott, an Indiana corn and soybean grower. "Based on my experience, this is not the case. I choose what seeds I plant every year. I'm not locked into buying seed from one company from one season to the next." Those interested can see a real contract between a seed company and a farmer at GMO Answers. DO GMOS HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE PRICE OF FOOD? A 2016 study from Purdue University showed that if all GMOs in the U.S. were eliminated, corn yield would decline 11.2 percent on average, soybeans yield would decline 5.2 percent, and cotton by 18.6 percent. With lower crop yields, corn prices would increase as much as 28 percent and soybeans as much as 22 percent, according to the study.