Lane Powell Shareholders Paul Swanson and Parna Mehrbani co-authored an article in Oregon Business magazine’s November/December 2014 issue titled “Why Plant Patenting Floats Free of GMO Crop Controversies.” In the article, Swanson and Mehrbani discuss plant patent terminology, as well as the history and various sides of the plant patenting debate.
In the GMO crop debates, the “hard” science community focuses on issues of “food safety” rather than overall “food satisfaction.” “Romantic environmentalists,” in turn, devote more attention to the holistic, psychic aspects of food ingestion. While they criticize anti-GMO views as “unscientific,” GMO proponents themselves ignore “food satisfaction” as a better measure of food quality. That concept is not well understood scientifically; it is much harder to model and study. It would require a cross disciplinary analysis — both psychological and sociological — of the ramifications of consuming GMO crops. That more penetrating scientific analysis has yet to take shape.