Today I write about the weird shared paranoia between certain kinds of liberals and bona fide conspiracy nuts when it comes to agribusinesses like Monsanto and their pioneering of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that boost yields and reduce costs for farmers. I hypothesized that anti-Monsanto hysteria appealed to a trifecta of lefty personality traits: anti-corporateness, anti-modernism, and food snobbery. And I think that’s basically right, but I have been surprised by how many self-professed conservatives and libertarians have responded to me, sharing their worries about GMOs and calling for special labeling for foods containing them (for reasons I get to in the piece, this is unnecessary and even pernicious). I think I underestimated how viscerally suspicious many of us are when it comes to the intersection of food, science, and money.
EDIT: Link fixed.