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Genetically modified organisms are a recent innovation in biotechnology that have greatly increased agricultural output by bolstering a plant’s resistance to insects and herbicides. Some genetically modified foods, like Golden Rice, have even been developed to contain superior nutritional qualities.
Surprisingly, there is a substantial amount of fear and public mistrust surrounding the use of GMO crops. This has resulted in regulatory actions that restrict or prohibit their use in agriculture.
Though there are some environmental concerns about developing GMO crops, their potential benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
GMO crops are produced by borrowing a piece of DNA from an organism that produces a specific protein or gene and splicing that into another organism. By doing this, that desirable trait is passed onto the other organism, enhancing its existing qualities or giving it new ones.
Bt corn is a product of this process. Bt is a naturally-occurring soil bacterium that produces a protein that is indigestible by insect larvae but is harmless to humans. These proteins are used in organic farming as a pesticide because they kill insects.
Genetic scientists created Bt corn by taking the DNA from Bt bacteria and splicing it into corn DNA. The result of this combination is pest-resistant corn that produces Bt proteins insect larvae can’t digest.
Bt corn does not contain any other chemicals or proteins that are not used in organic farming, so one shouldn’t assume that it is any more unsafe than organic corn.
The Rockefeller Foundation funded a similar project to create a Vitamin A enhanced form of rice known as Golden Rice. This rice borrows genes from other vitamin-rich vegetables such as corn to make a form of rice that contains more Vitamin A.
It has the potential to decrease Vitamin A deficiencies in many developing nations in Southeast Asia that receive the majority of their calories from rice. Thus, the potential benefits of GMO crops are profound — they have the ability to alleviate problems of food insecurity and malnutrition in developing nations.
There are some legitimate concerns about GMO crops, but the fear surrounding them is largely irrational and based on the ill-conceived notion that all GMO crops are somehow inherently more dangerous than natural crops.
This is because GMO crops are often portrayed as unnatural, and anything that is unnatural must be dangerous. This notion, however, is not generally supported by the scientific community.
There are, a few legitimate concerns surrounding GMO crops that do have scientific merit.
They have the potential to contaminate non-GMO crops, and they can produce allergic reactions that non-GMO crops don’t produce.
But there are ways to accommodate for these problems. Fields containing GMO crops can be separated from fields with non-GMO crops, and testing can be done to determine what allergens a GMO crop may cause.
These crops have the ability to increase yield capacity for a variety of crops and provide a higher degree of food security to developed and developing nations.
No biotechnological advance is without its risks, but the potential benefits of GMO crops are profound. They may lead to the creation of new crop varieties that are resistant to pests, herbicides and droughts, in addition to nutritionally enhancing crops.
This means that not only do GMO crops have the potential to increase agricultural output capacity and food security in developing nations — they also limit the amount of chemical pesticides used in agriculture.
GMO crops have not been rendered unsafe by the USDA, and they have not been shown to be harmful to human health. It is unreasonable to not embrace the use of these crops.
James Johnson is a psychology senior and may be reached at [email protected]
You used the word "potential" six times in your article. That's a problem. Here are some legitimate concerns:
1. Golden Rice has been tied up in approval and legislation for years, and so far has not been used.
2. Crop pests have already begun to develop resistance to BT corn. Engineering pest-resistant crops is an arms race, a dead end.
3. Roundup-resistant weeds are a bigger problem each year (they localize the Roundup chemical away from the growing tip).
4. Cross-pollination has occurred multiple times, and Monsanto has sued farmers whose crops were contaminated through no fault of their own.
5. If you make crops sterile, as in the case of sterile trees developed for quicker lumber production, you lose the entire ecosystem and diversity of animals built around them (like for pine trees).
6. There is enough food for everyone on this planet, but inequality in access and wealth leads to excesses in America and malnutrition in third-world countries.
7. We can't solve the above problems, so what makes you think GMO crops will do anything but enrich the few at the hands of the many, while ruining local farms in countries around the world?
And just for your information, I'm a biotechnology major, soon to enter this morass of ethical questions.
Every thing you pointed out is correct.Carry on!Gerd
Great response, Yosef. Please keep me posted on your work.
I like your reply. The author of this article has a classic case of having his head buried in the sand. I was left wondering if this person actually knew what he was talking about or did he just type what someone told him?
I would rather not wait to find out how much damage this process is going to cause. Halibut DNA in corn? Please…
If you do the properer roundup procedures by not spraying everything with it an using the 5 percent refuge you are supposed to use. then the roundup will not have resistant weeds.
There's always a downside. Always. The cheap thrill of out-thinking, er, "correcting" millions of years of ecosystem evolution in such a short period of time is lost on me. This article reeks of the usual retroactive ad hoc justifications for pushing the negative side effects down the road in the name of this quarter's profits.
it's all about quarterly profits these days, no more long term vision for big corporations…hopefully we can change that, the majority is speaking out, I hope and pray that we can have progress in our country again! And I wonder why a psychologist is talking about GMO here…
How about we allow testing with your family? Please do some research first, GMO has been warned by many scientists but got approved for consumption by the FDA's president at the time – a former Monsanto attorney! Studies in rats fed GMO food shows that by the third generation, they were sterile, smaller and weaker. Oh and did you know that in each cell of a GMO plant there are pesticides? What about the animals who eat? The land? The other farmers near by who want to have organic food? They're all also being affected by this evil crop and company.
This article appears to be a perfect Monsanto PR puff piece—and replete with the same false PR lines Monsanto and its brethren have been spouting for years. For a digest of the truth about GMO's visit: http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/2011/03/andrew-ki…
GMO/GE biotechnology is not now and never has been about, feeding the world, it is just marketing. It is about patents and controlling the world food supply by multi-national corporations. It is about selling more herbicides and pesticides or other chemical agents. It is about terminator technologies to prevent farmers from saving seeds from one year to another.
Many pro biotech people accuse the anti-GMO/GE seed food folks of being anti science. Nothing is farther from the truth, rather we want "real science" that is submitted to independent 3rd party review and incorporates long term health and risk assessments, instead of the Pseudo biotech industry science (mostly influenced and controlled by chemical companies) that limits safety studies to less then 90 days and attempts to prevent any third party independent review as well as vilifying any scientist who contradicts their claims.
World Scientists statement from more then 10 years ago. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/list.php
"Any politician or scientist who tells you these products are safe is either very stupid or lying. The hazards of these foods are uncertain. In view of our enormous ignorance, the premature application of biotechnology is downright dangerous." David Suzuki, CC, OBC, Ph.D LLD, Geneticist
Recommend "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffrey Smith, as well as the work and research by Vandana Shiva, if you really want to know what is going on.)
Golden Rice is a nutritional Farce, as it provides so little Vitamin A that an 11 year old boy would have to eat more the 20 bowls of rice to get enough to be helpful (an unhealthy amount and more then a poor family can afford for the entire family much less a single child) The United Nations and other scientific groups have already shown that the solution to nutrition is education, teaching farmers how to grow more diverse food varieties and vegetables.
Not a single GMO/GE crop has been developed that actually increases yield or is drought resistant. That is another Marketing tactic of what the biotech industry says they hope to develop. Fact is, for thousands of years, farmers have been increasing yield and adapting crops to their local environs through natural hybridization without laboratories, and been far more successful at far less cost.
GMO/GE is reducing biodiversity at a rapid rate. Industrialized agriculture is not about feeding the world but selling limited core crops for increased corporate profits. If you look at history it has also been about "reducing labor" or in other words eliminating jobs, and therefore increasing, not decreasing poverty.
What gives you the right to write on such a subject, you are a psychology senior not biology. And yes, this sounds like another puff piece to make GMO's "good" for you!
Mr. Johnson – your ignorance when it comes to GMOs is breath-taking. In light of the fact that the affects of the consumption of GMOs by humans has never been tested – how did you conclude "Though there are some environmental concerns about developing GMO crops, their potential benefits greatly outweigh the risks?" Do you have a crystal ball?
I'd second what Yosef posted. And add: The old saw, "You are what you eat," is unequivocally true. And most people prefer organic foods because the low-level toxicity of non-organic foods accumulates into larger, insidious and toxic consequences for our health. The USDA and FDA won't ever protect us from the synergies of toxic chemicals used in corporate agriculture, including GMO. There are already good studies out which show human organ damage from GMO crops. Corporate agriculture has failed its mission in providing sustainable agricultural practices, because its about marketing. It will continue to fail – companies like Monsanto or ConAgra have no liability for the illnesses you'll contract from their manufactured or GMO foods. They'll gladly gamble against your health every time, buying the results they want to publicize whether or not they're true, and out-gun the FDA and USDA at every step. GMO agricultural practices will have similar results to big pharma – we'll be told there are no side effects and instead studies will be cooked to hide the truth. By all sensible measures the U.S. has declining health, and for one big reason – we approve technologies and chemicals before they're ever tested to be safe. GMO is no exception to this because the profit motive for large companies to deliver miracle seeds is overwhelming.