Genetic Engineering: The Solution to Hunger and Disease Essay

Recently, delegates of famine stricken Southern African nations and representatives from the United States and the European Union came together to resolve issues regarding the acceptance of Genetically modified Food aid from the United States of America. Concerns and complications stemmed from humanitarian, economical, social and political grounds.

Imagine eating at a dining establishment and being asked if the ordered main course would preferably be prepared baked, fried, or genetically engineered. Though odd, this question is coming sooner than later. Even though genetic engineering has been around for a long time, due to its increased advances, no longer is it an ignored issue. In fact, it is causing quite a controversy. Some feel, genetic engineering is a scientist 's way of "playing God," creating elements and bodies that were not intended to be on Earth. Possibly, there is some truth to this belief; however, others disagree and see the "act of creating" most beneficial to both science and the economy. Both sides have great claims to their arguments, but after researching

It is incredible to see how far genetic engineering has come. Humans, plants, and any living organism can now be manipulated. Scientists have found ways to change humans before they are even born. They can remove, add, or alter genes in the human genome. Making things possible that humans (even thirty years ago) would have never imagined. Richard Hayes claims in SuperSize Your Child? that genetic engineering needs to have limitations. That genetic engineering should be used for medical purposes, but not for “genetic modification that could open the door to high-tech eugenic engineering” (188). There is no doubt that genetic engineering can amount to great things, but without limits it could lead the human race into a future that no one

Jonathan Rauch presents evidence that genetically modified food could potentially provide nutrition to save future generations from starving. Ploughing is the process of turning the soil and land with a plow in order to plant new crops. This ensures that the soil will be fresh for planting, and the weeds and other crops will be broken down. However, ploughing can bring about environmental impacts. Ploughing pollutes rivers, erosion that wears away the land, and greenhouse gases that are released into the air. In his essay, Rauch visits a 200-acre farmland which is called Good Luck Tract. This farm is not a typical one. Instead of having flat land for growing, the land was rolling hills. This ensured that there was no pollution, chemical or soil runoff. Since the land was not ploughed, the soil was able to regenerate back to a healthy ecosystem. Issues of erosion and runoff disappeared because the soil was soaking up most of the water. The ecosystem was thriving again, and insects such as worms were doing the ploughing. At this farm, it wasn’t necessary to plough anymore. This means that they were not wasting fuel on ploughing, which means they were saving money, saving energy, and reducing pollution. If every farm stopped ploughing, or even reduced how much they did, it would make for better growing conditions. In this scenario, the field was dense with wheat. It had almost twice the amount that you could grow in regular conditions. The soil was more rich in organic matter, meaning it was more nourishing to the crops. The pressure to produce more food will continue to grow in the upcoming decades. According to the United Nations, the human population will grow by upwards of 40% in 2050. To account for the increasing populations, food outputs will need to double to account for the number of people who will live on this planet. The elimination of the plough depends on genetically modified crops. Rauch goes on to explain

“Supermarket produce sections bulging with a year-round supply of perfectly round, bright red-orange tomatoes have become all but a national birthright. But in Tomatoland, which is based on his James Beard Award-winning article.” "The Price of Tomatoes," (Estabrook). Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue. Modern plant breeding has tripled yields but has also produced fruits with dramatically reduced amounts of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C, and those tomatoes that have fourteen times more sodium than the tomatoes our used to parents enjoy. The relentless drive for low costs has fostered a thriving modern-day slave trade in the United States” (“Estabrook”). As factual this sounds he did not add a control to the group. When tomatoes are left over for just one day they start to decompose losing the vital nutrition. Yes, Estabrook is partially right the decay of the tomatoes nutrients. GMOs help prevent the rapid decay of fruits making them ship out further throughout the country of US. Think of the difference between a typewriter and a computer. They're two different technologies that can be used to write a book. But it makes no sense to ask "Are books written on computers good or bad?" We all understand that it's the end product itself that's important, not the technology that created it. Using a computer instead of a typewriter may make the work easier, but it does not inherently result in a book that's either better or

Genetic Engineering, for most individuals not knowledgeable on the topic, conjures visions of sci-fi movies and humans being grown in a lab far off in the future. What more and more individuals in the early 21st century are coming to realize is that Genetic Engineering has already exceeded our wildest imaginations in a dark corner of a lab, outside of the view of the main stream public. Indeed, in 2017, genetic engineering is in full swing on both plant and animal life. Only from hearing major news stories such as Dolly the world 's first cloned sheep or GMOs already being a major part of North America 's corn production, have the masses been made aware of the sweeping advances that science has been able to make. Now that we as a

Technology, it 's a word that defines the means and ways of everyday life today. In the 21st century, technology is a crucial thing. From plasma televisions, to ipods and iphones, technology conquers all. Apart from everyday uses of technology, science and research technology is making a huge impact in medical and research science. Teens and young adults today are unaware of these growing trend of using technology in medical science. Currently, the use of technology in gene manipulation and engineering is creating a hype. Genetic engineering is the process of taking any specific gene from a living thing and genetically manipulating it to be added into the genetic code of another living thing. This means, since plants and humans, and

Cloning has always been a symbol of advancement and intelligence in our society. Its uncertainty may cause people’ hostility towards this unknown technology. I think the exploration of cloning should be supported and we should pursue further improvement. The knowledge should be widely applied to medical, agricultural and reproduction uses, but should be withheld to the stage of physical characteristics or phenotypes modification. I think genetic engineering is a very promising scientific field which can benefit the human society profoundly especially for the medical uses. The research of genetic engineering can also largely contribute to solving scarcity and increase reproduction of limited resources to higher economy of scale. Nevertheless genetic engineering is still a very controversial problem and many opposed opinions may be raised. I will try to prove otherwise that people can obtain more advantages from mastering this technology.

Page enlightens the reader that we already know how to accomplish that task. One of the problems is that the poorer countries do not have the money to afford these better crops. Another issue is the resistance to genetically modified food. Page then argues that the lines are becoming more blurred between genetic engineering and conventional breeding, and that intentionally improving the DNA of crops is more practical than breeding two

Our world is full of complications, situations that need people’s attention. Scientists are attempting to find answers for most of the world’s difficulties. Nevertheless, a solution for one problem creates some other obstacle. It becomes impossible to create a solution that does not have side effects. One of the difficult situations in this world is hunger and poverty. Many people lack enough food to live a healthy life, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries. In order to provide sufficient food and maintain food security, scientists discovered genetically altered foods. Genetically engineered foods are grown from plants or animals whose genes are modified by inserting new genes that can increase the plant’s and animal’s resistance to diseases and worms. By doing so, researchers improve crop yield and animal products. In addition to increasing the amount of food produced, scientists enhance the nutritive content of crops by using biotechnology, which results in reducing malnutrition. Furthermore, some investigators claim the environmental importance of

There remains an ongoing skirmish between Science and nature and that battle has made it into something as simple as planting seeds, hence food is yielded to feed humans. This battle between the science and nature stands primarily this, is it beneficial to plant and let seeds naturally germinate and take part in the process of growing? Or are human interference with the process and genetically modify the seeds to become immune to bugs, diseases, and to yield abundantly?

Genetically engineered foods have been a controversial topic for a long time, splitting society into two sides, for genetic engineering or against it. Some people think that genetically engineering our food greatly improves our food supply quality and quantity, while others may think that genetic engineering will destroy and ruin our world’s food supply. GMO has many pros and cons that can be a major effect today, as well as the future. However, I think that genetically engineering foods is a good idea for society. The use of genetically engineering foods has been significantly helping the food we eat with many factors. GMO can create safer crops that won’t catch disease as easily as crops that are not genetically engineered. People won’t have to worry if the food they’re eating is infected, for the crop would be

Author Chuck Klosterman said, “The simple truth is that we’re all already cyborgs more or less. Our mouths are filled with silver. Our nearsighted pupils are repaired with surgical lasers. We jam diabetics full of delicious insulin. Almost 40 percent of Americans now have prosthetic limbs. We see to have no qualms about making post-birth improvements to our feeble selves. Why are we so uncomfortable with pre-birth improvement?” Despite Klosterman’s accurate observation, there are reasons people are wearisome toward pre-birth enhancement. Iniquitous practices such as genetic engineering could lead to a degraded feeling in a child and conceivably end in a dystopian society, almost like the society Adolf Hitler had in mind. In the minds of

What if you could design your child before it was even born? What if you could cut out any life threatening diseases, make sure that your child is not susceptible to smoking addictions or alcoholism, and then make your child genius? Would you? Are you asking yourself how this could be done? Have you ever considered human genetic engineering?

He reasoned that there were certain rules by which these characteristics were inherited. He guessed that each plant must possess some sort of unit that specified its characteristics. In fact, each must have two units, one from each parent plant. If the plant inherited two different units, then one would override the other. This was called the dominant unit, and the one that was overridden was called the recessive unit. Mendel's theories were not discovered till 1900, and it began the science called genetics , the study of a physical inheritance. From this name, Mendel's units were changed into genes.