preview

Gmos : Modernizing Our World For Good

Good Essays
Open Document

Grant Karlas
Mrs. Mercer
Honors Freshman Lit
16 February 2017
GMOs: Modernizing Our World for Good In the mid- 1990s, a new large economic market became a presence around the world. This new market, known as GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, was the product of a technique used by scientists in which they could modify organisms in order to gain desirable traits. Many people saw these as the best thing since sliced bread. Others, however, immediately saw them as a concern to the general public, just as anything new in the food supply would be. Since then, GMOs and GE (Genetic Engineering) have become more advanced and existent in the world, and the controversy over them has grown with it. Now GMOs have become existent not only in …show more content…

The reduction of greenhouse gases is often an overlooked benefit of GMOs. Yet today with the use of GMOs crops are having a very beneficial effect on the environment. Due to mass urbanization the world has experienced in the past decades, farm land is decreasing and being replaced by cities and subdivisions. This urbanization forces farmers to increase crop yield for each acre they have. Thankfully, the use of GMOs has allowed farmers to maintain pace with urban development. If GMOs had not been used in 2012, an additional area equivalent to 9% of the U.S. would have had to be farmed around the world to gain the same amount of yield with GMOs (Brookes). Without the use of GMOs and additional burden would be felt by not only on farmers but also on the average consumer due to price increases on produce. Helping the economies of developing countries has been a struggle all throughout history. GMOs have been helping not only developed countries, but also developing countries. In Argentina, herbicide- tolerant crops have been allowing farmers to produce soybeans right after wheat in a growing season, something that was not possible before (Brookes). By being able to farm in this way, Argentinian farmers were able to increase crop yields and control weeds, greatly helping Argentina, which has a struggling economy. But economy boosts are not only happening in Argentina. As Brookes states, “For the 17-year period (1996-2012), the global farm

Get Access