Summary Of The Issues Led By Modified Seeds By Lakshawn Yapa

The issue of genetically modified foods, is Farmers can't harvest seeds. Fundamentally, farming is a simple process: plant seeds, grow crops, harvest crops, and gather seeds from the plants for the next season. Sadly, GMO companies like Monsanto take this last step away from farmers and raise expenses even futher by forcing the farmers to continually buy the premium-priced GM eeds every growing season. In fact, as was shiwn in the Bowman v. Monsanto court case, it is illegal in the US for someone growing a Monsanto crop to harvest the seeds and use them later. The Nowman case went all the way to the unanimously found guilty of patent infringement after he purchased and used second generation Monsanto seeds.

One in eight people among the world population of seven billion don’t have enough to eat (The Facts about GMO). With the help of GMOs, we have been helping the countries that don’t have enough to eat or are lacking something for what they’re eating. For example, let’s take the golden rice project. Normal white rice doesn’t have that much of proteins in it, that is needed for a day and “the world are lacking low dietary intake of iron, vitamin A, iodine and zinc” (Vitamin A Deficiency). Though rice has a little bit of iron, iodine, and some items of the dietary intake, it doesn’t have the Vitamin A, which is a very important intake in the dietary system. Without having Vitamin A in their food, many poverty counties are struggling with effects it has, such effects can be known as the Vitamin A Deficiency. The symptoms that one can have if they this this deficiency is dry eyes, dry skin, frequent infections, inability to see in dim light, or spots in the eyeball, which can cause he/she to be blind. So if this is the cause of being in a place where the poverty were the dietary system is terrible, we need to do something to help them, and that something is

In the documentary Food Inc, directed by Robert Kenner, it highlights the perspective of those who oppose Monsanto and other companies that are modifying the food production industry by implementing GMO’s into their seeds. GMO’s, or genetically modified organisms, are living organisms that scientists have in some way changed the genome of to have the resulting organism, such as a seed or crop in the case of Monsanto, express a desired trait. Many think that genetically modifying a seed alters the genes of the plant to the point that it should no longer even be classified as the same plant. Also, many fear the adverse repercussions of consuming GMO’s and the effects that they have on human health. As said previously, one main contributor to

Today’s world is all about how we can be seen as helping others, or how one county is offering support to those in need of it. When Jeremy Seifert starting his work on his film GMO-OMG (Seifert, 2013), the film started by asking people the simple question do they eat GMO. The film goes through the first 2 min of just people responses to that question and it is amazing how people were so unware of what they were eating. GMO are genetically modified organism which as the movie explains there are two primary categories of GMOs, the pesticide producer, and Herbicide resisters (Seifert, 2013) which help farmers to grow crops by making them resistant to bugs or weeds that would have destroyed crops in the past. Monsanto is one of the largest GMO producers of a corn seed that would allow for crops to grow with natural resistant to herbicide and insects. When Jeremy went to Africa to research why some of the locals were rejecting the Monsanto seeds because they said that you could only plant them once and then you would be forever in need of the replace seeds rather than just reusing seeds from the fully grown plants. The Haitian people believed that the seeds of life are a common inheritance of all humanity (Seifert, 2013).

developing countries. In the same article, Rachel Schurman, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota, points out many of the poor farmers in the developing countries are still unable to afford the high yield crops, good irrigation tools, nutritious fertilizers and powerful pesticides for their farmlands (qtd.in McLure). Therefore, it is not feasible for the farmers in the developing countries to commit themselves to the expensive genetic engineering technologies. In addition, the opponents of GMO report that the regulatory cost is very high in a lot of countries. As Harry Klee, a former Monsanto scientist who is now at the University of Florida says, “Providing research data to make a single genetic alteration in a tomato can cost up to $15 million [in America],” (qtd. in McLure). Therefore, the forecasted benefits of adopting GMO and GM foods to help the developing countries are arguable and needed further in-depth investigation.

Erik Vance found that a “Green Revolution” had existed before the introduction of GMOs; people wanted to increase the traits of crops (such as wheat) associated with human consumption to compensate world population growth. By using GMOs, pesticides and herbicides weren’t necessary to fulfill this concept, and they were also less harmful to consumers and the environment. GMOs are also much less expensive than repeatedly buying chemicals to put on crops, making it easily accessible to poorer countries. Also, by genetically modifying crops, they can tolerate the effects of natural disasters and have much higher survival rates than those of unmodified crops. Flood-proof rice is already in effect in some countries, and with positive results. Countries considered to be poor can grow rice totally submerged in water for up to two weeks, and because the genetics of the rice were altered directly in rice fields and not labs, government agencies tended to scrutinize much less (Erik). With the protection against natural forces, crops could be grown virtually anywhere, and may even eliminate other weather-related issues such as drought and long periods of below-freezing weather. GMOs can also help crops and livestock withstand disease. “Several international institutes are developing apples with resistance to dozens of different diseases including fire blight, apple scab, and powdery mildew” (ABC). Countries

In the article ‘India Rejects First GM Vegetable, Hampering Monsanto’ by Jay Shankar and Thomas Kutty Abraham, they discuss how India’s first GMO called bt brinjal (genetically modified eggplant) is rejected by the Indian government due to the fact that there are potential threats to the GMO. GMO’s are genetically modified organisms that are made so that they can enhance the original organism in various ways. The Indian government wants to make sure that they have food security, especially with GMO’s, so they rejected the bt brinjal because they felt that there weren’t enough tests run on the organism. Also, they’re worried because farmers don’t take many precautions when putting pesticides on the plants, which puts them at risk. After making sure that bt brinjal is safe, India needs to keep the GMO’s so that they’ll be able to feed their growing population and to save money.

Although the U.S. is one of the biggest producers, there are other multiple countries as well, that produce GMOs and GMCs, these countries include China, India, South Africa. Because these countries use GMOs, the rate at which they produce food is escalating quickly, but if GMOs are not used, it could lead to a downfall in food supply as well as increasing poverty, and more homeless. Within the United States GMOs are currently the fastest producing products of food. Without these GMOs and their crops, the U.S. not only would have increased poverty, but it would also run out of their own natural resources own natural resources.

To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four sections and two sub-sections. I will begin with and brief description and summary of GMO’s and the scientific consensus on the safety and efficacy of this technology, public opinion that contradicts the science community and the origins of misinformation. Next I will talk about why GMO’s are a major component in solving food insecurity, death, sickness and poverty. In the third section of this paper involves the efforts of green campaigners who undermine science and block GMO technology. To conclude, I will provide examples of the reality of food insecurity worldwide and highlight one significant area to focus resolution efforts, Golden Rice. I

Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug pushed the boundaries of conventional farming through biotechnology. He bred crops with desirable characteristics to manipulate the DNA. He is credited for saving billions of lives. This proves that a genetically modified crop or organism can be safe and can help conquer world hunger. This leads into how U.N. agencies discuss hunger crisis. “Essentially, biotechnology improves the characteristics and requirements of food crops through manipulation of plant DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid], or genetic engineering, creating a GMO. Such plants have better insect resistance and herbicide tolerance, and the sustainability of cultivation is increased by minimizing use of pesticides and fertilizers” (Weisser). This can change how we protect crops without using pesticides. Still scientist all over the world are looking for many ways to help world hunger. GMO’s are one of those ways. They are not as bad as people see them. One day GMO’s will save the

Today, even though the issue at hand might not be large scale pesticide use in most areas of the country, modifications to the ecosystem through genetic engineering of crops or advanced fertilizer technology continues to alter global ecosystems. Even while the human race tries to make the world more comfortable, it should not forget that nature is delicate and requires respect.

The real reason to use GMO’s is to take over seed production, so they will make more money. The GMO’s used most often are not healthy to feed the world and allowing the farmers to use unhealthy chemicals on their crops does not help the situation. the food. Because of this GMO’s have started effecting the world’s population. Illness, mental illness, physical illness, and other illnesses and diseases have already started affecting our populations directly due to GMO’s being consumed.

Some people may say that GM foods that are given to 3rd world countries are bad and unhelpful. Some african farmers have actually asked for them to be banned. They say that we should, ‘“recognise that farmers in Africa already have effective approaches to seed and agriculture, which are far more environmentally and farmer-friendly than GM.’” But their crops don’t have special nutrients in them that they need to survive like GM foods do. In GM foods they insert genes like beta carotene from other organisms to make them

The controversies that arose with the Green Revolution pesticide and fertilizer techniques of the 2008 article are rising again in this 2016 article, only the perpetrator has changed from the chemical usages of the Green Revolution to the side effects of GM seeds in India. The GM seeds that are covered in the 2016 article are cotton seeds that have been modified to reduce the need of pesticides and increase yield such that India is expected to become the largest producer of cotton surpassing China. These GM seeds seemingly fixed the overuse of chemical that was required in 2008 as the article from then said they might, but that was only a temporary fix. These seeds still contain the same financial and debt problems that came with the Green Revolution. Even more worrisome is the fact that the pesticide usage reduction that the cotton GM seeds began to be less effective. Pest became resistant to the pesticide strand of cotton to such an extend that pesticide use have increased to almost twice of what it was in 2008 when the 2008 article stated the worries of the Punjab farmers. These worries still exist as with increase use of these pesticide chemicals, so will there be an increase in the health worries of 2008, such that they may be even

There are a lot of questions concerning the policy of genetically modified crops in India, regarding the approach towards the development of economy, the technological impact on the nation and also the relationships between farming and business communities. The supporting parties of Biotechnology in agriculture argue that the genetically modified crops could be the solution to most of the existing problems in the country’s agriculture; opposing parties argue that it could have negative impact on the environment and livelihood of farmers. The policy changes in India on the GM crops were influenced by both the pro and anti GM parties, the approach of both the parties has been similar in many ways through their international