The Effects Of Genetic Modification On The Environment And The Human Race

When it comes to the topic of Genetic Modification, some scientists will readily disagree that Genetic Modification is bad for the world. Some are convinced that genetically modified babies will be good for the world, while others maintain the reasoning that having genetically modified humans in our society will create problems with non-modified humans. They’re afraid there will be chaos in the world. Where this argument usually ends is on the question of, do the parents have the right reasons for genetically modifying their babies. Though I agree that genetic modification should be used, I also agree that there should be regulations put in place.

Currently over 7 billion people inhabit the earth, current estimates are that the world’s population could be as high as 10 billion by 2050. (Cleland, 553) In order to maintain a sufficient healthy food supply for a population of that size, the farming industry must continue to rely on scientific discoveries to raise crop output levels and raise nutritional values of that production. Beyond the discoveries that have already been made in the genetic altering of food supplies through mixed breeding of similar species. The next plateau will be the reliance on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to provide required crop supplies. Therefore, genetic modification of the world’s food supply is a sustainable effort to allow the human race to continue to support the ever-growing world population.

Although it is safe to say that GMOs do hurt human life and the environment, it is also necessary to acknowledge the pros in having genetically modified foods. It is believed that farmers would be able to spend less money producing more food organically because of GMOs. The cost of the technology used in plowing fields would drop drastically if crops were to be modified. Likewise, farmers would have bigger yields to land and be able to use less herbicides and

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

People who support the genetic modification of foods agree that by producing foods in this format, society can benefit in many ways. For instance, producers can create more nutritious foods, achieve higher yields, and decrease food prices. The article “27 Big Advantages and Disadvantages of Genetically Modified Foods,” states that “[a]ccording to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, some GM foods have been engineered to become more nutritious in terms

With GMO's we can at least address the problem of a lack of food and even help with a lack of diversity if you can make a single cob of corn give all the necessary vitamins and nutrients you could keep an entire population stable on a single staple food source. The benefits for third world countries alone should already be a worthy enough cause to have GM corn among many others more widely accepted but the unfortunate truth is that fear based on ignorance and sometimes even lies keep them down. Many believe GMO's to be more or less Frankenstein like fruits and vegetables created in a lab somewhere with a poor cob of corn strapped to a table and blasted with radiation or gene spliced with other plants until the desired results are acquired but that is simply

The world is a hungry place. It 's hungry for love, hungry for passion, hungry for money and hungry for work. But more than anything, it 's hungry for food. People are starving around the globe while the rest of us live a comfortable existence. Several companies have used their scientific expertise to genetically modify seeds to increase crop yields in an attempt to feed the masses and end world hunger. Can they do it? In the short run, yes they can, but it is important to ask "at what cost?” What are they not telling us? If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Although the genetically modified food industry has so far been instrumental in successfully feeding a hungry and growing world population, those same foods are polluting the environment, poisoning our food supply and killing us slowly.

On the one hand, many claim that GMOs are absolutely necessary for the continual well-being of the human race, as well as the Earth. GMOs could potentially have a monumentally positive affect on our environment, health, economy, and overall society. GMOs have been and can continue to be used to solve world hunger and malnutrition. Around 500,000 children go blind every year because of a Vitamin A deficiency. So, for example, a strain of rice has been developed that unlike normal rice, contains enough Vitamin A to keep children healthier. GMOs have helped feed more than 300 million Americans and a global population of 7 billion – of which 1 in 8 suffer from hunger and malnutrition. By 2050, the global population is expected to rise to 9 billion. Experts predict we will need 70% more agricultural production to keep pace – utilizing GM crops that

“Growing GM foods…can help eliminate the application of chemical pesticides and reduce the cost of bringing a crop to market.” (Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?) Every year, farmers lose crops as a result of insects and other pests. These loses require farmers to utilize pesticides when growing crops to ensure production. There have been more and more health risks discovered from the consumption of foods treated with these chemicals.

However, if modifying foods is supposed to reduce the rate of world hunger, then why is the world hunger rate rapidly increasing when more and more farmers are genetically modifying their food each day? The answer to that is because genetically modifying food does not increase yields and can actually be less effective at raising yields than other methods that do not use genetically modified foods. One study once showed that a sustainable non-GMO method increased yields of about 80% in a developing country, whereas methods that did not include modifying foods barely raised yields, and sometimes did not even raise yields at all! The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IIASTD) once conducted a study that contained over 400 scientists to see if genetically modified food actually increase yields. They found out that genetically modifying foods does not increase yields and does not help reduce poverty and hunger at all (Smith). If modifying food can cause disease and does not even raise yields, then why should we modify

Genetically modified foods have been the most recent breakthrough in the fight involving hunger. Genetically Modified foods(GMO) can be defined as organisms (i.e. plants, animals or microorganisms) in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination. GMOs give us the ability to recreate a plant's genome and allow for manipulation in the genes that will provide rapid growth or defensive properties that will protect the crop. Although GMOs can provide us with many beneficial aspects, we still do not fully understand the deleterious affects of consuming genetically modified food.

Genetically Modified Organisms in the food supply are not the answer to curing world hunger. Genetically modified foods are being produced day in and day out, but there has been nothing done to terminate world hunger. Moreover, the world has a surplus amount of food, but still, people are hungry, making the problem, not one of quantity but one of distribution. However, healthy food is expensive, the average yearly income in underdeveloped countries averages less than $1,000 per year. Proponents of Genetically modified foods say that GMO’s the same as other foods except they are manufactured with different chemicals that adjust them to grow faster and to grow more. The biotech companies have invested billions of dollars they determine that this technology will have the potential for enormous profit and the means to gain control over world hunger. If they truthfully wanted to help stop world hunger why not spend the billions of dollars on the actual problem itself rather than on the technology for genetically modified foods that may or may not help with the problem.

The grain demand is expected to double in the next 20 years, and the global demand for cereals is expected to increase from 0.3% to 1.4%. Total arable land currently stands at only 300 million hectares. If the population grows by 2% per year, food production must increase by 3.2% per year. Traditional farming methods simply cannot keep up with this. As one scientist has put it, “The myth that agriculture is practised in a rural Garden of Eden needs to be dispelled and replaced with the reality of it being a struggle to produce food for an ever increasing population against natural forces.” GM crops can be seen as one of the ‘rescue-robots’ of hunger, and a way of fighting against human suffering. Much higher yields of staple foods are produced through GM without enlarging the land space. New technology will result in improvement in fruit and vegetable shelf-life, improved nutritional quality and health benefits in foods, improved protein and carbohydrate content of foods, improved fat quality and more. Allergens could be taken out of peanuts or wheat, and lower calorie sugar could be produced from GM sugar beets. GM is also vital in protecting some foods we already consume. For example, unless scientists can find a way to genetically enhance the banana’s ability to ward off parasites, we will be banana-less in 10 years. Benefits are endless. In a 1999 study, it was found that 96.2% of GM plants could survive freezing experiments, versus

Related to United Nations’ official website, human population are increasing these days, which means we are going to have less food to more humans in the future (United Nations). GM-foods might be a way to solve the problem of not enough foods. In my own opinion, I think GM-foods is a solution to make our life more better in the future. However, scientists need to figure out how to make GM-foods not break the food chain and make it safe to human body.

Genetically modified foods are genetically engineered by modifying the DNA to make it tastier and have a better colour. This new technique has been introduce to the world and has started to be practiced because of globalization. In my opinion, people should stop improving and manifesting the GM food, and just focus on planting trees, fruits and vegetable to be able to harvest foods the normal way and find a ways on how to distribute foods in each human being. This will be a big help with the problem of world hunger.