In Africa, where millions go hungry, several nations have refused to import GM foods in spite of their lower costs the result of higher yields and a reduced need for water and pesticides. Kenya has banned them altogether amid widespread malnutrition. No country has definite plans to grow Golden Rice, a crop engineered to deliver more vitamin A than spinach rice normally has no vitamin A , even though vitamin A deficiency causes more than one million deaths annually and half a million cases of irreversible blindness in the developing world.
Globally, only a tenth of the world's cropland includes GM plants. Four countries—the U. Other Latin American countries are pushing away from the plants. And even in the U. In the U. The fear fueling all this activity has a long history.
The public has been worried about the safety of GM foods since scientists at the University of Washington developed the first genetically modified tobacco plants in the s.
In the mids, when the first GM crops reached the market, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Ralph Nader, Prince Charles and a number of celebrity chefs took highly visible stands against them. Consumers in Europe became particularly alarmed: a survey conducted in , for example, found that 69 percent of the Austrian public saw serious risks in GM foods, compared with only 14 percent of Americans.
In Europe, skepticism about GM foods has long been bundled with other concerns, such as a resentment of American agribusiness. Whatever it is based on, however, the European attitude reverberates across the world, influencing policy in countries where GM crops could have tremendous benefits.
The human race has been selectively breeding crops, thus altering plants' genomes, for millennia. Ordinary wheat has long been strictly a human-engineered plant; it could not exist outside of farms, because its seeds do not scatter.
The practice has inspired little objection from scientists or the public and has caused no known health problems. The difference is that selective breeding or mutagenic techniques tend to result in large swaths of genes being swapped or altered.
GM technology, in contrast, enables scientists to insert into a plant's genome a single gene or a few of them from another species of plant or even from a bacterium, virus or animal. Supporters argue that this precision makes the technology much less likely to produce surprises. Most plant molecular biologists also say that in the highly unlikely case that an unexpected health threat emerged from a new GM plant, scientists would quickly identify and eliminate it.
And although it might seem creepy to add virus DNA to a plant, doing so is, in fact, no big deal, proponents say. Viruses have been inserting their DNA into the genomes of crops, as well as humans and all other organisms, for millions of years. They often deliver the genes of other species while they are at it, which is why our own genome is loaded with genetic sequences that originated in viruses and nonhuman species.
Pea aphids contain fungi genes. Triticale is a century-plus-old hybrid of wheat and rye found in some flours and breakfast cereals. Wheat itself, for that matter, is a cross-species hybrid. Could eating plants with altered genes allow new DNA to work its way into our own? It is possible but hugely improbable. Scientists have never found genetic material that could survive a trip through the human gut and make it into cells.
Besides, we are routinely exposed to—and even consume—the viruses and bacteria whose genes end up in GM foods. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis , for example, which produces proteins fatal to insects, is sometimes enlisted as a natural pesticide in organic farming. In any case, proponents say, people have consumed as many as trillions of meals containing genetically modified ingredients over the past few decades. Not a single verified case of illness has ever been attributed to the genetic alterations.
Mark Lynas, a prominent anti-GM activist who in publicly switched to strongly supporting the technology, has pointed out that every single news-making food disaster on record has been attributed to non-GM crops, such as the Escherichia coli —infected organic bean sprouts that killed 53 people in Europe in Critics often disparage U. The GMO in question is a bacterium with an appetite for crude oil, ready to gobble up spills.
Food and Drug Administration approves the Flavr Savr tomato for sale on grocery store shelves. The delayed-ripening tomato has a longer shelf life than conventional tomatoes. Research shows that the super weeds are seven to 11 times more resistant to glyphosate than the standard susceptible population.
The marketplace begins embracing GMO technology at an alarming rate. In less than a decade, the bugs have adapted to the genetically engineered toxin produced by the modified plants. It can increase crop yields, offer crop varieties that resist pests and disease, and provide ways to grow crops on land that would otherwise not support farming because of drought conditions, depleted soils, or soils plagued by excess salt or high levels of aluminum and iron.
The farmers just plant the seeds, and the seeds bring new features in the plants. Some critics of genetic engineering argue that the solution to hunger and malnutrition lies in redistributing existing food supplies.
Others believe that the ownership by big multinational companies of key biotechnology methods and genetic information is crippling public-sector efforts to use this technology to address the needs of subsistence farmers.
The large companies that dominate the industry, critics also note, are not devoting significant resources to developing seed technology for subsistence farmers because the investment offers minimal returns. And by patenting key methods and materials, these companies are stifling the free exchange of seeds and techniques vital to public agricultural research programs, which are already under severe financial constraints.
All of this bodes ill, say critics, for farmers in the developing world. Prakash agrees that there's enough food in the world. People say that this technology is just earning profit for big companies. This is true to some extent, but the knowledge that companies have developed in the production of profitable crops can easily be transferred and applied to help developing nations.
The debate over the use of biotechnology in developing countries recently went from simmer to boil about rice, which is eaten by three billion people and grown on hundreds of millions of small farms. It has very little iron, and virtually no vitamin A. According to the World Health Organization, between million and million children in the world suffer from vitamin A deficiency, some , go blind every year because of that deficiency, and half of those children die within a year of losing their sight.
Skeptics consider golden rice little more than a public relations ploy by the biotechnology industry, which they say exaggerated its benefits.
Golden rice does not contain much beta-carotene, and whether it will improve vitamin A levels remains to be seen. Potrykus and Beyer are now developing new versions of the rice that may be more effective in delivering beta-carotene for the body to convert to vitamin A. Their plan is to put the improved rices free of charge into the hands of poor farmers. According to Beyer, golden rice is still at least four years away from distribution.
It could take much longer if opposing groups delay plans for field trials and safety studies. Whether biotech foods will deliver on their promise of eliminating world hunger and bettering the lives of all remains to be seen. Their potential is enormous, yet they carry risks—and we may pay for accidents or errors in judgment in ways we cannot yet imagine. But the biggest mistake of all would be to blindly reject or endorse this new technology.
If we analyze carefully how, where, and why we introduce genetically altered products, and if we test them thoroughly and judge them wisely, we can weigh their risks against their benefits to those who need them most. All rights reserved. Q: Who's eating biotech foods? A: In all likelihood, you are. Q: How long have we been genetically altering our food? A: Longer than you think. Q: Are biotech foods safe for humans? A: Yes, as far as we know. Q: Can biotech foods harm the environment?
A: It depends on whom you ask. A: There are obstacles to overcome. Q: What next? A: Proceed with caution. Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London.
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Epic floods leave South Sudanese to face disease and starvation. Travel 5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever These digital innovations will make your next trip safer and more efficient. But will they invade your privacy? Go Further. To produce a GMO plant, scientists first identify what trait they want that plant to have, such as resistance to drought, herbicides, or insects.
Then, they find an organism plant, animal, or microorganism that already has that trait within its genes. In this example, scientists wanted to create insect-resistant corn to reduce the need to spray pesticides.
They identified a gene in a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis Bt , which produces a natural insecticide that has been in use for many years in traditional and organic agriculture. Next, scientists use tools to insert the gene into the DNA of the plant. By inserting the Bt gene into the DNA of the corn plant, scientists gave it the insect resistance trait.
In the laboratory, scientists grow the new corn plant to ensure it has adopted the desired trait insect resistance. If successful, scientists first grow and monitor the new corn plant now called Bt corn because it contains a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis in greenhouses and then in small field tests before moving it into larger field tests.
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