GM Foods as the Future of Food - Assignment Example

Name Tutor Course Institution GM foods are the future of food in the 21st century, Yes The world population is growing at an alarming rate. The current world population is estimated to be over six billions and this is expected to double in the next forty years. The main challenge is how to guarantee adequate supply of food to this booming population. GM foods present itself as an excellent way of meeting this need in several ways, it lead to development of pest, herbicides, disease and climate resistant crops, high quality and nutritious foods and pharmaceuticals. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/11/how-will-the-world-feed-itself): Pest resistance: The high incidences of insect pests cause significant crop losses leading to great financial loss to the farmer and famine in third world countries. Farmers are forced to use many tons of chemical pesticides to try and manage these pests. It has also been found that most people do not want to eat food that has been treated with pesticides due to the possible health hazards associated with such food products. The agricultural waste products derived from such pesticides and fertilizers can cause harm to the environment and even poison water supplies. The introduction of GM foods, such as B.t corns, reduces the application of pesticides and the costs of bringing the crop to the market. For example, the Bt gene in the Australian GM cotton makes it resistant to heliothis caterpillar which is a major hazard to cotton production. The reduced use of chemical pesticides associated with GM crops result to other health benefits to farmer workers. GM crops have led to reduction in climate change as it reduces the need for mechanized cultivation, fertilizer use and pesticides spraying. Therefore, GM crops promote environmental conservation (Thomson 2006). Herbicide tolerance: The process of removing weeds by physical means or even by use of herbicides is time-consuming, expensive, tiring and can even cause great harm to the environment. Herbicides resistant crops makes hit possible for the farmer to spray the crops with herbicide and destroy weeds without affecting the crop. This lead to reduction in the amount of herbicide used in one season. This translates into a decrease in the costs for farmers and customers. Herbicide resistant GM plants can help avoid environmental harm by reducing the amount of herbicides required. The use of herbicide-tolerant plants promotes low-till agriculture resulting to soil conservation as it reduces soil erosion (Thomson 2006). Disease resistance: Plant diseases are caused by many viruses, fungi and bacteria. The fungi can cause various diseases to the crops such as blight, grey mould, downy mildew and powdery mildew. Viruses cause serious plant diseases such as beet necrotic yellow vein virus which can result to significant decline in yield. GM plants have been engineered to resist these diseases using high-tech approaches. GM crops can help prevent foot and mouth disease, a disease which has confounded many farmers and economies. For example, the production of the MSV-resistant maize protects the maize from MSV viral pathogen (Van Enden and Gray 2004). Climate-resistant seeds: Agricultural biotechnology companies have over the years developed climate-resistant crops with can withstand catastrophic impacts of global climate change such as drought, cold, salinity, floods and heat (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/11/climate-change-britain-crops/print). The introduction of cold tolerance crop has led to the reduction of the destruction of young seedlings as a result of unexpected frost. Plant biologists have introduced antifreeze gene derived from cold water fish to crops such as tomatoes and potato. This antifreeze gene makes enable these plants to tolerant cold temperatures that could otherwise have killed them. The introduction of drought and salinity tolerance plants has made it possible for a large population of people to cultivate in the arid and semi-arid regions resulting to increase in overall food production. Therefore, creating plants which can survive long periods of drought or soils with high salinity and ground water has helped farmers to grow crops in these regions reducing food shortage and famine (FAO/WHO 2000). Nutrition: Malnutrition has become one of the major problems affecting people in developing countries as they depend on a single crop such as rice or maize as their main staple food. These food crops do not provide all the required nutrients to help prevent malnutrition. However, these crops can be genetically modified to contain more minerals and vitamins. In this way, nutrients deficiencies can be prevented. For example, the creation of the strain of golden rice containing unusually high content of beta-carotene has helped prevent the problem of blindness found in most developing countries as a result of vitamin A. Production of GM foods bring about improvement in food quality and enhanced taste due to the different flavors produced. This results to increased food intake reducing the risks of malnutrition (Redman 2007). Pharmaceuticals: It is proving to be extremely difficult to produce medicines and vaccines in developing countries due to the high costs involved and the fact the production of such products may call for special storage conditions which may not be readily available in these countries. Plant biologists are working to produce tomatoes and potatoes which contain edible vaccines. It is expected that theses vaccines will be easier to ship, store and administer as compared to the traditional injectable vaccines. The use of edible vaccine will make the process of large scale immunizations against disease much easier, painless and more accessible. People will not have to wait in line to be vaccinated; instead they will be required just to eat a tomato, banana or potato (Redman 2007). In conclusion, the benefits derived from using GM technologies in food production are worth implementation as they result in increase in yield needed to cater for the present and future generation which is expected to increase at a high rate. Therefore, to avoid incidences of food shortage and famine, GM foods are recommendable Work cited http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/11/how-will-the-world-feed-itself http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/11/climate-change-britain-crops/print FAO/WHO. Safety Aspects of genetically modified foods of plant origin. Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on foods derived from Biotechnology. World Health Organization, 2000. Redman N. Food safety: a reference handbook for contemporary world issues. ABC-CLIO, 2007. Thomson JA. GM crops: the impact and the potential. CSIRO Publishing, Australia, 2006. Van Enden H and Gray J. GM crops: ecological dimensions, Volume 74 of Aspects of applied biology. Association of Applied Biologists, Cornell University, 2004. GM foods are the future of food in the 21st century, NO Despite the advantages derived from GM foods, there are various disadvantages associated with GM foods. The issues revolving around GM foods can be categorized into three: environmental hazards, human health risks and economic issues. Environmental hazards Unintended harm to other organism: It has been found out toxins derived from B.t corns cause high mortality rates in a variety of insect. GM crop plants are more invasive of the natural habitats than the conventional bred food. GM crops are toxic to wildlife. The toxic derived from GM crops can be lethal, leading to pre-mature death of an organism. It can also have other sub-lethal effects like reduction of fertility, longer development time and abnormal weight gain or loss (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/16/too-late-to-stop-gm). For example, the introduction of GM sugar beets in Britain led to the high rate of death of the native farm bird Skylark which relied on the seeds from weeds which were destroyed. The Gm crops have also posed as s great threat to local animals which feed on them. There is a great possibility for such animals to be poisoned by the built-in pesticides in such crops. For example, in United States, a large percentage of caterpillars of the monarch butterfly died from the large content on pollen from GM corn (Sanvido et al 2007). Reduced efficacy of pesticides: The introduction of GM foods has led to introduction of new kinds of pests, diseases and weeds that are resistant to chemical sprays. There has been development of new weeds which are resistant to herbicides. There has are many cases which have been reported as regards the development of weeds resistant of glyphosate. The efficacy of Glofosinate ammonia in controlling weeds has also been reduced. Insects are also increasingly becoming resistant to pesticides. For example, the Bt toxins have made lepidopteron pests resistant to pesticides. There have been reports of a high rate of cases of sucking pests not being affected by Bt in Bt cotton. These have resulted to decline in food production, raising fears for food shortage and famine. Gene transfer to non-target species: There is a high possibility that crop plants which have been engineered for herbicide and weed resistant will cross-bred leading to transfer of the herbicide resistance gene from the crop to the weeds. These would result to development of superweeds which are as well tolerant to herbicides. This would necessitate the development of stronger herbicides, leading to increase in ground and water pollution, something which GM plants are supposed to prevent. There is also a high likelihood for other introduced genes to cross over into non-modified crops planted next to GM crops. This can cause conflict among farmers as one’s unmodified crops becomes pollinated by else’s GM crops planted next to his/her (NRC 2004). Human health risks Allergenity: The introduction of the GM foods has resulted to allergies in a large percentage of the people. Peanuts and tree nuts are the most know conventional bred foods which have led to serious and widespread allergies among people. The anaphylactic shock that allergic persons experiences as a result of these products can even result to death of the individual. Other food allergies have also been reported in fish, milk, legumes, eggs, fruits, shellfish and cereals. It is estimated that 5-8% of infants, 5% of children and 1-2% of adult population suffer from food allergies. Most food allergies are reported in foods that contain protein. Milling and processing of GM foods has also exposed individuals to allergen. There are many allergies associated with working in an environment high in processing food products. GM foods are known to cause chronic diseases to human beings. The most known diseases associated with GM foods include cancer and other degenerative diseases, viral and bacterial diseases (Kuehn 2008). Unknown effects on human health: It is generally feared that the introduction of new genes in food plants will result to unexpected that negative effects on the human health. It is therefore expected that GM foods will result to new diseases because GM crops are modifies using DNA from viruses and bacteria. There is also a possibility that the marker genes, which are antibiotic-resistant, used by scientists to find out whether the genetic modification of plant is successful, can be transferred to the micro-organisms that causes diseases. This may make the human body to be resistant to antibiotics making us more prone to disease infections (Key et al. 2008). Economic concerns The goal of most Agribiotech companies is to make profits. However, the process of bringing GM foods to the market is proving to be lengthy and costly (http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/gm/crops/documents/foodmatters-defra-fsa-1308.pdf). The prices for GM seeds and foods are quite expensive making it impossible for most farmers and consumers, especially in third world countries, to purchase them. This leaves the production of GM foods at the hand of a few developed countries exposing the developing countries to more dangers of exploitation. The technologies used in GM food production are also very expensive for developing countries to afford. As a result, developing countries are increasingly depending on industrialized nations for GM foods (Lock et al. 2009). In conclusion, if GM foods are to be used as a solution to the ever increasing demands for food all over the world, the effects experienced from the production of such foods must be considered and addressed. The failure to address such problems, for example, environmental degradation would result to further destruction of human life as opposed to saving human life, which is the main goal of GM foods Work cited http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/gm/crops/documents/foodmatters-defra-fsa-1308.pdf http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/16/too-late-to-stop-gm Key S, Ma JK, Drake PM. Genetically modified food and human health. Journal of medicine, 2008, 101(6):290-8. Kuehn BM. Food allergies becoming more common. JAMA 2008, 300(20):2358. NRC. Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects. National Academies Press, 2004. Lock K, Stuckler D, Charlesworth K, McKee M. Potential causes and health effects of rising global food prices. BMJ 2009, 339:b2403. Sanvido O, Romeis J and Bigler F. Ecological impacts of genetically modified crops: ten years of field research and commercial cultivation. Advances in Biochemical Engineering 2007, 107, 235-78. Read More