Thursday 9 July 2015

Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

In recent years, geneticists have found ways to produce new crops by modifying the DNA of the plants. This new type of crop is called GM (genetically modified) crops, but they are also known as transgenic crops. It has been said by organizations that genetically altered seeds is an effective and advantageous approach to fighting world hunger. On the other hand, detractors of GM crops 
insist that these will be the reason that more problems and dilemmas will arise. Therefore, there is a question to be answered: Are GM crops a blessing or a curse?

On the one hand, these crops may solve problems such as world hunger which
 is a common phenomenon in many countries, such as Africa. Everyday a lot of people and children are dying due to stravation. With the transgenic crops we will be able to produce more food and provide it to them, even though this will be a time-consuming, but surely a profitable procedure. Moreover, experts say that over the next 60 years there will be another four billion mouths to feed and one of the drawbacks of traditional agriculture is that yields are limited. So yields must increase and the easiest path is the new GM crops.

However, these GM seeds can cause some problems. They may solve hunger and famine, but not entirely. People can go hungry because they may not be able to afford food or because they do not have access to products which they could produce themselves. Also, these new crops may be exported to other lands by rich farmers who grow them to gain more money and they do not concetrate on their purpose: feeding communities who need to be fed. Rarely do you meet a wealthy person who does not only care about making money. Apart from that, not enough experiments have been done to discover the effects of GM food in our health. Some people have declared that they fear that health problems can be caused, such as allergies or kidney and liver damage.

There is no absolute answer to the question whether GM crops are vital or not. So, I think if we decise to expand traditional agriculture, we should take all these into consideration and then take action to maximize the benefits of this new technology and reduce the undesired results.



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