The agricultural advantages that result from gene technology and resulting GMOs include improved resistance, to pests, bacterial, fungal or viral diseases, improved resistance to herbicides so that crop plants are unaffected by the herbicidal products used to control weeds. Reduced use of pesticides and herbicides has environmental benefits. GM plants can also be developed for removing toxic chemicals from soils and therefore reclaiming previously inhabitable land for crop growth.
The socioeconomic advantages of the genetic modification of crops include tackling poverty and starvation in the third world, whilst overcoming the issue of a rising global population that is estimated to reach nine billion by 2050. By which time ‘cereal crops will have to yield 1.5% more food annually and on a diminished supply of cultivated land’3.
Genetic modification succeeds where conventional breeding cannot - FACT, producing traits such as; virus resistance in potato plants and drought tolerance in maize plants4, such essential qualities within harvested crops in the third world are essential in order to tackle the existing food crisis. The Maharashtra hybrid Seed Company has, since 2002, produced genetically modified Bt cotton in India after adding a bacterial gene for a toxin that kills a major caterpillar pest called Helicoverpa armigera. MAHYCO claim that the GM crop yields 30% more than non GM crops. Such desirable traits do not exist in a crop or its wild relatives.
Genetic modification could also ‘produce salt intolerant varieties of crops – important in parts of the Indian subcontinent and sub Saharan Africa if global warming causes a rise in sea level’4.
Higher agricultural yields will inevitably increase labour productivity, Increase farm income, Reduce costs for producers e.g. from reduced dependency on external inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides, and increase effectiveness of herbicides5.
Genetic modification of crops may potentially have several health and medical benefits. Recombinant DNA technology could allow the removal of allergens from crops that currently contain them, and enable the production of plants that produce pharmaceutical substances, acting as edible vaccines. Gene technology could enhance the production of vitamins and anticancer substances produced by plants6.
Benefits for the consumer include increased storage time, improved flavour, texture, and nutritional content, improved quality and possible decrease in pricing.
Although the process of transferring and inserting genetic material between organisms could be viewed as a recent unethical advance in biological science, the fact remains that we as humans have been using organisms for years; Plants and foods as a source of medicine, plants for shelter and tools, bacteria has been used to produce milk, cheese and vinegar, whilst yeast have been manipulated to make bread and alcohol. Humans genetically changed these organisms because only the organism that showed the best qualities was allowed to breed - a process called artificial selection, because it was humans not nature that determined which characteristics were allowed to dominate the population and continue to breed. Recombinant DNA technology is arguably a further advancement on how we have been manipulating plants, and animals to improve our quality of life for years. The only difference being that recombinant technology allows us greater control over genetic manipulation7.
Alternatively there are many disadvantages that could result in the genetic modification of crops with numerous arguments against the propositions put forward by scientific and political communities.
Oxfam argue that lack of food security is primarily caused by low incomes and unequal access to land, water, credit, and markets. They state there is no crisis of world food production on the horizon, despite environmental problems and an increasing world population. Oxfam’s report on Genetically Modified Crops, World Trade and Food Security in 1999 stresses that ‘hunger will only be eliminated if governments and international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation implement substantial policy changes’. The report emphasised that technological fixes alone such as commercial growth of genetically modified crops cannot overcome the global food crisis, despite the claims which have been made for them8.
The impact of GM crops for people in poverty, particularly in developing countries, could be negative. GM crops and related technologies are likely to consolidate control over agriculture by large producers and agro-industrial companies, to the detriment of smaller farmers.
If the recombinant genetic material was to mutate the transgenic organisms could become new pathogens that we may not be able to control. Genetically modified crops could escape for example through cross pollination of a genetically modified organism and non-GM counterparts. There are some claims that if mass commercial growth of GM crops was introduced the production of non GM crops would be inevitably impossible.
A concern that Indgne et el highlights in A New Introduction to Biology is the issue that if transgenic organisms have the potential to influence evolutionary processes they could inevitably harm the environment e.g. a plant producing its own pesticide through natural selection could lead to the evolution of a pesticide resistant insect9. Another environmental concern is the effect transgenic organisms could have on other species in terms of competition, other species could become extinct and natural food chains could change. If the GMO was designed with a trait to resist herbicides then such plants could become super weeds that we cannot control.
According to Greenpeace the second set of government results concerning GM Farm Scale Evaluations of Winter-Sown Oilseed Rape in the UK showed that compared to non-GM fields, growing this GM crop resulted in fewer numbers of broad-leaved weed seeds, which are a major source of food for farmland birds, half as many bees and two-thirds fewer butterflies10. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds states that the risks of GM are too great for wildlife11.
Therefore before we press ahead with mass international growth of GM crops it is essential that there should be an international moratorium on the commercial growing of GM crops to allow further scientific analysis of socio-economic, health and environmental implications, public debate on biotechnology aimed at educating and informing, establishment of national regulatory/monitoring systems, and issuing of legislation ensuring company liability for adverse effects. More countries must sign the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), which should advocate the precautionary principle in relation to transboundary movements of GM crops, regulating liability and compensation in relation to possible GM technology-related damage. World trade organisation rules should be amended to allow governments to restrict imports and/or allow mandatory labelling of GM seeds and foods available to the public on the open market, whilst also tackling the ethical concerns of some religious groups who cannot use products from specific organisms.
It is then and only then that both scientific communities as well as the general inhabitants of international communities can be confident that the disadvantages of commercial growth of GM crops can be overcome and successfully controlled. Ultimately allowing us to reap the advantages of the growth of GM crops and what is undoubtedly a highly significant technological advancement in biological science.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Accessed 23/11/2005
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http://www.foodstandards.gov.uk/gmdebate/aboutgm/gm_basics?view=GM%20Microsite Accessed 23/11/05
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Goff S, Salmeron M J, (2004), Back to the future of Cereals, Scientific American (journal), p28- 33
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Indge B, Rowland M, Baker M, (2005), A New Introduction To BIOLOGY, Hodder and Stoughton, London, p164.
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Koos Neefjes (1999) Genetically Modified Crops, World Trade and Food Security Position Paper November p1 : Accessed 23/11/05
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Indge B, Rowland M, Baker M, (2005), A New Introduction To BIOLOGY, Hodder and Stoughton, London, p166.
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Indge B, Rowland M, Baker M, (2005), A New Introduction To BIOLOGY, Hodder and Stoughton, London, p165.
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Accessed 23/11/05
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Indge B, Rowland M, Baker M, (2005), A New Introduction To BIOLOGY, Hodder and Stoughton, London, p166.
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Accessed 23/11/05
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Accessed 23/11/05
