Evaluate the arguments, for and against GM crops
Evaluate the arguments, for and against GM crops
Genetically modified organisms are organisms in which DNA has been changed in a way that does not occur naturally. It is often called genetic engineering, and it also allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another. Such methods are used to create/grow GM crops. However the use of GM crops has been very controversial; in the UK an argument has been out forward that growing these GM crops will cause more harm to the environment than growing ordinary varieties, and so should not be commercially grown in the UK. There are both positives and negatives to GM crops.
Population is increasing and there is a need to increase and improve food production. Ensuring an adequate food supply for this increasing population is going to be a major challenge in the years to come, GM crops is a method in meeting this challenge and is going to meet this need in a number of ways.
Firstly losses from insect pests can be huge, resulting in devastating financial loss for farmers and starvation in developing countries. To prevent this farmers use a lot of chemical pesticides throughout the year (consumers do not wish to eat food that has been treated with pesticides). GM crops help this because they are programmed to be pest resistant, by incorporating into the food plant the gene for toxin production from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Also they are virus resistant, which is achieved through the introduction of a gene from certain viruses which cause disease in plants; this makes the crop less susceptible to disease caused by viruses, resulting in higher crop yields.
GM crops also increases yields as the crops are built to produce more of what we want and need. In the Punjab we see that HYV seeds were introduced and within the first year the food production had increased by over 100%, this is because the GM crops are programmed to grow faster and greater than a regular crop this means
Genetically modified organisms are organisms in which DNA has been changed in a way that does not occur naturally. It is often called genetic engineering, and it also allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another. Such methods are used to create/grow GM crops. However the use of GM crops has been very controversial; in the UK an argument has been out forward that growing these GM crops will cause more harm to the environment than growing ordinary varieties, and so should not be commercially grown in the UK. There are both positives and negatives to GM crops.
Population is increasing and there is a need to increase and improve food production. Ensuring an adequate food supply for this increasing population is going to be a major challenge in the years to come, GM crops is a method in meeting this challenge and is going to meet this need in a number of ways.
Firstly losses from insect pests can be huge, resulting in devastating financial loss for farmers and starvation in developing countries. To prevent this farmers use a lot of chemical pesticides throughout the year (consumers do not wish to eat food that has been treated with pesticides). GM crops help this because they are programmed to be pest resistant, by incorporating into the food plant the gene for toxin production from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Also they are virus resistant, which is achieved through the introduction of a gene from certain viruses which cause disease in plants; this makes the crop less susceptible to disease caused by viruses, resulting in higher crop yields.
GM crops also increases yields as the crops are built to produce more of what we want and need. In the Punjab we see that HYV seeds were introduced and within the first year the food production had increased by over 100%, this is because the GM crops are programmed to grow faster and greater than a regular crop this means