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Julia Cooke

Jackie Burr

English 2010

6 February 2020

Genetic Engineering in Agriculture Worldwide

Agriculture is the science or practice of farming. This includes the cultivation of soil for

growing crops and animals to provide food, and animal based products. The agricultural industry

in the United States is worth billions of dollars every year, and counting the amount of money

brought in around the world, it's unfathomable. The agricultural industry doesn’t just make us

money, it feeds everyone, all around the world. The industry even feeds the animals that we use

for food and other byproducts like fat, fur, wool, and hair, dairy products, etc. We use all of these

products in almost everything we make. And almost everything we eat has been genetically

modified.

Melvin J. Oliver in his essay, “Why We Need GMO Crops in Agriculture,” says,

“Agriculture is a diverse endeavor, and if we are to be successful we need to embrace that

diversity.” In this quote he is alluding to the use of genetic engineering in our crops. Genetic

Engineering is the deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism. We’ve done this

as far back as we’ve farmed. Many years ago, when the Native Americans roamed the plains of

what is now the United States, they would breed certain types of corn together until they got just

what they liked and wanted. Now we have moved onto doing this same thing, but in a more

sophisticated lab based setting.

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In order to produce a genetically modified plant or crop in a lab, scientists will take DNA

from whatever other plant or organism they need, and insert it into a plant’s cells. After this, the

cells will be grown in tissue culture where they will develop into seeds. Once these new seeds

are planted, they will grow into plants that now have the new inherited DNA. Many scientists are

using this method in order to help plant breeds be able to grow in many different harsh

conditions. On the website Agricultureandfoodsafety.com, they say, “GM (genetically modified)

crops are going to be an essential part of our life and the enormous potential of biotechnology

must be exploited to the benefit of mankind.” Scientists are excited at the progress that has been

made through genetic engineering because it could lead to fixing so many of today’s agriculture

based problems world wide. One of these problems being the fight against hunger in third world

countries.

Genetically engineering our food isn’t just exciting for scientists, it's exciting for the

people who have gone hungry around the world for so many years, potentially their whole lives.

As of right now, more than four billion acres of genetically modified crops have been grown in

twenty-seven countries world wide. This is just the start to feed the growing human population of

seven billion and growing.

Pamela Ronald, a plant geneticist, gave a TedTalk called, “The Case for Engineering our

Food.” In this talk she shares the importance of modifying these plants around the world to help

kick start a fighting chance against world hunger. She also brings up the fact that food security

and malnutrition are currently among the most serious concerns for human health in developing

countries. She says, “The reason is, that sometimes it's the cheapest, safetest, and most effective

technology for enhancing food security and advancing sustainable agriculture.” By genetically
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engineering our food to be durable against weather, disease, and bugs, you minimize the

percentage lost to these problems every season. In less developed countries more than three

hundred thousand people die every year to exposure and misuse of insecticides. These

genetically modified plants can also help rid this issue as well.

The amount of food that can be grown and live through harsh conditions worldwide is

extremely useful when feeding people who rely on their own grown crops. Every year 40% of

rice is lost to disease of pests, and it’s the communities especially in third world and lesser

countries that rely on their own crops to eat. This makes the chance of genetically engineering

food extremely useful. This means scientists can now make plants that will survive flood, heat,

bugs, and almost whatever else poses a problem in these countries and communities.

There are many people around the world who are against the idea of genetically

modifying our crops. These anti-GMO activists have many personal reasons for going against it.

Some of these include concern for our human health when adding ‘unnatural’ genes into

something we will eat, the idea of humans ‘playing the role of god,’ and some simply don’t think

that it will have any use or impact for them. In Uganda, the anti-GMO activists are so against it,

just based on their core beliefs, with no real evidence, that they spread myths that bananas

include genes from snakes and pigs, or will cause cancer.

Mark Lynas, while not in Uganda, is an anti-GMO activist as well. Mark Lynas is a

british author, climate change activist, and scientist, and he doesn’t agree with genetically

engineering our crops. At the Oxford Farming Conference of 2018, he stated, “I’ve visited

numerous plant breeding labs in the past 5 years… I’ve yet to meet a single one who claims that

GMOs are going to feed the world or magically solve all our agricultural problems.”
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While he has a point in it’s not going to magically solve the world’s problems, that

doesn’t mean that it won’t do anything to help. He also comes from a background of being a

climate change activist making him fight against the branches of forestry, land, and agriculture as

they add to the greenhouse gas emissions. This background makes him biased against the

agricultural industry and growing food for the hungry. Even with everything against genetically

modifying our crops, we still need to be able to use this, and we’re already seeing amazing

improvement in the countries this has been implemented.

As for the concern of our own health with the adding of genes across plant species, there

has been absolutely no human harm in the span of the forty years of modification. Also, the

alterations in genomes from breeding plants, like the Native Americans would do, is much more

than that of genetically modified crops.

One of the biggest and most famous successes that has come out of genetically modifying

our crops is the creation of Golden Rice. Many children in the Philippines and surrounding

countries we’re going blind and dying from the lack of a nutrient called ​beta-carotene which the

body turns into vitamin A. This is the same nutrient that causes carrots to be orange, and helps

with eyesight. Scientists were able to put in a gene that carried this nutrient into rice which these

countries could produce.

This is just one example of what genetically modifying our food can do for the whole

world. The people in third world countries need this kind of technology, or access to what it can

create. It’s healthier than normal pesticides, and has a change of developing beyond what we

even need. The people in first world countries need to understand the possibility of what this can

do for all the hungry people world wide, and how much good it can bring the world.
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Works Cited

Agriculture and Food Security. Biomedcentral. Website. ​https://agricultureandfoodsecurity.biom

edcentral.com/ Assessed 10 Feb. 2020.

Lynas, Mark. “Speech to the Oxford Farming Conference.” Oxford Farming Conference. 2018.

Speech.​http://www.marklynas.org/2018/01/mark-lynas-speech-to-the-oxford-farming-co

ference-2018/​ Assessed on 10 Feb. 2020.

Oliver, Melvin. “Why We Need GMO Crops in Agriculture.” NCIB. Dec. 2014. Essay.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6173531/​ Assessed on 10 Feb. 2020.

Ronald, Pamela. “The Case for Engineering Our Food.” TED. May 2015. Lecture.

https://www.ted.com/speakers/pamela_ronald​ Assessed on 10 Feb. 2020.